Career
Mitchell was the first Australian woman to be a judge, a Queen"s Counsel, a chancellor of an Australian university and the Governor of an Australian state. Dame Roma Mitchell was considered to be a pioneer of the Australian women"s rights movement. Her grandfather, Samuel James Mitchell, was the first Chief Justice of the Northern Territory.
She was an alumna of Street Aloysius Convent College, Adelaide and the University of Adelaide.
Mitchell was made a Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia in 1965. She was still the only female judge in South Australia when she retired 18 years later in 1983 although Justices Elizabeth Evatt and Mary Gaudron had been appointed to federal courts by the Whitlam Government.
She was Governor of South Australia from 1991 to 1996, the first female Governor in Australia.