Who Was Mr. H. E. Howell?

Here in the States, we just love numbers that end in fives, but we love zeroes even more. And a number just isn't anything unless it ends in double or triple zeroes. A baseball player with 99 career home runs is just a guy, as they say. A fellow with 100 home runs in his career—now he's something special!

There was a news bit the other evening that the St. Louis baseball manager, Tony LaRussa, was the first since the legendary Cornelius McGillicuddy in 1950 to reach 5,000 managerial wins for his career. Of course, LaRussa was also the first one since then to reach 4,998 and 4,999, but they just weren't quite the same accomplishments, now, were they?

I say this because the temperature here in north central Florida is predicted to reach 99°F today, and despite the discomfort it will cause, there are those who will be disappointed if it doesn't touch the century mark!

This all has nothing to do, however, with the topic of today's back burner item, although the word "burner" is clearly apropos.

It now has been over a year since I received a copy of the first book written by George Mills, 1933's Meredith and Co. At the time, I posted the contents of the book's preface. In part, it reads [emphasis mine]:

I wish to acknowledge, with much gratitude, the help and encouragement received from many friends; particularly from Mr. A. Bishop, the Head Master of Magdalen College School, Brackley, and from my old friend, Mr. H. E. Howell, who have read the book in manuscript form. I am also very much indebted to that splendid specimen of boyhood, the British Schoolboy, who has given me such wonderful material.

First of all, wouldn't it be something were that original manuscript copy to turn up?

Secondly, while I've closed the gap on the identity of Mr. A Bishop (and hope to write about that soon), Mr. H. E. Howell remains a mystery.

The first matter of business in chasing down any such name is to try to tease a Christian name out of those initials. In this case, I'm afraid there is not even a very solid guess that I'd go to war with.

Mills, I've felt, must have been writing Meredith in London, although that may not be accurate. Labouring, however, under that assumption, I scoped the London telephone directories of the era for a Howell with the first initial "H."

One name did jump out immediately: Hinds Howell, a physician who lived and/or practiced at 145 Harley Street, W.1. He certainly would have been well-schooled enough not to simply offer Mills a pat on the back about his book and to diagnose certain inadequacies.

Also, that name "Hinds Howell" traces back into the late 19th century when a "Canon Hinds Howell, MA," resided at the Drayton Rectory—where Watkin Williams, friend and colleague of George's father, the Revd Barton R. V. Mills—once was located.

However, the physician, Hinds Howell, turns out to be Conrad Meredith Hinds Howell (1877 – 1960), and clearly not an H. E. Howell.

Now, I'm sure, the term "old friend" doesn't necessarily imply Howell's chronological age, but the fact that he and Mills had enjoyed a friendship that lasted many years. Where might they have met? Parkfield School? Harrow? In the neighbourhood at Kensington? Under the Colours? At Oxford?

There was also a Hamilton Howell, who resided at 14 Norfolk Terrace in Brighton. Mills might have met him while teaching at Windlesham House and living in Portslade in 1925–26. Would that time frame characterize an "old friend" by 1933?

In 1937, there are also a "Harry E." and a "Herbert E." among the Howells of London, along with our discredited "Hinds."

But who are they? Our answer here clearly doesn't lie in the telephone book.

One might assume Howell was a learned man, a man whom Mills would have trusted for advice of a literary nature. I'm sure Georges wife and perhaps his sisters also read his manuscript, followed by a hearty, "That's simply wonderful, George!" The men mentioned in the preface above, though, are likely men of letters who would have provided more of a practical critique.

Let's look elsewhere.

We find an H. E. Howell mentioned in the 1913 edition of The Devonian Year Book of the London Devonian Association. On page 25, there is a description of a re-enactment of the game of bowls being played when the "Armada" was sighted, and a speech was given in the Great Empress hall by Mr. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty (who, in his remarks, announced he "sprang from a good old Devonian family" ), to the London Devonian Club, the Exeter Club, the Three Towns Association, the Barumites of London, the Ottregians, the Tivertonians, representatives of the Devonian Clubs of Southend, Southampton, Swansea, Newport, Portsmouth, etc., as well as "the men and women of Devon."

