Background
Mitchell-Thomson was born in Edinburgh, the son of Mitchell Mitchell-Thomson, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, who was created a baronet in 1900.
Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom
Mitchell-Thomson was born in Edinburgh, the son of Mitchell Mitchell-Thomson, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, who was created a baronet in 1900.
Mitchell-Thomson was educated at Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford.
He earned his Bachelor of Laws with distinction from the University of Edinburgh in 1902. He joined the Scottish bar that same year, but spent several years traveling before returning to Scotland. He was an Irish Unionist Party Member of Parliament for North Down from April 1910 until 1918.
During the First World War, he served as Director of Restriction of Enemy Supplies.
He was was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1918 New Year Honours. Following the War, he was appointed the British representative on the Supreme Economic Council followed by appointments as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food and at the Board of Trade.
He was then Member of Parliament for Glasgow Maryhill between 1918 and 1922, then Conservative Member of Parliament for Croydon South, South London from 1923 to 1932. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1918 New Year Honours.
In 1922, Mitchell-Thomson was Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade and from 1924 until 1929, he served as Postmaster General.
During the General Strike of 1926, he served as Chief Civil Commissioner. He was made a Privy Counsellor in 1924. In 1932, Mitchell-Thomson resigned from the House of Commons and was raised to the peerage as Baron Selsdon, of Croydon in the County of Surrey.
In May 1934 the British government appointed a committee, under the guidance of Lord Selsdon, to begin enquiries into the viability of setting up a public television service, with recommendations as to the conditions under which such a service could be offered.
The results of the Selsdon Report were issued as a single Government White Paper in January of the following year. The British Broadcasting Corporation was to be entrusted with the development of television
Lord Selsdon was one of those to appear on the first day of British Broadcasting Corporation television broadcasts, 2 November 1936, now in his new capacity as Chairman of the Television Advisory Committee.
28th United Kingdom Parliament. 31st United Kingdom Parliament. 32nd United Kingdom Parliament.
33rd United Kingdom Parliament.
34th United Kingdom Parliament. 35th United Kingdom Parliament.
36th United Kingdom Parliament]
He was elected as a Unionist Member of Parliament for North West Lanarkshire in 1906, serving until his defeat at the January 1910 general election.