Writer, born in Edinburgh, EC Scotland, UK, the sister of E S, J S, and R B Haldane. Educated at the Dragon School, Oxford, she won instant attention with her brilliant and personal evocations of Greece and Sparta in such novels as The Conquered (1923), When the Bough Breaks (1924), Cloud Cuckoo Land (1925), and Black Sparta (1928). In 1931 came the erudite Corn King and Spring Queen, which brought to life the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Scythia, and the Middle East. She travelled widely, and in 1963 was made Tribal Adviser and Mother to the Bakgatla of Botswana.
Naomi Margaret Mitchison, CBE (nee Haldane; she was also entitled to call herself Baroness Mitchison, CBE since 5 October 1964 (but never apparently used that style herself).
Biography
Childhood and Family Background
Naomi Margaret Haldane was the daughter and younger child of the physiologist John Scott Haldane (1860 – 1936) CH, FRS and his wife (Louisa) Kathleen Trotter, a suffragist. Today, the best known member of the family is probably Naomi's elder brother, the biologist Jack Haldane (1892 – 1964), but in her youth her paternal uncle Richard Burdon Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane, twice Lord Chancellor (from1912-1915 under Herbert Henry Asquith, and in 1924 during the first Labour government of Ramsay Macdonald), was better known.
Naomi was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford and began a science degree at the University of Oxford, but gave this up to become a nurse.
In 1916 Naomi married the barrister Gilbert Richard Mitchison (23 March 1894– 14 February 1970), who was a close friend of her brother Jack. Her husband became a QC, then a Labour politician, and eventually a Life Peer as Baron Mitchison in August 1964. Dick and Naomi Mitchison's four sons were Geoffrey (1918-1927, who died of meningitis) Denis (born 1919) later a professor of bacteriology, Murdoch (born 1922), and Avrion (born 1928), both professors of zoology.
They lived from 1939 at Carradale House at Carradale in Kintyre, where Naomi died in 1999.
Literary Career
Mitchison was a prolific writer, completing more than 90 books in her lifetime, across a multitude of styles and genres. These include historical novels such as her first novel The Conquered (1923) a story set in 1st century BC Gaul during the Gallic Wars of Julius Caesar, and her second novel Cloud Cuckoo Land (1925) set in 5th century BC Ancient Greece during the Peloponnesian War.
Later works included more historical novels The Bull Calves (1947) about the 1745 Jacobite Rising and The Young Alexander the Great (1960). Mitchison also turned to fantasy such as Graeme and the Dragon (1954;
Undoubtedly her most controversial work, We Have Been Warned was published in 1935 and explored sexual behaviour, including rape and abortion.
After her husband's death, Mitchison wrote several memoirs, published as separate titles between 1973 and 1985.
Activism
Mitchison, like her brother, was a committed Socialist in the 1930s. In 1939, when World War II broke out, Dick and Naomi Mitchison moved to Carradale in Scotland where they spent the rest of their lives.
Mitchison's advocacy continued in other ways.
Mitchison was a Life Fellow of the Eugenics Society. Mitchison helped found the first birth control clinics in London.
Later life
On 5 October 1964, Dick Mitchison was created a life peer as Baron Mitchison of Carradale in the County of Argyll on retirement for his political work. His wife Naomi thus became Lady Mitchison (as the wife of a Life Peer), but apparently chose not to use the title.
Bibliography
Biographies of Mitchison
Naomi Mitchison: A Biography by Jill Benton (London: Pandora, 1990) The Nine Lives of Naomi Mitchison (1997, Virago)Autobiography
Mitchison's autobiography is in three parts.
Small Talk: Memories of an Edwardian Childhood All Change Here: Girlhood and Marriage (1975) - published together as: As It Was: An Autobiography 1897-1918 (1975) You May Well Ask: A Memoir, 1920-1940 (1979)Note on her title
She apparently never used it in life.
Her title came from her husband, who was made a Life Peer in 1964. Naomi Mitchison was not properly entitled to be called Lady Naomi Mitchison (although The Guardian and some other news sources make or perpetuate this error), but was rather Baroness Mitchison of Carradale formally, or less formally Lady Mitchison. She apparently preferred to be known as Naomi Mitchison.
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