Among the specifically named members of the company, on page 26, we find a "Mr. H. E. Howell."

Besides honeymooning in and retiring to Devon later in life, George Ramsay Acland Mills had family in Devonshire that once owned vast amounts of the land: The Aclands. In 1913, those holdings had not been converted to the National Trust or sold, and Mills most likely was able still to avail himself of Acland hospitality during holidays away from both Cornwall as a youngster, and London as an older boy and young man.

Devon is as likely a place for the "old" Howell – Mills connection as any. Perhaps they met there as children.

[An aside perhaps of interest only to Keith's mum: It was during a London Devonian Association dinner in honor of his neighbour, Clive Morison-Bell, held on 17 March 1914, that Ernest Shackleford sketched on the back of his menu card his planned route for the Imperial Trans-Arctic Expedition, including calculations that could be used to "fix" the South Pole. The expedition, however, ended up with his ship, the Endurance, crushed in pack ice in the Weddell Sea and the crew temporarily marooned on Elephant Island. Incidentally, the menu that evening was "turbot dieppoise, tomato with tapioca, Kirsch sorbet and glace plombiere."]

Another reference teased out of the blizzard of information provided by the internet is this nugget [right], gleaned from The Liberal Magazine, volume 19, in 1911. It contains an item attributed to a "Mr. H. E. Howell" of "Brierley" on "April 19th, 1911" that reads: "Though Lord Beaconsfield had not the privilege of English blood himself, he was the greatest of English statesmen since the days of Pitt. In these days there was a curious renaissance of the Celt in politics. . . . There was a boiling-up of Celtic fervour, something like that last great effort in the early colonising days before King Alfred, which broke itself in useless fury against Saxon steadfastness on the despairing field of Brunnan- burgh."

That "snippet" is all I can read on-line, but these words indicate the sort of learned man that George Mills might have relied on for advice, as well as friendship. It also isn't clear if the Brierley cited is in Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, or Herefordshire. Is there one in each?

However, the dates here are instructive. Mills was born in 1896, and would have been 15 years old when the item above was written, and 17 when Churchill made his speech.

If this is our "Mr. H. E. Howell," he is then quite probably at least a few years older than George Mills. And a location in Brierley—situated some 182 miles north of London—makes sharing a manuscript difficult in the days of no faxes, PDFs, or e-mail attachments. Perhaps the geography had changed a great deal by 1933.

A 1911 U.K. census summary [above, left] shows no H. E. Howell in London or in Brierley—but one living in a cottage on Bath Road in the civil parish of Wells in Somerset with a female and another male. There is no other "H. E. Howell" in the census.

Two men—Harry Howell and Herbert Howell—show up in "Brierley" (or at least in "Hemsworth/Yorkshire West Riding" in the 1911 census.

Harry was born in 1883, some 13 years before Mills, in Plymouth, England. That would make him a Devonian!

There is also evidence of soldiers named H. E. Howell having served. One was killed in action.

Records from World War I show [right] there was, however, a "Harry E. Howell" in the Army Service Corps—a A.S.C. private, just like George Mills—during the First World War. There is no other indication that this Howell is our man, however.

Another—very clearly listed as "H. E. Howell," with "Herbert E." added later—had been a gunner in the Royal Field Artillery corps from February 1915 until July 1917. He earned a couple of medals in France, but there are no remarks about wounds, death, or a forwarding address; simply: "Dis. 20. 7. 17." "Dis." would presumably mean "discharged"?

Having been assigned to France, it is unlikely he's our man, Mills having served, but stayed in England.

Let's get back to the Herbert Howell from the 1911 census. He was born in 1891, but I can't find a place of birth.

There's only one other Herbert E. Howell among the WWI records [left], and he served as a private, at first in the 2nd London Regiment, but then transferred to—you guessed it!—the Army Service Corps.

