The Passing of Lady Lydia Elizabeth Acland (née Hoare)

Over the next few entries, we'll be working to get a final few items on-line regarding the life, times, and family of George Mills.

Today, it'll be just a quickie: The obituary of George's great grandmother, Lady Lydia Elizabeth Acland, wife of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland of Killerton, Devon. Lady Acland passed away at the age of 69 on 23 June 1856 at 34 Hyde Park Gardens, London, residence of George's paternal grandfather, Arthur Mills, M.P., husband of her daughter Lady Agnes Lucy Acland Mills.

Lady Acland (née Hoare) is see in the portrait above, left, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, with her children Arthur Henry Dyke Acland and Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 11th Bt., George's great grandfather

Here is the article from page 257 of the August 1856 issue (Vol. 201) of The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review:

June 23, suddenly, at Hyde-park Gardens, London, the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Mills, aged 69, Lydia Elizabeth, wife of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Bart., M.P., of Killerton, Devonshire. The funeral of the late lamented Lady Acland took place on Saturday evening last, in the yard of the old family chapel of Columbjohn, and was attended in large numbers by the tenantry and their wives, by the poor, and by almost the whole neighbourhood. The scene was one of the most simple but affecting description, and the demeanour of all present evinced not only their reverence for the sacred rite then performing, but also their deep feeling for the departed, and her surviving relatives. The funeral was attended by Sir Thomas Acland and his four sons, by several grandchildren, by Lady Acland's nephews (sons of her brothers, Mr. George and Archdeacon Hoare) by Lord Carnarvon, Lord and Mr. Charles Courtenay, Right Hon. John Fortescue, Mr. Hoare of Luscombe, Mr. Blencowe, Mr. Jenkinson, Dr. Miller, and several other private friends. In the evening the procession started from the house, soon after six o'clock, and consisted of a hearse and four horses; mourning coaches with four horses each; three private carriages; and by some 300 or 400 of the tenantry on the estate. The Rev. J. Hellings, and the Rev. Appom officiated on the occasion. As a proof of the reverential feeling exhibited by the attendants, it may be stated that on the Lord's Prayer, in the funeral service, being commenced, everyone in the chapel-yard, amounting to several hundreds, immediately knelt, and continued in that posture till the whole was concluded.


Lady Acland, pictured, right, in a posthumous mezzotint executed by Samuel Cousins after an 1848 portrait by painter Joseph Severn, was buried in the graveyard of the Columbjohn Chapel at Broad Clyst, Devon, England.

While George Mills never met Lady Acland—he was born exactly 40 years after her death—this obituary does indicate the connections his family would have had among the powerful Aclands. While his grandfather, Arthur Mills, was an in-law, George's father was blood, as were George, his half-brother, and his sisters.

And, as we don't know where George's body was interred (if, in fact, he was not cremated), we must consider the fcat that George's final resting place may be in there Columbjohn, not far from George last residence in Budleigh Salterton.

I have been unable to find and access records regarding those laid to rest within that burial ground.

Mr. Egerton Clarke, Kezil, and the Popular Kerry Blue Terrier

By the end of September 1918 Egerton Arthur Crossman Clarke found himself demobilised from the military. The armistice would not be signed until 11 November of that year.

On 29 September 1918, the Kaiser had been advised that Germany's situation was hopeless. General Erich Ludendorff, according to Wikipedia, "could not guarantee that the front would hold for another 24 hours." Negotiations began in earnest in October.

To enlisted men around the camps in England, all of this must have been a secret, or just a part of an ever-grinding rumour mill at best.

Egerton Clarke, despite his weak heart and health issues, would have been anticipating staying in the service for a bit longer, and hitting the streets as a civilian during that month of October 1918 must have caught him a bit off guard, even if it was liberating. It's unlikely he had any knowledge that the hostile nations had entered into entente, and it's unlikely that he had been in the midst of preparing himself and planning for an armistice, and peace [above, left].

Egerton's 61 year old mother, Emma Anna Clarke, was ensconced at Thorley Wash, Hertfordshire, with her widowed and wealthy elder sister, Hannah Patten, so there was no immediate need to begin taking responsibility for her.

