Biography

Henry Gavie Mitchell was born in 1848 in Salem, Massachusetts in the United States. As a young adult, Mitchell was a fireman in the San Francisco No 2 Hose and Ladder Company and served in the U.S. Navy.

Henry then embarked for Dunedin via Paraguay, Bolivia and London, arriving in 1869. He became a gold prospector and served as a member of the Naseby Volunteer Fire Brigade. In 1874 he returned to Dunedin and in 1875 moved to Port Chalmers to work for the Union Steam Ship Company. He was appointed captain of the local volunteer fire brigade in Port Chalmers and was president of the United Fire Brigade Association in 1888 and 1889.

Henry was appointed captain of the Dunedin City Fire Brigade in April 1892 at the annual salary of 150 pounds. At the time the brigade, owned and operated by the Dunedin City Council, had suffered industrial problems.

Captain Mitchell quickly established a reputation for efficiency and this was soon put to use, with the brigade fighting eleven major fires before the end of the century, including fires at McLeod Brothers Soapworks, Cumberland Street; the Evening Star Company building, Cumberland Street; Reid and Gray, Princes Street; Phoenix Confectionary, Maclaggan Street; Woodhaugh Flour Mill; and Dresden Music Warehouse, Princes Street. These efforts were widely praised locally, and on 13th November 1898, the brigade presented Henry Mitchell with a large marble clock as a token of their esteem and in recognition of the harmony that now existed in the brigade.

At the time Dunedin was still considered to be the commercial capital of New Zealand. However, compared with the other major centres, the Dunedin City Fire Brigade had the lowest budget, the lowest captain’s salary and the fewest members, and it had outgrown the Octagon Station. The brigade did not have its own horses and during the daytime was reliant on private citizens rushing to the station on the sounding of the alarm bell to provide horses in return for a reward. This caused problems with mis-matched horses and harnesses, and at least once caused a delay in arriving at a fire that resulted in the brigade being booed by the public.

On 8th October 1906, Parliament passed the Fire Brigades Act, and the renamed Dunedin Fire Brigade at last secured regular funding. Captain Mitchell was designated superintendent and supervised this new time of change. He was involved in the employment of permanent staff, the extension of the street fire alarm systems and the purchase of the brigade’s own horses. Superintendent Mitchell was also responsible for the introduction of motorised vehicles to replace the horses – the first was a 1909 Merryweather petrol-fuelled fire engine. On 28th July 1911 the Dunedin Fire Brigade moved into its new Cumberland Street station; Superintendent Mitchell stated that it compared more than favourably with any in the Dominion.

After twenty years service to the brigade, Superintendent Mitchell was forced by ill health to hand in his resignation to the Dunedin Fire Board on 20th March 1912. His efforts and long service were recognised with a ceremony and the presentation of a 300 pound bonus payment. Superintendent Henry Mitchell died on 17th December 1912 aged 64 years.

(Prepared by the Historic Cemeteries Conservation Trust from research written by John Ingram, of the Dunedin Fire Brigade Restoration Society Inc.)