MITCHISON, Rosalind (Mary) 1919-2002

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born April 11, 1919, in Manchester, England; died following a stroke September 20, 2002, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Historian, educator, and author. Mitchison was a respected social historian who was particularly interested in the history of Scotland. She was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she earned her master's degree in 1942. Mitchison found work as an assistant lecturer at Manchester University during World War II, and after the war was briefly a tutor in modern history at her alma mater. Married in 1947, she did not work again until after the family moved to Edinburgh, and it was here that Mitchison became interested in Scottish history. She was hired as an assistant in history at the University of Edinburgh in 1954, taught for a few years at the University of Glasgow during the 1960s, and returned to Edinburgh to become a lecturer and, in 1976, reader in economic history; she was professor emeritus of social history from 1981 to 1986. Mitchison's many books on Scottish history are credited with helping to popularize the subject. Among these works are A History of Scotland (1970), The Making of the Scottish Poor Law (1974), Lordship to Patronage: Scotland, 1603-1745 (1983), Life in Scotland (1987), and the coauthored book Sexuality and Social Control: Scotland 1660-1780 (1989), which was revised in 1998 as Girls in Trouble: Sexuality and Social Control in Rural Scotland 1660-1780 and under the titillating title Sin in the City. For her distinguished work, Mitchison received honorary doctorates from the Open University and St. Andrews University; she was also a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and former president of the Scottish Historical Society.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Writers Directory, 17th edition, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2002.

PERIODICALS

Daily Telegraph (London, England), September 24, 2002.

Guardian, October 4, 2002, p. 20.

Herald (Glasgow, Scotland), September 28, 2002, p. 16.

Independent (London, England), September 21, 2002, p. 20.

Scotsman, September 26, 2002, p. 16.

Times (London, England), September 27, 2002, p. 34.