In fact, having been a scholar at St Edmund's School in Canterbury up until joining the ranks, Clarke probably knew little, if anything, about caring for himself in the world outside of academia. What would he do? Where would he go?

When one knows nothing but school, it's likely one would attempt a return to the safety, order, and stability of an educational institution. That was the case with young Egerton.

During our study of George Mills, Egerton's friend form the Army Pay Corps, we learned of an opportunity presented to veterans of the war to attend university. It was described here by Anabel Peacock, an archivist at Oxford:

[A veteran] was exempted from taking Responsions (preliminary examinations for entry) and the examinations of the First Public Examination, under a decree of 9 March 1920. This decree stipulated that until the end of Trinity Term 1923 any member of the University who had been engaged in military service for twelve months or more before his matriculation, was permitted to offer himself for examination in any Final Honours School, despite not having met the statutory conditions for admission to that School. This was on condition that he had obtained permission from the Vice Chancellor and the proctors; that he had entered upon the third term and had not exceeded the twelfth term following his matriculation; and that he had paid the fee for admission to the examinations the decree excused him from.


This was the situation of which Mills had taken advantage when he matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 19 October 1919, following his service under the Colours. It was probably under the auspices of the same decree that Clarke entered.

From Nicola Hilton, Archives Assistant at Oxford, we learn this about Egerton:

Egerton Arthur Crossman Clarke was born on the 20 September 1899 in Canterbury, Kent. He was the second son of Percy Carmichael Clarke, Clerk in the Holy Orders, deceased. Before coming to Oxford, Egerton attended St Edmund's School, Canterbury, Kent. He matriculated (ie was admitted to the University) from Keble College on 14 October 1918. I cannot find any record of a degree being conferred (ie at a ceremony) on Mr Clarke.


[Note: Thanks to Janine La Forestier, Clarke's granddaughter, we can identify Egerton's brother: "In front of me now is a letter in which he is answering a question my mother must have asked concerning his brother. The letter dated December 1, 1942 refers to his brother as John (Jack) Percy Dalzell Clarke born in 1892 and died 21/02/1915." (08-17-11)]


Considering the above information, we once again find a connection between Egerton and George Mills. It may only be circumstantial, but with both gentlemen, formerly mates in the armed forces, matriculating during the same week—Egerton on Monday and George on Saturday—it seems strange to think that they had not been in contact and that they had not been sharing, at the very least, loose plans to further their educations at Oxford.

And it may not be far-fetched to believe that Oxford may have been George's idea—and if not his idea, then a very practical decision. His father, the Revd Barton R. V. Mills, was a graduate, as had been his grandfather, Arthur Mills, M.P., and Barton still was alive—he was serving as a "Chaplain to the Forces"—and able to take the boys, advise them, and show them around a bit. Egerton's father, the Revd Percy Carmichael Clarke, had attended Cambridge, but unfortunately had passed away on 1902. There could have been no similar connection there.

It would have been comforting, one imagines, for both boys to know that they were heading off to university assured there would be at least one familiar and friendly face among the Oxon crowd.


By 1919, Egerton had become editor of Clock Tower at Keble, presumably a literary magazine of some sort, and his name appears in the 1919 calendar. He, however, actually was busily working on another literary project—and a somewhat surprising one.

In 1920, Clarke would publish his first book, with this lengthy title: The Popular Kerry Blue Terrier: Its History, Strains, Standard, Points, Breeding, Rearing, Management, Preparation for Show, and Sporting Attributes.

A new edition of this seemingly immortal book is still in print today. The original 1920 first edition is described thusly:

By Egerton Clarke. With a foreword by The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Kenmare. Line drawings by Hay Hutchison. Illustrated. London: Popular Dogs Publishing Co. [1920]. 12mo., 78p., blue cloth with gilt lettering, and endpapers, illustrated with photographs and drawings.


This project may only be a surprise to those who aren't aware of George Mills and his family's great affinity for dogs. From his father's early church-going days in Cornwall to reminiscences from his last years in Budleigh Salterton, an overall fondness for dogs pervades his story. One could even make the argument that a dog was the most popular character of a pair of his children's books.


