F.W. Mitchell, retired Postmaster General of Hong Kong, married Emily Wilson, the Major-General’s daughter, one year after the Wilson family arrived in Hobart. What did John Wilson think about his 27 year old daughter marrying the 62 year old F. W. Mitchell, a man 10 years older than himself? Did he have serious misgivings or was he pleased to add such a prestigious figure to the family? We will never know. Still, it is not hard to imagine the Major-General and the Postmaster General swapping tales in the Hobart Men’s Club, and whiskeys in hand, declaring the oft heard phrase “To the Queen,” followed swiftly by “To the Empire.” Only three years later, F. W. Mitchell died.<\/p>\n
Footnote: As you were, folks. Robin Price leaves this comment:\u00a0“As John Newbold Wilson was an ardent lay preacher for the Methodists, I don’t think he was likely to be drinking whiskey.” Still, it could have been sasparilla. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting piece of information as it explains how Emily connected with her second husband Henry Samuel Cox Fooks, a Methodist minister. It might also suggest that FW Williams Mitchell was a religious man. Clearly, he was a man of strong principles and (as we gather from historical anecdotes) a brisk “my way or the highway” kind of guy who was not known for his affability.\u00a0<\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
F.W. Mitchell, retired Postmaster General of Hong Kong, married Emily Wilson, the Major-General’s daughter, one year after the Wilson family arrived in Hobart. What did John Wilson think about his 27 year old daughter marrying the 62 year old F. W. Mitchell, a man 10 years older than himself? Did he have serious misgivings or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_stc_notifier_status":"","_stc_notifier_sent_time":"","_stc_notifier_request":false,"_stc_notifier_prevent":false,"_stc_subscriber_keywords":"","_stc_subscriber_search_areas":"","nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"authors":[],"root_bruce":[855],"tags_bruce":[],"history":[],"media_bruce":[],"history_bruce":[],"families_bruce":[],"eras_bruce":[1021],"class_list":["post-9534","bc_posts","type-bc_posts","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","root_bruce-mitchell","eras_bruce-1800-1899"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bc_posts\/9534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bc_posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bc_posts"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9534"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bc_posts\/9534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9536,"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bc_posts\/9534\/revisions\/9536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=9534"},{"taxonomy":"root_bruce","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/root_bruce?post=9534"},{"taxonomy":"tags_bruce","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags_bruce?post=9534"},{"taxonomy":"history","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/history?post=9534"},{"taxonomy":"media_bruce","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_bruce?post=9534"},{"taxonomy":"history_bruce","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/history_bruce?post=9534"},{"taxonomy":"families_bruce","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/families_bruce?post=9534"},{"taxonomy":"eras_bruce","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newearthvillage.com\/spriggs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eras_bruce?post=9534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}