Sir Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell, GCMG
Military Service (Royal Marines) & Colonial Administrator
1836 - 1899 (63 years)-
Name Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell Relationship 
with Marion Murdoch Johnson Gender Male Birth 25 Oct 1836 Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, England, United Kingdom 
Christening 30 Nov 1836 St Mary's, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, England, United Kingdom [1, 2] Census 1841 East Stonehouse, Devon, England, United Kingdom [3] Census 1851 Royal Naval School, Camberwell, Southwark, London [4] Military Service 27 Dec 1852 Military Service 24 Feb 1854 Census 1861 [5] Occupation Military Service (Royal Marines) & Colonial Administrator Military Service 15 Jan 1862 Military Service 14 Nov 1862 Military Service 1 Oct 1877 Military Service 4 Nov 1878 Death 7 Dec 1899 Singapore, Singapore [6] Burial Aft 7 Dec 1899 Bukit Timah Cemetery, Singapore [7] Probate 8 Feb 1900 London, County of London, England, United Kingdom [6] WWW http://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/photographs/record-details/349b9395-1162-11e3-83d5-0050568939ad WWW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Mitchell_(governor) Siblings1 brother and 3 sisters Last Modified 24 Jan 2021
Father Lt. Col. Hugh Mitchell, R.M.
b. 18 Mar 1787, Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland, Kingdom of Great Britain
d. 22 May 1851, Woolwich, Kent, England, United Kingdom (Age 64 years) Relationship Birth Mother Constance Bullen
b. 6 Oct 1814, Ryde, Isle of Wight, England, United Kingdom
d. 13 May 1895, Ryde, Isle of Wight, England, United Kingdom (Age 80 years) Relationship Birth Marriage 4 Jan 1836 Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, England, United Kingdom [8]
Wife 1 Fanny Oakley Rice
b. 16 Sep 1836, Chatham, Kent, England, United Kingdom
d. 3 Jan 1885, Pietermaritzburg, Natal, South Africa (Age 48 years) Marriage 17 Jul 1862 British Embassy, Bern, Switzerland [9, 10] Age at Marriage Charles was 25 years old - Fanny was 25 years old. Children 1. Hugh McPherson Mitchell
b. 24 May 1863, 88 Sloane Street, Chelsea, Kensington & Chelsea, London
d. 18 Mar 1901, Lanauli, Mumbai, Bombay Presidency, India (Age 37 years)Last Modified 10 Mar 2018
Wife 2 Eliza Conway Welldon
b. Abt 1849
d. 12 Aug 1928 (Age ~ 79 years)Marriage 1889 Kent, England, United Kingdom Age at Marriage Charles was ~ 52 years old - Eliza was ~ 40 years old. Last Modified 28 Jul 2018
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Notes - Early Life
Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell was born on the 25th of October 1836 inPembroke in Wales, the eldest of five children. His father,Hugh Mitchell , being in the Royal Marines was perhaps stationed at the dockyards there. His mother,Constance Bullen , was the grand-daughter of John Bullen, Surgeon-General of the British naval force. Things therefore seemed set for Charles to follow a well-worn family path into the navy, and this he did, joining the Royal Navy School.
Career
Aged 16,Charles left school and entered the Royal Marines as an officer (2nd lieutenant1) in 1852. He saw service in the Baltic campaigns in 1854-56, aged 18. His career progressed with a serious of ever more illustrious appointments overseas, particularly in the Caribbean and then later Africa and then even later in the Far East:
- August 1868: Colonial Secretary of British Honduras (now Belize)
- 1870 and again in 1874: Administrator of British Honduras
- 1876: promotion to Major and repeated appointment as Administrator of British Honduras
- 1877: Receiver General for British Guiana, then in November, Colonial Secretary for Natal
- 1878: promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel whereupon he retired from the Royal Navy
- 1880: awarded the C.M.G
- 1881: appointed Acting Governor of Natal
- 1883: awarded the K.C.M.G
- 1885: re-appointed Acting Governor of Natal
- 1886: appointed Governor and High Commissioner of Western Pacific in Fiji
- 1888: appointed Governor of the Leeward Isles
- 1889: appointed Governor of Natal
- 1894: appointed Governor of the Straits Settlements (now Singapore)
- 1895: awarded the G.C.M.G
Family life
In 1862, around the time of his promotion to Captain,Charles Mitchell marriedFanny Oakley Rice , the daughter ofWilliam McPherson Rice , a famous shipwright and therefore probably well known to Charles by reputation, if indeed the Rices were not actually family friends of the Mitchells through their shared naval connections. Charles and Fanny's only sonHugh was born on the 24th of May 1863 inChelsea .