Contrasting with the publication of The Popular Kerry Blue Terrier, Clarke also published a book of poems entitled Kezil and Other Poems [London : A.H. Stockwell, 1920]. Kezil is available today as a scanned reproduction of the original text, as well as on-line.

Clarke's dedication is quite interesting:


Dear ———

To whom one should dedicate a first book is often, I am told, a difficult question to decide.

For my part I can but feel that to offer this, my first to any one particular person would be both ungenerous and unfair, and it is for this reason I am persuaded to offer it, small though its value may be, to all those who have been good to me through-out my life.

So my offering is to you, friends, and among you :

Firstly, my Mother because you are also the mother of these poems ;

Nan, because without you these poems would not have been written by my hand, and because of your care for a stranger-child :

Madeleine, for the sake of your gentleness ;

Dorothy Sayers, in recognition of your kindness, and in appreciation of "Op" ;

Ernest Duggan, because of the door you opened for me ;

Gerald Crow, because you opened my eyes once and for all ; and last but not least

" Kezil," mysterious inspirer of so much.


EGERTON A. C. CLARKE.


THE GRANGE,

FOLKESTONE, June, 1920.



First of all, we find Egerton residing in Folkestone, near Dover, on the southeast coast, while writing at least this dedication.

We can determine some of his influences: Poet and biographer Gerald Henry Crow (we hopefully will hear more about him soon) and Oxford's own Dorothy L. Sayers, novelist, playwright, essayist, translator and poet. Here he specifically mentions the latter's interesting 1915 collection of poetry, Op. I.

Ernest Duggan and Madeleine are two unknown characters in the life of Egerton Clarke, circa 1920. Duggan did not attend Oxford, and Egerton has left us no clues with which to determine his identity—there are more than a few Ernest Duggans in the Empire, circa 1920. And Madeleine will remain a mystery, at least until she gains a surname.

Nan, however, is essentially nameless, but quite interesting nonetheless. She is appreciated in this dedication "because without you these poems would not have been written by my hand, and because of your care for a stranger-child."

These touching words imply not just the binding and careful treatment of a youth's injured hand, but that Egerton was treated with an overall care and tenderness that would not necessarily have been expected from a stranger. Heart-wrenching tales of orphans such as Oliver Twist and Jane Eyre were well-known, and while they had been around for many decades by the passing of Clarke's father in 1902, the more modern world at the turn of the 20th century still would not have been an orphan's proverbial oyster.

The presence of Nan caring for a "stranger-child" also gives us insight into the lack of mothering suffered by Egerton during his youth. Where he experienced the tenderness of Nan's care is unknown at this point. Perhaps early in France she had been his nurse. Perhaps she was a matron at St Edmund's School in Canterbury who took a liking to the boy—or he to her. Perhaps she was simply someone who watched after him when school was out, someone who allowed him to leave St Edmunds occasionally.

Apparently, at whatever time Nan bestowed her kindness, Clarke had had no mother to provide it for him. Knowing that our best guess right now is that his mother was in the workhouse at Watford in 1911, that would go a long way toward explaining why Egerton so very much needed a "Nan."

By contrast, Egerton's mother essentially is thanked for having given birth, and so, indirectly, having enabled him eventually to write the poems found within the text. There are certainly no immediate thanks for her, just an overall fondness, and a gratitude born of a worrisome life that finally seemed to have turned out well.

Missing from the dedication would be George Mills: A friend but not a powerful influence on Clarke's words and imagery.


"Kezil: A Fantasy" is a languidly alluring, Eastern erubescence of a poem, and well worth reading. Within the brief text, Clarke explains: "'KEZIL' a Persian word meaning 'red,' or sometimes, I believe 'the red one.' — E.C."

But for our purposes here, I've selected a different poem from this volume to share:


IN HOSPITAL.

SEMI-CONSCIOUS.


PALE shadows round my head.
In whispering conference,
Nurses moved, and one said,
"B. one-seven-five ref'rence,
A. F. discharge," like ghosts,
They swayed unreal about
The room, The Red Cross hosts.
I wished someone would shout —
I wanted so to sleep.
A cruel "Hush !" "Be quiet."
Was all I heard and "creep
Like mice ;" and " Special diet."
Now and then a single word,
A phrase, against my brain,
Insistent beat and stirred
The quietude to pain,
Then somewhere slammed a door.
One moment echoed deep
Along the empty corridor,
Outside, I turned and heard no more,
And turned again and fell asleep.


