Joseph Stanley Mitchell (1909-1987) was born in Birmingham on 22 July 1909. He was educated at schools in Birmingham, before attending Birmingham University and St John's College, Cambridge, where he took the natural sciences tripos, specialising in physics in part II. He was awarded the Cambridge MB and B.Chir. in 1934. After a period as a house physician at Birmingham General Hospital, he began research for his Ph.D. at Cambridge, on the irradiation of thin protein films. He was awarded his Ph.D. in 1937, and then elected to a research fellowship at St John's College.
In 1938 Mitchell began his first clinical work in radiotherapy, initially in Manchester, then as an assistant in research in radiotherapy in the Cambridge University Department of Medicine. This post became permanent following the opening of a Radiotherapeutic Centre at Addenbrooke's Hospital in 1943. In 1944 he joined the British and Canadian Atomic Energy Project at Chalk River, Canada, where he was asked to investigate the radiobiological hazards to those working with radiations and to direct the Project's medical programme. He returned to Cambridge at the end of 1945 to take up the chair in radiotherapeutics within the new School of Clinical Research and Postgraduate Teaching, and the Directorship of the Radiotherapeutic Centre at Addenbrooke's Hospital.
In 1957 Mitchell became regius professor of physic at Cambridge. He was instrumental in this role in building up the School of Clinical Research and Postgraduate Teaching. He also argued for the establishment in Cambridge of a complementary pre-graduate clinical school to provide Cambridge medical students with an opportunity to receive clinical training. His efforts helped lead to the establishment of the School of Clinical Medicine in 1976. Mitchell resigned from the regius chair in 1975, and resumed his professorship of radiotherapeutics for a year. Throughout his working life he investigated techniques for treating cancer, and he continued to be an active researcher until his death, in Cambridge on 22 February 1987.
From the guide to the Joseph Stanley Mitchell: Papers, c. 1924-1988, (Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives)
