MITCHELL, JOHN THOMAS WHITEHEAD 1895), English Co-operator, was born at Rochdale on Oct. 18, 1828. He was an illegitimate child, greatly attached to his mother, who, to support them, kept a small beerhouse and later let lodgings to workmen. Not only did poverty make his schooling irregular, but at tho age of to or 11 he worked in a cotton mill from 6 A.M. to 7 P.M. On Sundays he attended classes to improve his reading and writing and to obtain some knowledge of less ele mentary subjects. Later he was employed in the warehouse of a flannel mill at 16/— a week, rising to be manager. When he was 22 he became superintendent of the Milton Road Congregational Sunday school, an office he held throughout his life. Through dis cussions at the Sunday school his interest in co-operation was aroused; he joined the Rochdale Pioneers Co-operative Society in 1853, and served on its management committee for several years. In 1869, he was elected a director of the Co-operative Wholesale Society—started in 1863, and its future still uncertain.
Hitherto, the ideal of Co-operators had been that manufacture should be carried on in self-governing workshops, the profits being divided amongst the workers. But a new principle had been in troduced by the device of "dividend on purchase." This brought success to the Rochdale Pioneers and a rapid increase in the num ber of retail co-operative societies, while productive workshops were continually failing. By this device, the surplus on trading was returned to the consumers, and profit-making was eliminated.
A system was thus inaugurated in which the consumers organized distribution and production for use, to supply their own needs. Mitchell was the first to understand the possibilities of this system and something of its underlying theory (of which the full implica tions were first shown by Mrs. Sidney Webb in 1891), and he be lieved that it could become co-extensive with the nation. The success of this system in England, largely due to Mitchell, has led to its being copied in 36 countries, and these national movements comprise now (1928) over 50,000,00o individ uals. Mitchell was appointed chairman of the Co-operative Whole sale Society in 1874; his business ability steered the C.W.S. through serious difficulties in the and under his chairman ship a strong financial position was built up, large developments in banking and manufacture being initiated.
Mitchell never married and in his later years lived alone, looked after by a devoted neighbour—a man he had befriended on re lease from prison. His income from Co-operative work never exceeded L 7o a year. This practical idealist had built up, through "voluntary a great inheritance for his fellows, and so lived for what he called good of the body For accounts of Mitchell see C.W.S. Annual, 1896 (Manchester), P. Redfern, John T. W. Mitchell (Manchester, 1923) ; Mrs. Sidney Webb, The Discovery of the Consumer (1828).