Citation for Professor George Francis ('Frank') Mitchell, March 1977
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Citation for Professor George Francis ('Frank') Mitchell, March 1977
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Citation delivered by Professor Michael Duignan at the conferring of a doctorate honoris causa on Professor George Francis Mitchell, 31 March 1977. Professor Mitchell, who held the chair of Quaternary Studies in Trinity College Dublin, was generally known as Frank Mitchell.
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Ollscoil na hEireann
THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND
TEXT OF INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY PROFESSOR MICHAEL V. DUIGNAN, M.A., MARCH 31ST, 1977, ON THE OCCASION OF THE CONFERRING OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF SCIENCE, honoris causa, ON PROFESSOR GEORGE FRANCIS MITCHELL, M.A., M.SC., D.SC., F.R.S.
CHANCELLOR AND MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY:
I present to you one who has 'on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud', whose contributions to Pleistocene Geology, to Palynology, and to the 'Archaeological Revolution' of our time, have spread his fame over half the world, from Russia to the Americas and beyond. That he happens to have been a personal friend for close on forty years adds a particular pleasure to the honour which is mine today.
Professor of Quaternary Studies in the University of Dublin, Frank Mitchell, son of David William Mitchell and Frances Kirby, was born here in this city in 1912, and grew up in a strict Presbyterian home, one much like the childhood home of Thomas Mann where, we are told, 'Ora et Labora' stand über der Haustür. In 1930 he went from the old High School in Harcourt Street to Trinity College, where he graduated with First Class Honours in Natural Sciences four years later.
It had always been intended that he should enter his father's business. However, recognising the scholarly potential of one who, like Goethe, had been nurtured on an austere philosophy des Lebens ernstes Führen, a wise divinity thought otherwise; a wise divinity, Metis, or Minerva, or - Women's Year being past, may I not safely suggest a mere male ? - our own Ruadan Rofhessa thought, and contrived otherwise. The offer of an Assistantship in the Trinity Department of Geology happily coincided with the decision of the Royal Irish Academy's Quaternary Research Committee, to invite Professor Knud Jessen of Copenhagen to initiate the palynological investigation of the peat, diatomite, marine, and lacustrine deposits of Ireland. It was then that I first heard of Frank Mitchell. Anxious to avoid wasting any of Jessen's time, or of its own meagre funds, the Committee asked me to check the suitability for pollen analysis of a number of archaeological find spots in Midland and Western bogs. When I inquired who in Ireland might be relied on to build on the foundations which Jessen would lay, I received the reply: 'We have high hopes of a young Trinity man named Mitchell'.
That young man's participation in Jessen's field work during the summers of 1934 and 1935 changed the whole course of his career, for his inspiring Danish mentor unveiled to him the charms of a science, plena pollinis indeed, like Terence's Lyre Maiden, but with much to offer to other disciplines. Frank Mitchell promptly turned his back on the world of Commerce and threw himself into geological, palynological, and archaeological researches with such ardour, dedication, and skill that within the next ten years—six of them years of war with their own demands on his time and energy—he contrived to publish the first seven of that splendid series of pioneer papers which brought him international acclaim. Simultaneously he made opportunity to give ear to the call of the heart and, in 1944, married Lucy Margaret, daughter of Edward Gwynn, eminent Irish scholar, Provost of Trinity College, and Honorary Doctor of our University. Splendidis natalibus orta, Lucy Mitchell merits more than just passing mention here today, for she has made her own inimitable contribution to Science by turning Townley Hall into an international centre for field studies of every kind, a centre whose facilities are constantly availed of by students and teachers of our own Colleges.
The year of Frank Mitchell's marriage was also the first of twenty-four years of onerous involvement in College administration, as Junior Dean, as Fellow, as Registrar, and as Senior Fellow; of an involvement which may have hindered, but never halted, his researches; an involvement which did not prevent him from becoming the leading authority on the Mesolithic in Ireland. The only major interludes in that involvement were two Sabbaticals. The first of these was in 1950, when the Rockefeller Foundation made it possible for him to spend the first six months studying the Glacial geology of the United States, while the Leverhulme Trust enabled him to withdraw to Cambridge for the second six months so as to concentrate on writing. The second did not come until 1966-67, when a Visiting Fellowship at Clare Hall, Cambridge, gave him another opportunity to devote himself wholly to writing.
Chancellor and Members of the University, how richly the 'young Trinity man named Mitchell' has fulfilled those 'high hopes' of 1934! His teaching; his researches; his contributions to Irish, British, Continental—including Russian, and American journals; his fascinating book, Irish Landscape, published last year; these have won him recognition at home and abroad: the Presidency of the Royal Irish Academy, a Fellowship of the Royal Society, an Honorary Doctorate of the Queen's University of Belfast, the Medal of the University of Helsinki, the Stopes Medal of the Geological Association, the Presidency of the International Union for Quaternary Research, Visiting Fellowships in British and American universities. Need I complete the catalogue? Has he not brought honour to his University, to his country? Does not his enrolment today among our Honorary Graduates shed something of that honour on our University too, a University which owes so much to his generous and unfailing collaboration with all three of our Constituent Colleges, in particular with their Departments of Archaeology?
THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND
TEXT OF INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY PROFESSOR MICHAEL V. DUIGNAN, M.A., MARCH 31ST, 1977, ON THE OCCASION OF THE CONFERRING OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF SCIENCE, honoris causa, ON PROFESSOR GEORGE FRANCIS MITCHELL, M.A., M.SC., D.SC., F.R.S.
CHANCELLOR AND MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY:
I present to you one who has 'on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud', whose contributions to Pleistocene Geology, to Palynology, and to the 'Archaeological Revolution' of our time, have spread his fame over half the world, from Russia to the Americas and beyond. That he happens to have been a personal friend for close on forty years adds a particular pleasure to the honour which is mine today.
Professor of Quaternary Studies in the University of Dublin, Frank Mitchell, son of David William Mitchell and Frances Kirby, was born here in this city in 1912, and grew up in a strict Presbyterian home, one much like the childhood home of Thomas Mann where, we are told, 'Ora et Labora' stand über der Haustür. In 1930 he went from the old High School in Harcourt Street to Trinity College, where he graduated with First Class Honours in Natural Sciences four years later.
It had always been intended that he should enter his father's business. However, recognising the scholarly potential of one who, like Goethe, had been nurtured on an austere philosophy des Lebens ernstes Führen, a wise divinity thought otherwise; a wise divinity, Metis, or Minerva, or - Women's Year being past, may I not safely suggest a mere male ? - our own Ruadan Rofhessa thought, and contrived otherwise. The offer of an Assistantship in the Trinity Department of Geology happily coincided with the decision of the Royal Irish Academy's Quaternary Research Committee, to invite Professor Knud Jessen of Copenhagen to initiate the palynological investigation of the peat, diatomite, marine, and lacustrine deposits of Ireland. It was then that I first heard of Frank Mitchell. Anxious to avoid wasting any of Jessen's time, or of its own meagre funds, the Committee asked me to check the suitability for pollen analysis of a number of archaeological find spots in Midland and Western bogs. When I inquired who in Ireland might be relied on to build on the foundations which Jessen would lay, I received the reply: 'We have high hopes of a young Trinity man named Mitchell'.
That young man's participation in Jessen's field work during the summers of 1934 and 1935 changed the whole course of his career, for his inspiring Danish mentor unveiled to him the charms of a science, plena pollinis indeed, like Terence's Lyre Maiden, but with much to offer to other disciplines. Frank Mitchell promptly turned his back on the world of Commerce and threw himself into geological, palynological, and archaeological researches with such ardour, dedication, and skill that within the next ten years—six of them years of war with their own demands on his time and energy—he contrived to publish the first seven of that splendid series of pioneer papers which brought him international acclaim. Simultaneously he made opportunity to give ear to the call of the heart and, in 1944, married Lucy Margaret, daughter of Edward Gwynn, eminent Irish scholar, Provost of Trinity College, and Honorary Doctor of our University. Splendidis natalibus orta, Lucy Mitchell merits more than just passing mention here today, for she has made her own inimitable contribution to Science by turning Townley Hall into an international centre for field studies of every kind, a centre whose facilities are constantly availed of by students and teachers of our own Colleges.
The year of Frank Mitchell's marriage was also the first of twenty-four years of onerous involvement in College administration, as Junior Dean, as Fellow, as Registrar, and as Senior Fellow; of an involvement which may have hindered, but never halted, his researches; an involvement which did not prevent him from becoming the leading authority on the Mesolithic in Ireland. The only major interludes in that involvement were two Sabbaticals. The first of these was in 1950, when the Rockefeller Foundation made it possible for him to spend the first six months studying the Glacial geology of the United States, while the Leverhulme Trust enabled him to withdraw to Cambridge for the second six months so as to concentrate on writing. The second did not come until 1966-67, when a Visiting Fellowship at Clare Hall, Cambridge, gave him another opportunity to devote himself wholly to writing.
Chancellor and Members of the University, how richly the 'young Trinity man named Mitchell' has fulfilled those 'high hopes' of 1934! His teaching; his researches; his contributions to Irish, British, Continental—including Russian, and American journals; his fascinating book, Irish Landscape, published last year; these have won him recognition at home and abroad: the Presidency of the Royal Irish Academy, a Fellowship of the Royal Society, an Honorary Doctorate of the Queen's University of Belfast, the Medal of the University of Helsinki, the Stopes Medal of the Geological Association, the Presidency of the International Union for Quaternary Research, Visiting Fellowships in British and American universities. Need I complete the catalogue? Has he not brought honour to his University, to his country? Does not his enrolment today among our Honorary Graduates shed something of that honour on our University too, a University which owes so much to his generous and unfailing collaboration with all three of our Constituent Colleges, in particular with their Departments of Archaeology?
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Note
Collection by: Jane Conroy
Data entry by: Jane Conroy
Research by: J. Waddell
Data entry by: Jane Conroy
Research by: J. Waddell
lastReviewed
2024.01.16 by Jane Conroy
2024.02.03 ibid.
2024.02.03 ibid.
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 Conferring of Honorary Doctorate of Science on Professor George F. ('Frank') Mitchell, 31 March 1977 |
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