Winchester,
1918.


When last time we read of Egerton's hospital stays in Winchester, it appeared to have been so easy for him: Resting in bed, recuperating, enjoying some time away from duty. In the poem above, written in that bed, we can see that clearly was not the case as Clarke, reconstructing his lack of lucidity, expresses the semi-consciousness of his condition and does his best to capture fleeting and fragmented scraps of his environment.

His volume ends tenderly with this poem:


FINIS.

To M. C.


NOT so much pity, what better an end
Than a night of shadow and quiet sleep,
When there's nothing of love that's left to spend,
Why should we linger to fidget and weep ?

O little's the pity of such a kind,
Let us light our candle and go upstairs
As children do, and dropping down the blind
A comfort make wherein to say our prayers ;

Not so tenderly now, no endless kiss,
Nor hold my hand so long, now love is pain,
But say "sleep well, sweet dreams," and things like this—
"Good-night," laugh too, lest Love find fault again,

Pity can go the way of love, and now,
As though we had nothing of that to mend,
Politely unkissed let us nod and bow,
With a "God bless you, dear," and "Good-night, friend."


Quite a contrast, I think, to The Popular Kerry Blue Terrier ("Teeth set right ensure a strong grip on the terrier's natural foe—vermin"). Perhaps these final verses are dedicated to Madeleine—M. C.—who was probably not his lover, ascending the figurative stairs with him 'as children do.'

Egerton Clarke would go on to write texts, poems, and a play. Here is as complete a bibliography as I can manage for his works after 1920:


• The Ear-ring: A comedy in one-act. [London: Egerton, 1922]

• The Death of Glass and Other Poems. [London: Egerton, 1923]

• Nature Poems. [Amersharm: Morland, 1923]

• The Death of England. [London: C. Palmer, 1930]

• The Seven Niches: A Legend in Verse. [London: C. Palmer, 1931]

• St Peter, the First Pope. [London: Burns, Oates, & Washbourne, 1936]

• Our Lady of Flowers. [London: Burns, Oates, & Washbourne, 1937]

• Alcazar and Other Poems. [London: Burns, Oates, & Washbourne,1937]


Editions of Who's Who in Literature in 1928 described Clarke in this way:

CLARKE, Egerton A. C. b. 1899. Ed. Clock Tower (KebleColl.,Oxford), 1919. Au. Of Kezil and Other Poems (Stockwell), 1920; The Earring (one-act comedy); (Hugh Egerton), 1922. Sub.-Ed. National Opinion, 1922. C. Morn. Post, West. Gaz., Colour, Even. News, Dy. Mirror, Poetry Rev., Oxford Poetry, Oxford Fort. Rev., Nat. Opinion. 73, EGERTON GARDENS. S.W.3.


So, by 1928 Clarke, who had published with a publisher called Egerton, was living in London, interestingly in Egerton Gardens, situated just across Brompton Road and less than 1,000 feet from the Holy Trinity Church in which George Mills wed Vera Louise Beauclerk in 1925.

Egerton did not attend.

Clarke did follow George into the world of wedded bliss when he returned to Winchester and married Teresa Kelly in the spring of 1926.


[Note: Janine also reports that "Therese received her nurses training from Guys Hopital in 1922." Note the spelling of Mrs. Clarke's name. A photograph depicting her nurse's uniform can be found at Rediscovering Egerton Clarke. (08-17-11)]


We can see from the bibliography and the brief biography above that 1926 was in the middle of a 6 year period during which Clarke did not publish a book, although another edition of The Popular Kerry Blue Terrier would be published in 1927 or 1928.

An on-line reference to this new edition describes it thusly:

Clarke, Egerton.
The Popular Kerry Blue Terrier
Popular Dogs Publishing Company, Ltd, c1928
65b, Long Achre, London, W.C.2.

