Gilbert Mitchison, Baron Mitchison

Who was Gilbert Mitchison, Baron Mitchison?

Gilbert Richard Mitchison, Baron Mitchison CBE QC, otherwise known as Dick Mitchison, was a British Labour politician.

Born in Staines, Mitchison was educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford and became a barrister and King's Counsel. He served with the Queen's Bays in World War I, attaining the rank of Major and gaining the Croix de Guerre. He worked in the Ministry of Labour during World War II on the Beveridge man-power survey and led the Nuffield College social reconstruction survey.

Mitchison stood for Parliament without success in King's Norton at the 1931 and 1935 elections. He was the Labour Member of Parliament for Kettering between 1945 and 1964, beating the young incumbent, John Profumo, at the 1945 election. In Parliament, Mitchison sponsored the New Streets Act as a private member's bill. He was given a life peerage, created Baron Mitchison, of Carradale in the County of Argyllshire on 5 October 1964. He served on the executive of the Fabian Society.

He married the writer Naomi Haldane in Oxford 1916. They had six children; four sons; Geoffrey Denis later a professor of bacteriology, Murdoch, and Avrion, both professors of zoology. Their daughters were Lois and Valentine, the latter of whom married the historian Mark Arnold-Forster. He died in Westminster aged 75.