David Stuart Mitchell

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Grave/Memorial:  		Mitchell, Daniel S

1880, Bengal, India

David and Margaret (née Stanley)

Imperial Signal Company, Royal Engineers

184576

Sapper

18 October 1918, Ndanda, Tanzania, age 37

War Cemetery in Dar es Salaam: T 6 F 8. 		   

Biography:
David Stuart Mitchell was born in 1880. He was the son of David Henry (working in Government dockyard) and Margaret Eleanor
(née Stanley). He may have been born in Cork, Ireland, but was baptised in Bengal, India and probably born there. His father
travelled widely.

He was married at Holy Trinity Church, West End, Woking, Surrey on 15 February 1902 to Lois Cheeseman. Together they had
three children. In 1911, they were living in Mabel Street, Woking and David was working as a painter’s labourer.

David Stuart Mitchell died of illness in Ndanda, Tanzania. He was initially buried at Ndanda; after the Armistice, he was exhumed
and buried in Mtama Cemetery (Grave Reference I C 5). In the 1970s, when military graves from all over Tanzania (where
maintenance could no longer be assured) were brought into the new War Cemetery in Dar es Salaam, where he was re-interred in
grave T 6 F 8.




At the outbreak of the First World War Tanzania was the core of German East Africa. From the invasion of April 1915, Commonwealth forces fought a
protracted and difficult campaign against a relatively small but highly skilled German force. The Germans finally surrendered on 23 November 1918, twelve
days after the European armistice.

Dar es Salaam was the capital of German East Africa. The Royal Navy systematically shelled the city from mid-August 1916; at 8 am on 4 September, the
deputy burgomaster was received aboard H.M.S. "Echo" to accept the terms of surrender.

Dar Es Salaam War Cemetery was created in 1968 when the 660 First World War graves at Dar es Salaam (Ocean Road) Cemetery had to be moved to
facilitate the construction of a new road. As the burials in the three former plots had not been marked individually, they were reburied in collective graves,
each marked by a screen wall memorial. (Memorial Gardens "B", "C" and "D"). During the early 1970s, a further 1,000 graves were brought into this site
from cemeteries all over Tanzania, where maintenance could no longer be assured.

Dar es Salaam War Cemetery now contains 1,764 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 60 of them unidentified.



David Stuart Mitchell is also commemorated on the memorial tablet within Knaphill Holy Trinity Church.