Again, though, short of his initials and assignment, there's no real evidence that this is our man. After all, I suspect that the whole of the A.S.C. was comprised of more than, say, a couple of dozen chaps who all knew each other very well.


So, where are we in all of this?

According to the internet, the temperature here has reached a steamy 99, but the heat radiating from our sun-drenched back patio is causing the thermometer out there to read a even more sultry 106° F.

I know the heat isn't really on to discover the identity of this Mr. H. E. Howell, a man so obviously important to George Mills, personally and as an author, professionally. But I do want to.

Right now, there's one more link to Mr. H. E. Howell that we haven't touched on, and it involves All Saints Margaret Street Church, Father Basil Jellicoe, Magdalen College, and the identity of the Mr. A. Bishop mentioned in the preface.

We'll take a look at that last link next time. Stay tuned…

Adding Antarctica!

Sometimes, while working on this George Mills project, I wonder what actually gets read and what doesn't. Do my hits from Uzbekistan or Benin really mean anything? Probably not. Still, who knows? I just click "Publish," and whatever I've written whirls out into the world via broadband, and I often never know what comes of it.

But sometimes a reaction from a reader arrives, and it's simply… Brilliant!

Just a few hours after I posted my tongue-in-cheek request for information that might tie my research to Antarctica, I received this anonymous message:

Keith's mum says that Ernest Shackleton spent time in Eastbourne...


Of course, I was completely unaware of Shackleton's Eastbourne connection. And what a timely response!

First, here’s a brief description of Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton from the Encyclopædia Britannica:

(Born , Feb. 15, 1874, Kilkea, County Kildare, Ireland—died Jan. 5, 1922, Grytviken, South Georgia) British explorer. In 1901 he joined Robert Falcon Scott's expedition to the Antarctic. He returned to Antarctica in 1908 and led a sledging party to within 97 mi (156 km) of the pole. In 1914 he led the British Trans-Antarctic Expedition, which planned to cross Antarctica via the South Pole. His expedition ship Endurance was caught in pack ice and drifted for 10 months before being crushed. Shackleton and his crew drifted on ice floes for another five months until they reached Elephant Island. He and five others sailed 800 mi (1,300 km) to South Georgia Island to get help, then he led four relief expeditions to rescue his men. Shackleton died on South Georgia at the outset of another Antarctic expedition.


Regarding his residence in Eastbourne, here's information from a site entitled Low-Latitude Antarctic Gazetteer Database Index.

Site No 258

House No 11 — The Eastbourne house.

14 Milnthorpe Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK.

In later years the Shackletons, certainly Emily and the children, seemed to be living at Eastbourne on the Sussex coast. Sir Ernest was there between April and December, 1919, from June to December 1920 and April to August, 1921 (according to James and Margery Fisher's Shackleton).

My visit of 1/30/98: The house is located perhaps a mile west (I believe) from the center of Eastbourne. It is in a very interesting section of the town called The Meads and only a block or two from the seafront.

I also visited the house with Jonathan Shackleton on 1 November 2007, and had tea with the current residents. (The house was reconfigured into four flats about 20 years before.)

When information on the Eastbourne house appeared as a 'Low-Latitude episode," Judith Faulkner in Surrey wrote to say that she had visited the Eastbourne house in June 1994 and that it had, shortly thereafter, been honored by a ceramic blue plaque placed on the ground floor facade by the Eastbourne Civic Society and the Eastbourne Borough Council. The accompanying newspaper cutting (East Sussex Eastbourne Evening Argus) notes that Shackleton lived at 14 Milnthorpe Road "...for the last five years of his life before he died in 1922." The unveiling, on the 23rd of November 1994, was overseen by Shackleton's granddaughter, Alexandra Bergel. The photographs accompanying Ms Faulkner's letter show a 2-1/2 story semi-detached brick house on a tree-lined street.

Emily lived on at this address for sometime after Shackleton's death. Her correspondence with Hugh Robert Mill while the latter was writing his Life of Sir Ernest Shackleton (1923) is from this address.


