Early Career
Mitchell joined the Colonial Administrative Service in 1913. He was sent to Zomba District in Nyasaland as an assistant resident. While there he learned the Nyanja language, with some difficulty since it is a Bantu language completely unrelated to European languages. He served in the King's African Rifles during World War I (1914–1918). During this period he became completely fluent in the Swahili language. In 1922 he was promoted to District Commissioner at Tanga, a seaport on the coast of Tanganyika near the Kenyan border. In 1925, while on leave in South Africa, he married Margery Tyrwhitt-Drake.
As Tanganyika Secretary for Native Affairs, in 1929 Mitchell supported cooperatives, and claimed that "in a sense every Bantu village is in fact a co-operative society". The Tanganyika government did not act on his recommendation, using lack of staff and budget as the reason.
Read more about this topic: Philip Euen Mitchell
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