Description

Admin History:

Austin Vernon Mitchell was born on 19 September 1934 in Bradford. He went to school at Woodbottom Council School and Bingley Grammar School, before reading History at the University of Manchester and graduating from Nuffield College, Oxford, with a Doctor of Philosophy in 1963. Between 1959 and 1963 he worked as a lecturer in history at Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand, and then left to become a Senior Lecturer in sociology at Canterbury University, Christchurch, New Zealand (1963-1967). Returning to Britain, he then took up a post as Official Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford (1967-1969).

In 1969, he changed career and became a journalist with Yorkshire Television (1969-1971), then with the BBC in 1972 before returning to Yorkshire Television in 1973. In 1977 he changed career again when he was elected as Labour MP for Grimsby (Great Grimsby from 1983). He held the seat until his retirement in 2015. During his political career he served as Personal Private Secretary to J. D. Fraser, Minister of State for Prices and Consumer Protection (1977-1979), Opposition Whip, member of the Civil Service Select Committee, Front Bench Spokesperson on Trade and Industry, member of the Treasury, member of the Public Accounts Committee, Chair of the Council Housing Group of MPs and member of the Agriculture Select Committee.

His other political activities included putting forward the House Buyers Bill (1985) and being a key supporter of compulsory seatbelts in cars, a cause he supported after surviving a car crash in 1977 which he put down to his use of a seatbelt. He was also a member of the Socialist Campaign Group and as a Eurosceptic, supported the Better Off Out campaign and opposed the Common Fisheries Policy. In support of the fishing industry within his constituency and its staple catch, he briefly changed his name to Austin Haddock in 2002.

During 2009 Mitchell's expenses claims, and those of other MPs, were analysed by an independent audit following the Parliamentary expenses scandal. It was found that Mitchell had wrongly claimed £10,549 for mortgage payments on his second home, which he argued was the result of an oversight made in 2006. He later issued an apology and repaid the amount. Mitchell announced in April 2014 that he would not stand in the next general election, and retired from parliament in May 2015.

Alongside his political career, Austin Mitchell presented 'Target' with Norman Tebbit on Sky Television from 1989 to 1998 and was the author of several books, including Politics and People in New Zealand (1970), Four years in the Death of the Labour Party (1983), Britain: Beyond the Blue Horizon (1989), and Confessions of a Political Maverick (2018).

Austin Mitchell married twice and had one son and three daughters. His second wife, Linda McDougall, is a journalist and author. He died on 18 August 2021 at the age of 86.

Description:

This collection comprises constituency correspondence/case files and subject files on constituency and wider issues, including fishing, economics, Europe and education.