George Eric Mitchell

George Eric Mitchell was shot when he went to the assistance of a 60-year-old woman that was being attacked in Wilton Road in Victoria, London on the night of Friday 28 February 1947, at about 11pm.

He was taken to Westminster Hospital where he was operated on, but died ten days later on Monday 10 March 1947.

He had gone to the woman's assistance after hearing a noise during the blackout and had found her being attacked by two men.

George Mitchell had been a Borough Engineer and had lived in Merthyr Tydvil. He had only just arrived in London a few hours earlier on business and had been on the way to his hotel, the Wilton Hotel, at the time.

The woman had run the Warwick Dress Agency at the corner of Wilton Road and Longmore Street in Victoria, London. She had just been out visiting friends and when she returned to her shop and stepped into the doorway, which was described as being rather deep, she was confronted by the two men who had been standing in the shadow. She said that one of the men pulled out a revolver and demanded the keys to her shop safe and that when she screamed loudly, she was knocked to the ground.

George Mitchell, who had been passing by at the time then ran to her assistance and tackled the men, but was hit by one of the men and shot in the stomach by the other.

The police appealed to anyone that had been in the vicinity of Wilton Road between 11pm and 11.15pm to come forward.

Before he died George Mitchell was able to give a description of the gunman that shot him.

On 19 July 1947 a man was interviewed in Leicester over the murder and then brought down to London where an identification parade was held, but nothing further developed.

On Friday 19 December 1947 it was reported that the police went to Manchester to question a man in relation to George Mitchell's murder that had been arrested in relation to a minor offence there, but again, nothing more came of that.

Before George Mitchell was appointed Borough Engineer at Merthyr Tydvil in February 1946, he had been a surveyor and water engineer at Wells. He had gone to Wells from Cromer and had previously served under the boroughs of Stockton-on-Tees, Saltburn, Edmonton and Southgate.

His funeral took place at Christ Church on Tuesday 18 March 1947. He had had a wife and two children.