This additional information was found on a site called China Rhyming:

Weekend Deviation – Emily Shackleton

Posted: April 10th, 2010

A rather weird but potentially interesting deviation this weekend. While back visiting the UK a few weeks ago I happened to be exploring villages around West Sussex. One, Coldwaltham, is an interesting little place – picturesque. Wandering around I happened to notice that the local churchyard, St Giles, contains the grave of the wife of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer. Shackleton’s daughter, Cicely, is also buried there.

Shackleton himself died while exploring and was buried in South Georgia in the South Atlantic in 1922 (how and why he was not shipped home for burial is apparently the subject of some controversy) while Emily, at home in Coldwaltham, died in 1936.


Google Maps shows that Shackleton's home at 14 Milnethorpe Road was a mere 1200 feet away from Warren Hill School, as the idiomatic crow flies, and it's highly unlikely that the boys were unaware of that the great polar explorer was so near. He must have been their hero, and quite a 'real' one at that!

Also, given sometime Head Master Joshua Goodland's standing as a Fellow in the Royal Geographical Society and lifelong love of travel and adventure, he at the very least is likely to have heard Shackleton speak in Kensington or elsewhere. For all we know, it may have been Shackleton's residence in Eastbourne that eventually drew Goodland to seek a place there as well!

It seems that Shackleton's celebrity would have made him a popular guest at local parties, and his charm is apparent in the accompanying photograph.

Anyway, many thanks to "Keith's mum" for linking Antarctica to my research here!

Antarctica , Ceylon, and a Gaggle of de Glanvilles

While Bertram George de Glanville, terminal owner of defunct Warren Hill School in Eastbourne, is not intrinsic to the story of George Mills—there's no reason to believe the men ever even met, for example—there is a bit more to know about him, courtesy of resolute researcher extraordinaire and friend of this site, Barry McAleenan.

This is from a recent message from Barry [with my emphases]:


I thought that you would like scans of the press cutting from The Times of Ceylon for January 31st 1925. You will find a reference to Mr and Mrs BG de Glanville in the G's. What I can't explain is how I remembered the name to link it with your recent citation. My great aunt Ursula Pirrie (nee McAleenan) was mother of the bride. Her sister, Evelyn Masters was an aunt to the bride. To further compound the coincidence, is to add that the bride was widowed in 1929 and, having done a runner from Spain at the beginning of the Civil War, was in Eastbourne in early August 1936 [cutting exists]. She could have met up with the de Glanvilles before Bertie went bust ...

Ascham St Vincents [de Glanville's address during Warren Hill's bankruptcy, seen above, left] was the full formal name of Ascham, a prep school feeder [now demolished] for Eastbourne College.

May Pirrie's father [Norman] was a first cousin of the Titanic's Lord Pirrie. Allegedly, they were brought up together for a short while. Same generation, but the orphaned Lord Pirrie (born 1847) was 17 years older and working when Norman (the last of 12) was born in 1864, so probably not in the same house.

[Throughout this entry, please find the entire clipping from The Ceylon Times regarding the wedding—click the images to enlarge.]


Barry also directs us to this excerpt from a blog, Turtle Bunbury [again, my emphases]:

The younger sister Kathleen Crawford Ievers (Kitty) married B. de Glanville of the Ceylon Civil Service. I believe this was Bertram George de Glanville, born in 1885 and educated at Taylor’s School, Crosby, and Worcester College in Oxford. [viii] He joined the Ceylon Civil Service as a cadet in 1908 and worked his way up the ladder to the offices of magistrate and district judge… In 1909, he marrried Dorothea Frances Allen (1879-1910), daughter of David Bird Allen of the Bengal Civil Service. Sadly she died the following year… In 1929, the year the Silvermugs succeeded as 3rd Baron Rathdonnell, Bertram became Chairman of the Colombo Port Commission (and was till there when “The Dominions Office and Colonial Office List” was released in 1932). The CPC was established in 1913… to administer the affairs of the Port and to collect customs from passing ships.[ix] They were responsible for developing the harbour, dredging the water and extending the warehouses, quays and waterways in the port. Kitty bore B[ertram] four sons (Ranulph[x], Geoffrey[xi], Robert[xii] and John) and two daughters (Joan[xiii] and Moira Dorothea[xiv]). These were also first cousins of The Baron.


