Background
MITFORD, Robert Sidney was born on March 15, 1849 in London. Son of Robert Henry Mitford, Hampstead, and Anne, youngest daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel William Henry Wilby, Bishop-Stortford, and sister of late Lieutenant - General William Wilby, Companion of the Bath.
Education
Privately; Merchant Taylors’. Clerk in the Home Office, 1868. Assist, private secretary to Secretary of State, 1870.
Career
Private secretary to Secretary of State, 1873. To Parliamentary Under Secretary, 1874. To successive Secretaries of State from 1873 till appointed Commissioner of Prisons for England and Wales, 1882.
Member of Home Office Committee appointed in January 18S3 to inquire into the position and prospects of Convict Warders and Broadmoor Asylum Attendants.
Member of Treasury Committee appointed in 1889 to inquire into the Salaries of Prison Medical Officers and Chaplains in Scotland. Chairman of Home Office Committee on the Education and Moral Instruction of Prisoners in Local and Convict Prisons, 1896.
Retired, 1909. Commissioner of Prisons for England and Wales, 1882-1909.
Director of Convict Prisons, 1892- 1909.