Biography of RJ Mitchell

No war has every been won due to efforts of just one man, but the inventor and engineer RJ Mitchell came as close to achieving this feat as any man has ever done. It was the work of RJ Mitchell that ensured that the threatened Nazi Invasion of Britain never occurred, Mitchell was after all an inventor, and the man who designed the Supermarine Spitfire, the wonder machine of the Battle of Britain. His designs and creations did much to ensure that the German forces never gained the supremacy needed to cause an end to the war in Europe.

Reginald Joseph Mitchell was born on the 20th May 1895 in the village of Talke, Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire. Mitchell was the eldest child of Herbert Mitchell and Eliza Jane Brain, and ended up with two younger brothers. A middleclass upbringing was secured by his father’s employment as headmaster at local schools, and a later career as owner of a printing business.

RJ Mithcell - PD-life-70

 A good student with some academic ability, Mitchell left Hanley High School at the age of sixteen, and immediately acquired an apprenticeship position at a local engineering firm. The firm, Kerr Stuart & Co, were a locomotive engineering works, and Mitchell was employed in their drawing department. He was though not satisfied with his position, and at night attended night school to improve his mathematics and engineering knowledge.

Mitchell stayed with the firm of Kerr Stuart & Co for five years. His additional schooling though served him well and in 1917 he headed to Southampton to take up a position with the Supermarine Aviation Works. Initially a designer, his skills were such that within a year he had been promoted to the position of Chief Designer and Engineer at the firm.

In his time at the Supermarine Aviation Works, between 1920 and 1936, Mitchell designed twenty-four aircraft. These aircraft ranged from light aircraft, seaplanes, flying boats, to fighters and bombers. His designs impressed the RAF, and in August 1924 they ordered six prototypes of an armed flying-boat, the Southampton. This was despite the fact it would be another six months before they would be built. The Southampton eventually equipped six RAF squadrons and stayed in operation until 1935 when they were replaced by another Mitchell creation, the Walrus’.

Supermarine Walrus - .Aircraft of the Fighting Powers - PD-UK-gov

Such was his reputation that he had been given a ten year contract in 1923, and when Vickers brought the Supermarine firm in 1928, it was on the proviso that Mitchell remained contractually bound until the end of his contract at the earliest.

Mitchell’s name, though, was hardly known outside of aviation and military circles. In 1931 though, this changed with the running of the annual Schneider Trophy. Now promoted to Technical Director, Mitchell designed a seaplane, the Supermarine S6B. The Supermarine firm had had reasonable success in the previous nine runnings but the S6B was special. On the 13th September, 1931, the S6B won the trophy averaging a speed of 340mph. Even this speed was surpassed a few months later when a new world air speed record was set at 407.5mph.

The Air Ministry took notice of the Trophy win and promptly put in a request for a new fighter plane from Mitchell and the Supermarine firm. Thus was born Mitchell’s greatest invention, the single seat Spitfire fighter. Designed between 1934 and 1936, it was the culmination of all of Mitchell’s knowledge and experience, as well as the best parts from other existing planes.

Based on the S6B, the Spitfire was powered by a Rolls Royce Merlin II 1030bhp engine. The first prototype had its maiden flight on the 5th March 1936, from Eastleigh. Tests would show a top speed of 350mph, and even before the tests were completed the RAF were impressed enough to order 310 of the planes. Thus in 1937 the Supermarine Spitfire Mk I went into production, although it is rumoured that Mitchell was not impressed with the Spitfire’ name.

With a successful plane designed, Mitchell moved onto his last project a four-engine bomber, the Type 317, although it was never completed.

Despite a successful career, Mitchell was always a retiring person, and kept his personal life out of the public gaze. Mitchell was married, to Florence Dayson in 1918. Florence had been a headmistress of the Dresden Infants’ School, together they had one son, Gordon (born 1920).

Aside from that his personal life was a mystery although Mitchell was known to have gotten his pilot’s license in 1934.

Even in 1934 though Mitchell was not a well man, and he had had a colostomy in 1933 to treat rectal cancer. The operation, though a success, left him weak. He continued to work and his colleagues had no idea of his pain. In 1936 Mitchell was once again diagnosed with cancer. This time the illness was so severe that in 1937 he had to give up work.

In March 1937 he went to a specialist clinic after the insistence of his wife. He was advised that it was too late to treat him. Despite a further trip to the American Foundation in Vienna, it proved futile. Mitchell died on the 11th June 1937 at his house, “Hazeldene” in Southampton. Four days later his ashes were interred at South Stoneham Cemetery in Eastleigh.

Mitchell never got to see his Spitfire fly in combat.

Mitchell was never truly recognised for his work. Whilst he received a CBE in 1932 for his work on high-speed flight his work on the Spitfire was only recognised on film. The 1942 Leslie Howard film “The First of the Few” portrayed the man and his work.

R.J. Mitchell is one of the great engineers of all time and a true unsung hero.