John Mitchel

sketcher, amateur photographer(?) and journalist, was an Irish political prisoner transported to Van Diemen's Land for fourteen years for treason. He arrived at Hobart Town in April 1850 on board the Neptune and was immediately granted a ticket of leave. He then lived at Bothwell with another Young Ireland patriot, John Martin (nicknamed 'Knox' by Mitchel because he was a Protestant). Mitchel's wife Jane Verner, of Newry, whom he had married in 1837, and their children joined him in June 1851.

Mitchel and Martin paid several (illegal) visits to Lake Sorell where some of the Tasmanian Young Irelanders gathered at the house of Thomas Francis Meagher, the most romantic of their number. According to the later Tasmanian photographer John Watt Beattie, on these visits Mitchel took many daguerreotypes of the lake (which he likened to the area near Killarney). All presumably left the colony with him and none has been identified.

He also sketched Tasmanian views. A drawing of Lake Sorell and Meagher's Cottage is in the National Library of Ireland. In one of her letters Katherine Simson, née Officer, mentioned Mitchel's sketch The 'Falls' which was in her possession from at least May 1851. Later, in Victoria, one of 'two noisy, rattling Irish-men who were making many inquiries after yr rebels' rapturously declared the drawing perfect, being qualified to make this judgement, she noted drily, because he had 'lately visited Rome, Paris &c ... [and] seen all the paintings of the ancient and modern Fathers of the Art'.

Disguised as a priest, Mitchel escaped to New York in 1853 and resumed his career as a journalist. He became involved in the American Civil War on the Confederate side. In 1868 he published My Jail Journal; or, Five Years in British Prisons (including Van Diemen's Land). He died in Ireland on 20 March 1875, survived by his wife, a son and three daughters.

Staff Writer.