Francis Mitchell (British Army officer)

Born the eldest son of Admiral Francis Mitchell and a cousin of Patrick Mitchell KCVO,[1] Mitchell graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned into the 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars in 1924.[2]

He served in World War II as an Instructor at the Staff College, Camberley from 1940, as a General Staff Officer with 9th Armoured Division from 1941 and as Commanding Officer of 1st Royal Gloucestershire Hussars from 1942.[3] He was appointed Commander of 26th Armoured Brigade in Italy in 1944, and Assistant Deputy Adjutant-General at Allied Forces Headquarters in 1945.[3] At the end of the War he was appointed CBE.[4]

He went on to be Commander of 22nd Armoured Brigade in 1947, Brigadier Royal Armoured Corps for the British Army of the Rhine in 1949 and Chief of Staff for I (British) Corps in Germany in 1951.[3] His last appointment was as General Officer Commanding 6th Armoured Division in 1953 before his sudden death in a horse riding accident in Germany in 1954.[3]

In 1935 he married Ann Christian Livingstone-Learmouth.[5] Their daughter Mona served as Private Secretary to Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy, from 1974 until 1991, and was appointed a DCVO on retirement.[6] Francis Mitchell's grandfather, Col. Herbert Leonard Mitchell, married Mary Arabella Susan Reynolds, the niece of Major-General John William Reynolds and the granddaughter of General Charles Reynolds. His brother Lieut-Cmdr David Reynolds Mitchell was killed one week before the end of WWII.[1] He is the cousin of Maj. Douglas Reynolds VC.[7]