Dick Mitchison, Baron Mitchison

Gilbert Richard Mitchison, Baron Mitchison, (23 March 1894 – 14 February 1970), known as Dick Mitchison, was a British Labour politician.

Life Born in Staines, Mitchison was educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford, and became a barrister (called to the bar in 1917) and King's Counsel. He served with the Queen's Bays in the First World War, attaining the rank of Major and gaining the .

Mitchison stood for Parliament as a Labour Party candidate without success in King's Norton at the 1931 and 1935 elections. He worked in the Ministry of Labour during the Second World War, on William Beveridge's Manpower Survey, and led the Nuffield College social reconstruction survey. He was the successful candidate for Kettering at the 1945 election – beating the young Conservative incumbent, John Profumo – and remained the constituency's Member of Parliament until 1964. His association with Labour's left wing proved a barrier to ministerial office. He served on the executive of the Fabian Society.

Mitchison died in Westminster aged 75.

Family Mitchison married the writer Naomi Haldane (daughter of John Scott Haldane and sister of J. B. S. Haldane) in Oxford in 1916. They had six children, including four sons: Geoffrey (1918–1927), Denis (1919–2018, a professor of bacteriology), Murdoch (1922–2011) and Avrion (1928–2022), both professors of zoology. Their daughters were Lois and Valentine, the latter of whom married the historian Mark Arnold-Forster.