John Henry Michell, FRS (26 October 1863 – 3 February 1940) was an Australian mathematician, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Melbourne. Early life Michell was the son of John Michell (pronounced Mitchell), a miner, and his wife Grace, née Rowse and was born at Maldon, Victoria. His parents had migrated from Devonshire in 1854. Educated at first at Maldon, he went to Wesley College, Melbourne, in 1877, where he won the Draper and Walter Powell scholarships. In 1881 he began the arts course at the University of Melbourne, and qualified for the B.A. degree at the end of 1883. He had an outstanding course, heading the list with first-class honours each year, and winning the final honour scholarship in mathematics and physics. Michell then went to the University of Cambridge, obtained a major scholarship at Trinity College, and was bracketed senior wrangler with three others in the first part of the mathematical tripos in 1887. In the second part of the tripos in 1888, Michell was placed in division one of the first class. University of Melbourne Michell was elected a fellow of Trinity in 1890, but returned to Melbourne later the same year, and was appointed lecturer in mathematics at Melbourne University. He held this position for over 30 years. His academic work occupied so much of his time that it was difficult to do original research. The first of his papers, "On the theory of free streamlines", which appeared in Transactions of the Royal Society in 1890, had drawn attention to his ability as a mathematician, and during the following 12 years about 15 papers were contributed to English mathematical journals. It was recognized that these were important contributions to the knowledge of hydrodynamics and elasticity, and in June 1902 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), London. The number of his students at the University steadily increased, but there was no corresponding staff increase for a long while. Michell continued his research work but none of it was published. In 1923 he became professor of mathematics and, obtaining some increase of staff, established practice-classes and tutorials, thus considerably improving the efficiency of his department. Michell resigned the chair at the end of 1928 and was given the title of honorary research professor. He died after a short illness on 3 February 1940 at Camberwell. Michell did not marry. Michell published The Elements