Egerton Clarke of Narcunda Kennels wrote the “Popular Kerry Blue Terrier”, with a forward by the Rt. Hon. The Earl of Kenmare. Illustrations by Hay Hutchison. Published by Popular Dogs Publishing Company Ltd. in England in the 1920's. There is no publishing date in the book, but advertising for The Bog Kennels on page 71 makes reference to the dates 1925 and 1926. This is the first book published on Kerry Blue Terriers. Addresses breed history, Standard, Points, Breeding, Rearing, Management, Preparation for show, and Sporting attributes. A very scarce book. Hardcover, 78 pages.


All we really know of Egerton at this time is that, after his marriage, he is associated with a place called "Narcunda Kennels," presumably in England. By 1930, however, his wife crops up in the Cruft's Dog Show Catalogue in the category [below, left]: "Class 806—FOX TERRIERS—MINOR LIMIT BITCHES." It reads: "2071 Mrs. England. Colonnade Credit. b. Born 24 Oct. 27. Breeder, Mrs. Egerton Clarke. By Earlington Goldfinder—Selecta Merit."

[Just an aside: In this 1930 catalogue, the first person listed in the "Index to Exhibitors" is "Abbey, Lady Ursula, Woldhurst manor, Crawley, Sussex. 770." Lady Ursula Abbey, a well-known breeder of show dogs, played croquet with and against George Mills and his sisters during the 1950s and 1960s.]

Clarke, if nothing else, obviously shared a love of dogs, and of breeding dogs, with his bride. It's an odd interest for a child, Egerton, ostensibly raised in an orphan school, to have picked up. One wonders what sort of life that "Nan" was able to share with him before he went off to war, or if the school itself had a Kerry Blue Terrier that became a love of Egerton's life.

In fact, could some of Egerton's dog tales (no pun intended) have made their way into the stories of George Mills?


Let's look at an excerpt from an even more informative biography of Egerton Clarke, this time from The Catholic Who's Who & Yearbook: Volume 34, edited by Sir Francis Cowley Burnand in 1941:

Clarke, Egerton — b. 1899, s. of Rev. Percy Carmichael Clarke, some time Anglican Chaplain of Dinard, Brittany; educ. St Edmund's Schl Canterbury and Keble Coll. Oxford; received into the Church 1922; served 5 Devon Regt 1917-8; a Vice-Presdt of the Catholic Poetry Soc.; Sec. St Hugh's Soc. for Cath. Boys of the Professional classes; m. (1926) Teresa, dau. of Joseph Wm Kelly and Clara Kelly (nee Sheil), of Dublin (2 sons, 1 dau.). Publications: The Death of Glass and Other Poems (1923) — The Ear-ring (1923) — The Popular Kerry Blue Terrier '(1927)— The Death of England and Other Poems (1930) — The Seven Niches: a Legend in Verse (1932)— Alcazar (1937).


By 1941 Egerton and Teresa Clarke had two sons and a daughter. But what's really interesting here, along with the title of the text [right], is that he was "received into the Church 1922." During the mid- to late-1920s, Egerton had become involved in a new religion: Roman Catholicism.

Dogs. The Army Pay Corps. Oxford. Writing. Neither staying at Oxford to earn a degree. Fathers who were Anglican clergymen. And their own conversions to Catholicism.

Yes, there was a great deal that George Mills had in common with his friend, Egerton Clarke.


Next time we'll look at the children's books of Clarke and the final published text of George Mills, as well as reviewing Egerton's contributions to George's own literary work.

See you then…

Sidebar: Women, Technology, War, and the Army Pay Corps

It may be instructive at this point to examine what sort of an operation the Army Pay Corps was during the tenure of George Mills from 11 April 1917, when he transferred into Dover (presumably voluntarily), to his permanent and compulsory transfer out on 9 September 1918.

John Black published a paper entitled War, women and accounting: Female staff in the UK Army Pay Department offices, 1914-1920 in the Accounting History Review, Volume 16, Issue 2, July 2006 , on pages 195 – 218. Its abstract describes the situation in which members of the APC found themselves at the onset of hostilities during the First World War:

"The role of the APD [Army Pay Department] offices was to manage the pay and allowances of soldiers of the British Army, using the 'Dover' system of military finance and accounting which had been introduced in 1905 along with the command structure of the Army Finance Branch. The flexible 'Dover' system coped with the unprecedented increase in bureaucracy as the strength of the army rose from 140,000 in 1914 to over 5 million by 1918."

