Guide to the Papers of the Mitchell Family (as filmed by the AJCP)

Eliza Mitchell (Hawthorn) to Uncle and Aunt Tidswell re family news; Oliver's health; (4p.), 1 October 1885 (File 1)

Oliver Mitchell (Parramatta) to Uncle and Aunt Tidswell (12p. last page crossed.), 10 April 1887 (File 2)

New South Wales suits his health; heat of Parramatta; mining disaster at Bulli; long credit system leads to failures; new government employing hundreds clearing bushland.

Eliza and Oliver Mitchell (Maylands, Claremont, Melbourne, Blue Mountains, Burwood, Collingwood, Carlton, SS Medina) to (daughter) Alice and Sidney Tidswell, 28 July 1914 - 5 December 1915 (File 3-22)

Subjects include: Voyage to Australia; visit to (son) Ernest and Lena; Mount Lawley; the house at Maylands; 'Claremont is a very pretty suburb'; war news; visit to Fitzroy Park; memorial service for Lord Roberts in Melbourne Cathedral; parade through Melbourne by the Light Horse prior to embarkation; Katoomba Falls not at their best due to drought; Leura Falls; 'We are surprised by strikes and threatened strikes in such a crisis; trip by motor boat to Cronulla; Australia Day, 30 July, £408,000 raised for returned wounded soldiers; recruitment; Oliver's health; anxious voyage home, through Mediterranean. (60p.)

Eliza and Oliver Mitchell (Maylands, Melbourne, Croydon) to Dorothy Tidswell (Grand daughter), 26 September 1914, 8 February 1915, 10 August 1915 (File 23-25)

Re visits to Ernest Mitchell; friends in Melbourne; Australia Day activities.

E.L.Mitchell (Stanthorpe, Perth) to Eliza and Oliver Mitchell (parents) (16p.), 30 January 1908 - 10 November 1927 (File 1-7)

Subjects include: Sending articles and photographs (wanting) on Anakie Fields, asks parents to send it to a magazine; drought; Colebatch appointed Agent General for Western Australia; took photographs at picnic organised by Trotting Association; working the farm since Strachan died; kangaroo and emu nuisance...

E.L.Mitchell (Burwood, Belmore, Red Sea, Woolloomooloo, Emu Plains, Taree, Wingham, Stroud, Bullah-dilah, Pyrmont, Parooma, Sydney) to Sidney Tidswell (Cousin). (116p. some faint pencil), 15 November 1888 - 30 January 1905 (File 8-34)

Subjects include: Sunday school picnic, 9 November 1888 at Croydon Park; drought; Band of Hope Picnic; collecting insects; Father has been on a sheep station at Liverpool Plains; seeing troops off [to Boer war]; voyage to Australia on German ship, November - December 1899, other passengers, food, sightseeing trips in Italy, Port Said; Colombo; Fremantle; Perth; goldminers on board 'all speak against the government and Sir John Forrest'; Adelaide 'the streets are very wide and everything is kept very clean'; Christmas Day in Melbourne; Sydney; selling goods from a cart in Lawson Wentworth and Emu Plains; shooting game; expeditions from Sydney; friendship with Elsie Speight, music teacher; Sydney in mourning for death of Queen Victoria; 'Sydney is about the biggest gambling den on earth'; Chinese lottery slips; buyng and selling old jewellery and opals; tram running between Melbourne and Hawthorne held up by four masked men; rising prices, going on photographing tour to Liverpool, Campbelltown; Rat Wednesday; photographing trip to Taree; not enough water to develop photographs properly; drought; prospecting; hardships touring the bush with horse and wagon with photographic equipment; ending of engagement to Elsie Speight.

E.L.Mitchell (Murwillumbah, Tweed Heads, Lismore, Woodburn; Texas South Queensland; Newrybar, Brisbane, Perth, Carnamah, Mandurah, Claremont) to Sidney (Cousin) and Alice (sister), and Dorothy (niece) Tidswell, 15 October 1905-9 June 1907; 12 November 1914-24 August 1954 (File 35-138)

(255p., some faint letters, some blue aerograms.)...

E.L.Mitchell (Perth, Carnamah, Mandurah, Claremont) to Edith (sister) Lawrence and Olive Cartwright. (50p., some blue aerograms), 19 August 1929 - November 1958 (File 139-164)

Subjects include: Italians chopping down trees to clear the land for cropping; hot weather, over 121 degrees in the shade; stock on the farm; kangaroo pest; war rations and prices; labour shortages; move to Mandurah; his stamp collection; the garden at house in Claremont; housing is regulated by the government but 'everything is black marketed'; post war prices; his birthday; Ion Idriess wants photos to illustrate a book he is writing on North Queensland.

