I am preparing a biography on  Margaret Enid Crichton Mitchell - and in particular her father Professor Alexander Crichton Mitchell. Details are scarce on the family so this web page hopes to provide some basic information and hopefully draw out contacts from people who may have known Margaret.

Margaret was born on 28th February 1907 in Trivandrum, Travancore in southern India. Travancore is now known as Kerala. She married John Anderson Stewart in 1936 in Edinburgh and died on 3 June 1986 at the Royal Infirmary in Perth, Scotland of heart disease.

At the age of five, the family left India and returned to Edinburgh to begin her schooling at St George's School. Her early years and those of her brother, now Sir Stewart Mitchell, OBE, CB, KBE, RN, were spent at the Eskdalemuir Magnetical Observatory in southern Scotland where her father, Dr Alexander Crichton Mitchell, was Director of the observatory. She went on to Edinburgh University where she studied archaeology under the irrepressible Gordon Childe, graduating MA with Honours and going on to gain her PhD. Her thesis, entitled 'A New Analysis of the Early Bronze Age Beaker Pottery of Scotland' not only marked a fresh approach to the subject but also confirmed her own major interest in the early prehistoric which persisted throughout her life. In 1933 she was elected Vice President of the Edinburgh League of Prehistorians. The years of the Second World War were spent in Admiralty Intelligence, and in a strange twist,  she was involved in the decryption of German Ultra codes intercepted by the British which involved the campaign in North Africa where her brother Alan Mitchell was fighting (early 1942).

Dr Gordon Barklay, the Head of National Policy at Historic Scotland recalls her fondly: I was a very junior member of staff here, in 1977, when I was sent to excavate sites on the Perth western bypass route - the case had been a cause celebre and Margaret had been prominent in the criticism of the state service that had not arranged excavation of supposedly important sites in the way of the road. I often went for lunch with Margaret and [her husband] John - John introduced me to the Renaissance Scots poet Dunbar on one of these visits. I remember John declaiming the refrain of one poem 'timor mortis conturbat me' over lunch".

Scholarship and public spirit brought Margaret the recognition she undoubtedly deserved. She was awarded an MBE and was honoured by St Andrews University when the degree of DLitt was conferred upon her. But the greatest pleasure and satisfaction came from her election by Society of Antiquaries of Scotland as an Honorary Fellow (FSA Scot) , the first woman to be accorded this distinction. Margaret was he first recipient of the Edinburgh University's Class Medal in Archaeology in 1928-29 and then in her Will endowed the Dr Margaret Stewart bequest for the study of European Beaker pottery and related topics, naming the Abercromby professor as chair of its Trustees. Upon Margaret's death in 1986, her husband John ensured the bequest was provided to the University. Margaret never had any children.

Some of the more notable papers are:

I am particularly interested in contacting anyone who may have known Margaret or worked with her and can add to the above.

If you have any feedback please contact me at the address below.

TECHNICAL

How an indicator loop works