Patrick Slater
Patrick Slater is the pen name of John Wendell Mitchell, a Canadian author and lawyer born on April 1, 1880, in Mono, Ontario. He grew up in a household impacted by his father's departure to study medicine, which led to a challenging upbringing for him and his mother. Mitchell pursued his education at Victoria College, the University of Toronto, and later attended Osgoode Hall Law School, becoming a practicing lawyer in 1907.
His literary career began with the publication of his acclaimed novel, *The Yellow Briar*, in 1933, which was marketed as the biography of an Irish orphan, despite the author’s true identity being revealed later. This novel resonated with readers during the Great Depression, offering a poignant narrative set in the Canadian countryside. Mitchell faced personal and professional turmoil in 1935, leading to disbarment and incarceration, experiences that influenced his subsequent works.
Despite the hardships he encountered later in life, including losing his farm and dealing with health issues, Mitchell continued to write until his death in 1951. His final work, *The Settlement of York County*, was published posthumously. Patrick Slater, through his literary contributions, remains a notable figure in Canadian literature, particularly for addressing themes relevant to his time.
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Patrick Slater
- Born: April 1, 1880
- Birthplace: Mono, Ontario, Canada
- Died: October 18, 1951
Biography
Patrick Slater is the pen name of John Wendell Mitchell, born April 1, 1880, in Mono, Ontario, Canada. His parents were William Mitchell and Clara Henderson Mitchell. His father left the family to study medicine when Mitchell was a child, after which mother and son moved to a Toronto boarding house. Mitchell studied at Victoria College of the University of Toronto, lived for a time in England and Ireland, then moved back to Canada to attend the Osgoode Hall Law School. He became a lawyer in 1907 and continued to practice law for twenty-eight years.
When he was in his forties, he bought a farm at the Forks of the Credit. This environment helped inspire his first and most highly regarded novel, The Yellow Briar: A Story of the Irish on the Canadian Countryside. It alleged to be the autobiography of a man named Patrick Slater, an Irish orphan raised in Ontario after the famine of the 1840’s, who supposedly died in 1924. The book was published in 1933, and even after the gimmick was exposed, the book continued to enjoy a great deal of commercial success and critical acclaim.
Things began going badly for Mitchell in 1935 when he accused himself of misusing his legal clients’ funds and asked to be arrested. He was disbarred and sentenced to six months in jail. He would draw on his experiences in prison for his next two books: The Water-Drinker (1937) and Robert Harding: A Story of Every Day Life (1938).
Mitchell lost his farm in 1942 and moved to Streetsville before health problems finally forced him back to the boarding- house district where he was raised. He died in 1951, in poverty, while working on a history of York County. The Settlement of York County was published the year after his death. Though his life came to a sad end, Mitchell (or “Patrick Slater”) will always be remembered for The Yellow Briar, a heartfelt novel that filled a need for Canadian readers at a time when the country was suffering through an economic depression.