E.L.Mitchell (Claremont) to Olive Cartwright/Wilkinson (niece). (73p. aerogram, some blurred pages), 12 July 1945 - 7 October 1958 (File 165-197)

Subjects include: His collections of Aboriginal curios, photographs, coins and stamps; his garden; visits to stations; the heat; carnival on the Swan River; visits from friends; picking up BBC news; sending stockings; misses gooseberries and raspberries; memories of photographing the Queen Mother during her visit when Duchess of York; end of Perth trams; Perth Royal Agricultural show.

E.L.Mitchell (Claremont) to Fred and Beatie Kershaw (Bradford) re his garden; how he scraped through during the depression. (2p., aerogram.), 11 April 1952 (File 198)

Lena Mitchell (Maylands) to parents in law financial matters; railway strike. (6p.), 6 January 1921 (File 1)

Lena Mitchell (Maylands) to Oliver Mitchell re death of Eliza (3p.), 20 July 1923 (File 2)

Lena Mitchell (Maylands) to Mitchell family re friends who have visited England; tiger shark attacks man; politics. (7p.), 28 November 1925 (File 3)

Lena Mitchell (Maylands) to Mitchell family re Ernest at Fairbridge farms schools; purchase of farm in partnership with Bob Strachan. (6p.), 12 July 1926 (File 4)

Lena Mitchell (Maylands) to Alice Tidswell re death of Eliza Mitchell (6p.), 19 July 1923 (File 5)

Lena Mitchell (Maylands) to Alice Tidswell family news. (3p.), 15 November 1924 (File 6)

Lena Mitchell (Maylands) to Alice Tidswell re floods; the harvest. (4p.), 16 January 1928 (File 7)

Jean Hamilton (South Perth, Rosebud, Mornington, Victoria) to Olive Wilkinson (Burley in Wharfedale) (28p. blue aerograms, includes photographs of daughter Kerrie), 25 February 1957 - 10 February 1967 (File 1-15)

Subjects include: Heat in Perth; move to Melbourne; family news; prices; move to Mornington; the new house; death of Ernest Mitchell;; visit to 'My Fair Lady'; operation for skin cancer.

Kathleen Murgatroyd (Sydney) to Olive Wilkinson re her trip to Australia, prices, trip to Tasmania. (6p.), 8 August 1966, 9 March, 16 September 1967 (File 16-18)

Cousin Mabel (Burwood) to Alice Tidswell re visit from Oliver and Eliza Mitchell; effects of war in Australia. (4p.), 28 March 1915 (File 1)

Mabel (Burwood) to Alice Tidswell and Edith Cartwright (2p.), 12 November 1926 (File 2)

Re hot weather and bushfires; 'my sister Flo, who lives up north, has not been able to wash for 5 weeks', family news.

Cousin Alice (Nestor) to Alice and Sidney Tidswell re voyage to Durban, 23 January 1939 (File 3)

Visit to Perth to Ernest and Lena; Ernest 'has a very nice face with such kindly blue eyes'; problems with Lena's eyes, Perth 'is a fine city'; enjoyable trip in New Zealand; visit to Sydney. (6p.)

Harry Ashton (Cornwall) to Sidney Tidswell, re his memories of Ernest Mitchell 'Ernest is a confirmed wag'. (2p.), 4 April 1947 (File 4)

Elizabeth Blacklock (Claremont) to Tidswell family re death of Ernest Mitchell on 3rd January; tribute on radio from West Australian Newspaper Ltd. (2p.), 10 January 1959 (File 5)

Oliver Mitchell. On an Australian sheep station (24p. in pencil and ink), (n.d.) [1889? See II19] (File 1)

Details of: Rail and coach journey; thistles; meets itinerant photographer; accommodation on station; shearing using Wolseley machines,'non union shed'; 'any kind of accommodation is considered good enough fora shearer', typical day; Saturday jobs; different jobs in the shed; classifying the fleece; problems with shearing machines; a typical squatter.

Press cuttings (c5p.), c 1930s-50s (File 2)

Subjects include: appointment of W.H.Kitson as Agent General for Western Australia; Ernest Mitchell's memories of visit of Prince of Wales to Western Australia in 1920; sheep shearing.

Oliver Mitchell. Voyage to Australia. Cuttings from llkley Free Press (2p.), 31 January 1885 - 14 February 1885 (File 3)

Photographs (File 4)

32 photographs of various family members, some identified on back...

Photographs of two Indigenous Australians taken by E.L.Mitchell and published in Pictorial Education vol 2, no 2, P.14, February 1928 (File 5)