According to a family tree at ancestry.com, Kitty was born in Jaffna, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1886, although her death certificate provides her birth year as "about 1885."

On 2 July 1928, she steamed into Plymouth from Colombo aboard the S.S. Herefordshire of the Bibby Bros. & Co. Line. She was alone, and her age is given as 42—hence a speculative birth year of 1886. She was traveling alone to "Eastnor, Exmouth," and intended to make England her "Country of Intended Future Permanent Residence."

The family tree also records 29 May 1931 as the date Mrs. de Glanville sailed into London with her children John and Moira, but there is no attached citation to provide evidence. (I have, however, found the manifest and that data is accurate.)

She passed away in Bishop Stortford in Hertfordshire in the late Spring of 1970.


Bertram George de Glanville, her husband and future principal of Warren Hill School, was born in Ashby Passa, Leicestershire, on 1 July 1885. The 1901 and 1911 U.K. censuses recorded him as living at Formby, Lancashire. On the latter date, Bertram was a 16-year-old "scholar" living with his older sister, Louise.

As above, the tree cites that he was educated at [Merchant] Taylor's School in Crosby, and at Worcester College, Oxford, where we already know he was an "Open Mathematical Scholar".

The tree records him joining the Ceylon Civil Service as a cadet in 1908 at the age of 23, followed soon by a marriage to Dorothea Frances Allen at St. Michael's Church in Colombo, Ceylon, on 21 September 1909.

The marriage did not last long, and the family records his residence in 1911 as having been 14 King's Square, Mitchelstown, Cork, Ireland. He was 26 and already a "widower." Dorothea had passed away in December 1910.

[From RootsWeb, Barry notes a relationship to Cork, Ireland, where Bertram had probably gone to mourn Dorothea's passing:

Father: James DE GLANVILLE b: 16 OCT 1843 in Kinnegad, Co Westmeath, Ireland

Mother: Emily Georgina CREAGH b: 1853 in Doneraile, Co Cork, Ireland]

The family tree next lists his promotion to Chairman of the Colombo Port Commission in 1929 at the age of 44.


The 1929 edition of The Dominions Office and Colonial Office List (comprising historical and statistical information respecting the oversea dominions and colonial dependencies of Great Britain) contains the following entry. It has been gleaned through dozens of dubious and often conflicting snippets generated by Google Books, by whom it was read mechanically. I have pieced it together as accurately as possible. Make of it what you will:

"DE. GLANVILLE, Bertram George. — B. 1885 ; ed. Merchant Taylors' sch., Crosby, and Worcester coll., Oxford ; cadet, Ceylon civ. ser., Nov., 1908; asst. coll. of cust. and pol. mag., Trincomalee, Dec, 1909 ; pol. mag., Matale, June, 1911; ag. addtl. comsnr. of requests and addtl. pol. Mag. Kurunegala, Aug., 1911 ; off. asst., to govt agt., W. Prov., Oct., 191 1 ; pol. mag., Panadure, Nov., 1911 ; asst. settmt. offr.. Fek. 1912; pol. mag., Kurunegala, Mar., 1912 ; secocic [sic]; for serv. under the excise comsnr., June, 1912. ag. comsnr. of excise, N. Divn., Jan., 1913: addtl. dist. judge and pol. mag., Ratnapun June, 1915; ditto, Kegalla, June, 1915: dk. judge, Nuwara Elira, May, 1916 ; asst. govt. agt., Mannar, July, 1917 ; ag. chmn., man. coun.; Colombo, Nov., 1920; asst. govt. agt., Kalutara Sept., 1921; dep. collr., cust., Aug., 1922; i prin. collr., cust., Oct.-Nov., 1922, and Dec. 1924 to Jan., 1925 ; asst. govt. agt., Trincomalee…     [missing text]…     gen., 8th Aug. to 3rd [illegible month] 1922 ; ag. atty.-gen., advoc. gen. and ads" [sic] advoc., contr., local clearing office and temp, mem., exec. coun. on various occasions, in 1923, 1924 and 1925; regisr.-gen., 23rd Apr., 1923."