Through Fanny Curtis Mitchell (the grand-daughter of Charles & Fanny) and her daughter Pamela (my grandmother) an enormous amount of letters and notes from Fanny and Charles' times in Belize and Natal have been preserved and I am slowly working on indexing and transcribing them. The following are some extracts which I will add to through time as I work my way through the material.
Belize
More biographical material to come:
- Privations of tropical life
Natal
More biographical material to come:
- Zulu wars, Iswandlana
- Lord Chelmsford, Sir Bartle Frere
- Sidney Thompson, their nephew
- Fanny's illness
In 1889, four years after the death of Fanny (from ovarian cancer), Charles re-married to Eliza Welldon, who was actually Fanny's first cousin. They had no children.
Death
Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell died on the 7th of December 1899 inSingapore (or as it was then called, theStraits Settlements ). The cause of death was noted as "paralysis" though it seems from family letters that he actually had a stroke or series of strokes. He was buried inBukit Timah Cemetery in Singapore. His gravestone was removed in 1970 with the intention of installing it at Freemason's Hall; plans are afoot to restore the headstone and place it in from of the Hall with a plaque setting out a brief description of his life (as of Aug 2020).
Sadly, Charles's only son Hugh died just two years later, in India.
Footnotes
[1] The Royal Marines, although part of the Navy, use the same rank structure as the Army, hence the entry point for an officer was 2nd Lieutenant, rather than Warrant Officer or Midshipman as it would be in the Navy.
- August 1868: Colonial Secretary of British Honduras (now Belize)
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Event Map 
Birth - 25 Oct 1836 - Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, England, United Kingdom 
Christening - 30 Nov 1836 - St Mary's, Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, Wales, England, United Kingdom 
Census - 1841 - East Stonehouse, Devon, England, United Kingdom 
Marriage - 17 Jul 1862 - British Embassy, Bern, Switzerland 
Marriage - 1889 - Kent, England, United Kingdom 
Death - 7 Dec 1899 - Singapore, Singapore 
Probate - 8 Feb 1900 - London, County of London, England, United Kingdom = Link to Google Earth
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Photos 
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Sources - [S0275] Familysearch, Wales Births and Baptisms, 1541-1907, (familysearch.org), 30 Nov 1836, Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell; https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FM9H-RVN.
- [S0276] Familysearch, Wales, Pembrokeshire, Parish Registers, 1538-1912, (familysearch.org), 30 Nov 1836, Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell; https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KCB2-G3W.
- [S0130] Ancestry, 1841 England Census, (ancestry.co.uk), 1841, Hugh Mitchell; Class: HO107; Piece: 276; Book: 1; Civil Parish: East Stonehouse; County: Devon; Enumeration District: 1; Folio: 4; Page: 3; Line: 1; GSU roll: 241335.
- [S0129] Ancestry, 1851 England Census, (ancestry.co.uk), 1851, Charles BH Mitchell; Greenwich; St Paul Deptford; ED 2b; Household schedule 161; Piece 1584; Folio 187; Page 41.
- [S0131] Ancestry, 1861 England Census, (ancestry.co.uk), 1861, CBH Mitchell; Orion; Piece 4441; Folio 66; Page 35.
- [S0119] Ancestry, England & Wales, National Probate Calendar, 1858-1966, 1973-1995, (ancestry.com), 1900, Sir Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell;.
- [S0053] Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Mitchell_(governor).
- [S0276] Familysearch, Wales, Pembrokeshire, Parish Registers, 1538-1912, (familysearch.org), 3 Jan 1836, Constance Bullen; (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KCB2-94V : 11 February 2018), Hugh Mitchell and Constance Bullen, 04 Jan 1836, Marriage; from "Parish Records Collection 1538-2005," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.c.
- [S0274] Edward Walford, Walford's County Families of the United Kingdom, (London, England: Chatto and Windus, 1899), Page 722.
- [S0277] Unknown, Bullen Pedigree, (Family Archive; D_Unknown_Bullen) (Reliability: 1).
- [S0275] Familysearch, Wales Births and Baptisms, 1541-1907, (familysearch.org), 30 Nov 1836, Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell; https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FM9H-RVN.