William Mitchell

Story

William Henry Kendall Mitchell, was born in Stithians, Cornwall around 1830, and ran away to sea as a lad to avoid a tailoring apprenticeship he hated. Ironically he became a sailmaker on his ship, believed to be the Tulloch Castle and inadvertently became part of the gold-fevered flood of men descending on the Victorian goldfields, after fleeing his ship in about 1860. Wrongfully accused of stealing, he dived over the side of the ship, anchored off Portland, Victoria and swam ashore, sheltering in a cliff cave for several days.

Settling in the Armstrongs\’/Great Western/Stawell goldfields district, and engaged in gold-mining, he eventually married another English immigrant, Winchester-born Mary Louise Butler in 1867. Their first child, a son, William Thomas, born in early 1868, died soon after birth. Five more children were born without loss, in the space of eight years; Johanna, then Augusta, John, William Alfred and Mary.

In 1873, he lost his right arm in a horrific bridge building accident, when a pile driver crushed it – it was later amputated in Pleasant Creek Hospital (Stawell). He signed himself out next day against medical advice and never returned, not even for outpatients\’ visits. William was very interested in healing practices, so with Mary\’s help, it seems he must have cared for his own injury. When it healed, he had a useful metal hook forged which was strapped to the stump. He became known as ‘Bill the Hook\’ or ‘Wingy Bill.\’ The family, like most other battling families on the goldfields, lived in crude wattle & daub dwellings.

Tragically, Mary died in childbirth on August 1st, 1878, aged 33 and was buried at Great Western cemetery. William, despite people urging him to bury the tiny infant with his mother, cared for Joseph, who weighed just over two pounds, using an eye-dropper and goat\’s milk to feed him. The local midwife, Jenny Brown helped with the baby\’s care. At night, William nursed Joseph on his chest, inside his flannel nightshirt, believing that his great strength would help. (Joseph grew into a strapping lad and became a Wimmera-Mallee pioneer farmer, who lived to the age of 94). As a child, Joseph carried buckets of pay dirt for Chinese miners on Great Western\’s goldfields. William, being disabled, worked at various jobs ÐJunction Hotel (Armstrongs) and St. Peter\’s vineyard in Great Western – are some that we know of.

William, however, had a reputation for wanting to help others, tending to the health problems of many miners on the Stawell Reefs goldfields. He was once fined three pounds for treating people with medicines without a licence. His trusty guide was a large, extremely informative textbook called Everybody\’s Medical Adviser, still in the possession of a great granddaughter. His son John died in 1903, aged 21, following a mine accident at Kalgoorlie, WA.

Dying at Banyena, north-west of Stawell, Victoria, in November, 1911, aged 81, from pneumonia, William Henry Kendall Mitchell left an interesting legacy Ð six further generationsÐ some hundreds of Mitchell descendants, which include several general nurses, midwives, a neonatal intensive-care nurse, and a drug counsellor. Others have embraced further tenets of healing, such as massage, reflexology and herbal medicine. A grandson had his own small goldmine and with his sister, who was also a well-known Victorian artist, was skilled in water divining and a great-grand-daughter has also inherited the passion for mining.

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