Kathleen Crawford Ievers was de Glanville's second wife, but no date of that marriage is evident anywhere that I can find. Named children of the couple, however, are listed in his on-line family tree as:

Geoffrey Ievers de Glanville (1917 – 1993; moved from Ceylon to England in 1954 and passed away in Cornwall)

Robert de Glanville (1918 – 1942; born in Ceylon, he lived in Sussex at the onset of WWII, was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, posted to the Middle east, and was killed in action on 2 June near Bir Harmat leaving behind a wife he had married in 1940; his body was never recovered)

Moira Dorothea de Glanville (1921 – 1975; she arrived from Colombo on the S.S. Chesire in 1931 with her twin brother, John, her mother, and her maternal Grandmother, Cathleen Y. Ievers, aged 78, on their way to "Dr. Glanville, Eastnor, Essex"; she later lived in Sussex and married in 1945; she passed away in Epping Forest, Essex, as Mrs. Moira Dorthea Wait, age 53).

There are three other children, each listed only as "Living de Glanville," although that may or may not be fact. But it is possible that Randulph, John, and Joan may, indeed, be alive.

Bertram pre-deceased Kitty, passing in 1967 at Bishop Stortford, Hertfordshire.


Here are some additional tidbits gleaned from a reference section of Turtle Bunbury:

[ix] The Port of Colombo [left] has existed for many centuries but, due to its vulnerability to the South Western monsoons, was superseded by the Port of Galle as a landing place for passenger ships during the 19th century. In 1874 Governor William Gregory initiated work on the SouthWest breakwater for which he received a knighthood. This major development led to the shift of traffic from Galle to Colombo. The evolution of Colombo as the business centre of Ceylon commenced thereafter and all imports and exports came through the Colombo harbour. The commercial and mercantile sector grew within the Fort of Colombo. The Macan Markar jewellery business, established in Galle in 1860 shifted to Colombo in the early 1870s. From : "The Port of Colombo 1860- 1939", Dr K. Dharmasena (an economist). Published in 1980

[x] Ranulph de Glanville married Daphne Pethides and bore Susan, Sarah and Christopher Michael.

[xi] Geoffrey de Glanville married Angela Benison.

[xii] Robert de Glanville married Joan Davidson and was killed in action in 1941 [sic].

[xiii] Joan de Glanville married Vivian Sauvagny and had a son Philip.

[xiv] Moire Dorothea de Glanville married E.M.C. Wait and had a daughter, Angela Jean, and son, Jonathan.


One last word from Barry:

I'd swapped emails with Lynne Nelson [compiler of the RootsWeb info above] notionally because she mentions Emily Creagh [my grandmother's maiden surname] in her de Glanville listing and I'd been at university with a Tim de Glanville who had links with Ceylon, though I can't claim to have known him very well…

The local family history society have talks occasionally at one of the local schools. One such was by Peter Bailey [of Families in British India Society, including Ceylon, Burma etc; FIBIS.org]. Of the 700,000 names on their database, the 15, including 'de Glanville' [that I looked for] failed to get a single hit except for one - but that was for Johnson!


As time passes, I become more keenly aware of how small a planet we really do live upon. In researching George Mills and his life and times, I've been transported vicariously, via one character or another in this saga, to every continent on Earth, save one.

If someone could link this research to Antarctica, I would be most grateful. I even now can envision the aging-but-athletic Agnes & Violet Mills, clad in tweed-and-Gore-Tex® parkas and mukluks, having wielded their mallets amid penguins during the big Geographic South Pole Croquet Tournament, while George sat inside their Quonset hut, out of the stinging polar breezes, sipping a hot cup of tea, and working the Times crossword…

Well, Barry?

Just kidding. Thanks again for everything!