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Name: MITCHELL, Francis John

Birth Date: 13 Apr 1868 Dublin

Death Date: 27 Mar 1960 Mombasa, buried 28 Mar

Last Date: 1960

Profession: Military Officer retired

Area: Nanyuki

Married: Grace Evelyn Lambert b. 2 Jan 1865 Lambeth

Children: Janet Evelyne (Davis) (1899)

Book Reference: M.D. Gwynne, Wed, Barnes

General Information:

Letter from Michael Gwynne 3/5/04 - Grandfather of Robin Davis (now aged 71) who was born out here and currently lives in Langata. Nothing much is known about Mitchell except that he was reasonably well off, was military man at one stage and is said to have fought in both Boer Wars as well as the first World War. In the 1880s and 1890s he and his manservant travelled the world shooting and fishing in remote areas, the more remote and unexplored the better: Greenland, the West of Canada, the US 'Wild West', India, Burma, Australia, and of course various parts of Africa, including East Africa.
One of his more notable exploits was to cross South America in the 1880s from west to east, mostly by canoe, from Quito down the Amazon to its mouth. Francis Mitchell died in Mombasa in 1960. This is about the only real date that I have for him. Robin Davis knows virtually nothing about him except that when Robin was a child grandfather drove the family to England from Kenya across Africa and north across the Sahara. Robin thought then, and still does, that grandfather was a nasty old man. He could be right.
Barnes - Mombasa Cemetery - Francis John Mitchell, buried 28 Mar 1960 age 94, European Hospital, Myocardial Dysentery
Gazette 8 Nov 1960 probate

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