John Murray Mitchell

John Murray Mitchell (19 August 1815 – 14 November 1904) was a Scottish missionary and orientalist who worked in his country of birth, India and France.

Life

John Murray Mitchell was born in the manse at Garvock near Aberdeen, Scotland, on 19 August 1815. His parents, who had seven other children, were Rev James Mitchell and his wife, Margaret Gordon. Following education in Kinneff, Kincardineshire and a year at Aberdeen Grammar School, he joined the city's Marischal College in 1829. He graduated with an MA in 1833 and then studied for the church ministry, initially in Aberdeen and later in Edinburgh. He was ordained by the Church of Scotland in July 1838.

Mitchell was sent to Bombay, India, to join some missionary colleagues of the Church of Scotland in November 1838. There he was able to continue his interest in languages, for which he had already received prizes during his studies. He soon mastered Marathi and also studied Sanskrit and what was then called Zend.

After another period in Scotland from 1873, when he served as Secretary of the church's Foreign Mission Committee, he returned to India for the last time in 1880 and remained there for two years. Later, after 1888, he worked on behalf of the church in Nice, France.

Family

He and his wife, Maria H. M. Flyter, who died in 1907, had no children.