Reginald Joseph Mitchell was born on 20 May 1895 in the Butt Lane district of Kidsgrove, the son of Herbert Mitchell and Eliza Jane Mitchell (née Brain). Three months later the family moved a few miles to Longton, one of the six towns soon to be constituted as Stoke-on—Trent. He was educated at Queensberry Road Higher Elementary School, followed by Hanley High School (renamed Mitchell High School in his honour in 1989) between 1909 and 1911, where he cultivated his interest in flight by designing, making and flying model aeroplanes.

Leaving school at 16, Mitchell gained an apprenticeship at Kerr Stuart and Co. of the California Works, Stoke-on-Trent, a locomotive engineering works. As part of his apprenticeship he attended night school to further study technical drawing, mechanics and mathematics, having a thorough grasp of theory and practical applications of them would be invaluable in the aeronautical challenges he would later face.

By the time he had completed his apprenticeship and the First W'orld war had been ongoing for two years, and Mitchell made attempts to join the forces, but his engineering training was considered more useful in civilian life. Initially, he undertook some part-time teaching at the Fenton Technical School, but he decided to apply for the post of personal assistant to the managing director of the Pembeiton-Billing aviation works at Woolston, Southampton.

In 1916 he joined the Supermarine Aviation Works at Southampton as an assistant to Hubert Scott-Pain. Advancing quickly within the company, he was promoted to the post of assistant to the works manager in 1918 and appointed Chief Designer in 1919. He was made Chief Engineer in 1920 and Technical Director in 1927. When Supermarine was taken over as part of Vickers Ltd in 1928 it was written into the contract that Mitchell should stay with the company for at least 5 years, such was his reputation. At first, Vickers tried to get Mitchell to co-operate with one of their "own" top designers. Mitchell had other ideas and would always walk out of the room when the other designer walked in. Soon Vickers relented and let the Supermarine design team carry on working as before, and their designer went back to Vickers proper.

At this time, Supermarine was primarily a builder of seaplanes and flying boats for the Royal Air Force, and gained exposure and experience by competing in races such as the Schneider Trophy. Mitchell’s Sea Lion II which won the Trophy race held in Naples in 1922. Between 1920 and 1936, Mitchell designed 24 aircraft. This included several further flying boats such as the Sea King, the Walrus, and the Stranraer.

Mitchell’s first great achievement was the outright win of the Schneider Trophy for Great Britain in 1931 which involved the revolutionary designed series of Schneider seaplanes. The first was the S.4 which achieved a world speed record of 226 mph in 1925 but unfortunately crashed in the same year off the coast of Baltimore in America whilst competing for the Trophy. The S.4 with a monoplane wing arrangement and monocoque fuselage was futuristic compared with competing biplanes; it would be a further 12 years before the RAF had a monoplane fighter. By the time of the 1927 Trophy competition in Venice, Mitchell had incorporated changes from lessons learnt from the S.4 and the S.5 swept to victory achieving first and second positions at a speed of 281 mph. Two years later he made more substantial revisions with the replacement of the Napier Lion for a Rolls-Royce R engine, all metal construction and engine cooling through the use of airflow across the surfaces of the aircraft. The S.6 won the 1929 Schneider Trophy held over the Solent at a speed of 328 mph. The 1931 competition was mired between a lack of financial support by the British Government and foreign competitors unable to compete due to technical problems with their own aircraft. Britain fielded an S.6B which was a hastily improved aircraft with financial backing from Lady Houston, it won by default at a speed of 340 mph over the Solent. This third win a row secured the magnificent Schneider Trophy outright for the Country. Mitchell was awarded the CBE on 29 December 1931 for services in connection with the Schneider Trophy Contest.

The technical skill that Mitchell used in the design of the Spitfire was developed in the evolution of the Schneider Trophy seaplanes. The significance of the many earlier planes is often overlooked when people refer to Mitchell, as is the fact that he was very concerned about developments in Germany and feared that British defence needed to be strengthened, especially in the air.

In 1931 the Air Ministry issued specification F7/30 for a fighter aircraft to replace the Gloster Gauntlet. Mitchell's proposed design, the Type 224 was one of three designs for which the Air Ministry ordered prototypes. The Type 224 first flew on 19 February 1934, but was eventually rejected by the RAF for unsatisfactory performance. While the 224 was being built, Mitchell was authorised by Supermarine in 1933 to proceed with a new design, the Type 300, an all-metal monoplane that became the Supermarine Spitfire. This was originally a private venture by Supermarine, but the RAF quickly became interested and the Air Ministry financed a prototype.

Many of the technical advances in the Spitfire had been made by others: the thin elliptical wings were designed by Canadian aerodynamicist Beverley Shenstone; the under-wing radiators had been designed by the RAE, while monocoque construction had been first developed in the United States. Mitchell's genius was bringing it all together with his experience of high speed flight and the Type 224.

The first prototype Spitfire, serial K5054, flew for the first time on 5 March 1936 at Eastleigh, Hampshire. In later tests, it reached 349 mph; consequently, before the prototype had completed its official trials, the RAF ordered 310 production Spitfires.

Mitchell shunned fame and publicity, and despite his outstanding ability, his name was not widely known outside of aviation circles during his lifetime. With people he did not know he often appeared shy. A slight stammer added to this impression and seemed to have caused him real distress when called upon to give speeches. He was known for his kindness and humanity, and he commanded unerring respect, loyalty, and affection from his staff, to whom he was utterly devoted. In 1933 he was diagnosed with rectal cancer, and a major operation left him with the serious physical difficulty of a permanent colostomy, a fact that his colleagues never knew. He showed enormous courage and refused to contemplate retirement. In fact it should be remembered that the whole time Mitchell was designing the Spitfire he knew that he was probably going to die and that he was working on the designs for a bomber aircraft right up to his untimely death. The plans for this bomber would never enter production as they were lost, along with a wooden mock-up, when the Supermarine factory was destroyed in a bombing raid at the start of the War.

Mitchell was a member of the Hampshire Aero Club almost from its beginning and in 1935 became a director. He learned to fly there and gained his RAeC Aviator's Certificate, No 12284, on 12 September 1934, flying a DH.60X Cirrus Moth.

It was in 1936 that Mitchell was again diagnosed to have cancer. In February 1937 he went into hospital in London but returned to his home soon after. Mitchell had to give up work, however, he was often seen watching the testing of the Spitfire prototype at Eastleigh airfield from his motor-car when he should have been home resting. He went to the American Foundation in Vienna for treatment in late April 1937 but returned to England at the end of May. During the last months of his life, he liked to sit in his garden, admire the flowers and listen to the bird-song.

Reginald Joseph Mitchell CBE, FRAeS died at his home in Portswood, Southampton on 11 June 1937, aged only forty-two. His ashes were interred at South Stoneham Cemetery, Eastleigh, Hampshire, four days later.

Biography References

1. From Nighthawk to Spitfire - The Aircraft of R.J. Mitchell, John K Shelton (The History Press, 2015)
2. The Spitfire Society - Reginald Joseph Mitchell CBE, FRAeS (1895-1937)
3. RJ Mitchell. A life in Aviation. Spitfire and Battle of Britain
4. Biography of RJ Mitchell