Ann Mitchell

Title: 
Doctor
Other names: 
Her name is variously spelled Ann, Anne and Annie.
Dates: 
14 December 1885 - ?

Anne Mitchell was born on 14 Dec 1885 at 2 Paton's Lane Dundee. Her parents, David Kinnear Mitchell, jute factory manager, and Susan Elder Rae, had married in Dundee in 1884. She was their eldest child, and had two younger brothers, Thomas and James, and three younger sisters, Helen, Maud and Katherine.
By 1901 the family had moved to Blairgowrie.
In 1911, she was living with her aunt Helen Mitchell and studying medicine. She appears as Annie Mitchell in the 1911 census.

Ann Mitchell graduated in medicine from St Andrews University in 1912.

On 5 January 1929, when working as a G.P. in Newton, Ann Mitchell became the first female doctor to attend a pit accident underground, at the Blantyre Farm Colliery. To reach the two injured men she had to crawl through a three foot high tunnel and work in ankle deep water. She saved the life of one man, Thomas Loughrie, but the other man, Duncan Connor, could not be saved.

In April, she and the priest who had accompanied her to administer the last rites to the man who died, were presented with gifts by the people of Newton. Councillor Tonner, who made the presentation, said that "Dr Mitchell had given proof that women could rise to as great heights as men in their determination to see things through."

She may have attended a second incident in 1929 - a newspaper report about First Aid classes taught by Dr Ann Mitchell stated that she had "distinguished herself twice by rendering medical aid in the workings of a coal pit."

In 1938 she attended the accident for which she is commemorated, at Newton colliery, in which two miners died.

In 1947, she was living in Hamilton and was quoted in a newspaper article about first aid.

Sources
Birth Certificate
1886 282 / 1 / 9 (She was born in December 1885, and her birth registered in January 1886)
1891 census
1891 282 / 1 36 / 15
1901 census
1901 335 / 3 / 16
1911 census
1911 335 / 3 / 18
Woman's Pluck
Aberdeen Press & Journal 7 Jan 1929, p 11.
Lady Doctor's Success
Motherwell Times 12 July 1929
Doctor and Priest Honoured
Kirkintilloch Herald 3 April 1929