A valuable 2008 book, Women and Their Money 1700-1950: Essays on Women and Finance, edited by Anne Laurence, Josephine Maltby, and Janette Rutterford, features Black's detailed essay describing the operation of the APD and APC during the First World War, with their emphasis being on the women staffers. At one point, by some estimates, 28,000 women were employed in the department and corps.

One interesting part of the history of army payrolls is that apparently the system previously had been retrenched and reformed, leaving the APD and the APC in a state of temporary abandonment from 1904 to 1910. Black writes: "The onset of total war [in 1914] resulted in the urgent need for industrial as well as military expansion and mobilization… [and] for enormous administrative and clerical support, as the immediate bureaucratic expansion of the financial system of the Army caused a near-meltdown of the existing system."

The need for assistance resulted in women being recruited as unofficial volunteers to help at the Army Pay Office at Woolwich between August and the end of October 1914. The War Office, however, didn't approve and ordered their removal.

Ironically, just one week later, in November 1914, women were officially recruited for work in the War Office Finance Branch, working on "matters involving separation allowances and the disposal of the effects of soldiers who were battle casualties."

Black continues: "From January 1915 the War Office began to officially recruit clerks on a temporary basis for employment in all APD establishments, including the army pay offices… From 1915 onwards, there were increasing numbers of women clerks employed within APD establishments in the UK measured against the decline of male clerks from 1915 to 1920."

What we see here is that the Army Pay Corps, overwhelmed at the opening of hostilities and in need of clerical help, likely took advantage of as many BIII classified soldiers as possible. George Mills was probably a somewhat hot commodity, even in 1917, coming over from the Rifle Brigade where he'd served as an unpaid Lance Corporal. Even if Mills had left that brigade due to any sort of deficiency, physical or otherwise, we can see that an extra pair of hands would have been considered a boon to the suddenly burgeoning and understaffed APC.

Black also explains: "The loose-leaf ledger system was introduced into the army pay offices during 1915, some moths after the official recruitment of women clerks… [It] possibly accelerated the numbers of women clerks needed to operate the 'mechanical' function successfully. The number of women clerks recruited by July 1915 numbered only 479… Six months later in January 1916 the number had risen to 4,556 and by July 1916 had risen to 9,304."

The author also points out that expansion of the army's pay services spiraled because the "notion that the war begun in 1914 would be a short one, over by Christmas, had evaporated in November 1914," and the services suddenly needed to rethink what was necessary to meet such increased and prolonged demand. New technologies were introduced to pay offices that wouldn't find their way into other sections of the military until after the war.

Not only had loose-leaf mechanics replaced leather-bound ledgers, but stencil duplicators were also in common use, as well as "Qwerty" keyboard typewriters. Evidence of the use of all of these modernisms can easily be found in the WWI records of George Mills. The author also asserts that there is ample evidence the "Burroughs adding machines and other labour-saving devices were also being used at this time."

Black goes on to suggest that there was a "shallow learning curve" associated with the daily APC routine, and that "women and girls whose previous employment may have been as machine operatives and other unskilled factory work took on the role as compiler clerks within the army pay offices very quickly."

The payroll office in Nottingham in 1916 did research that "tends to demonstrate that the transfer of mechanical skills from blue collar to white blouse was quick and effective both in training and performance."

Not everyone was in agreement, however. A contemporary document, the Griffiths Committee Report, related the fact that up to 70% of clerical work in offices was being done by female labour, "much of it an inferior and inexperienced type… The majority of the remainder being men unfit for combatant service and many of them hardly fit for strenuous office work."

While this report certainly knocks the women working for the APC, it is certainly not the least bit flattering to the men in those offices, either. George Mills was likely not alone in being seen as a relatively useless cog in a increasingly complex paperwork-generating machine that was desperately in need of skilled assistance. In 1916, for example, the Army Pay Office dealt with "660,000 accounts, while 25,000 postal communications postal communication are received each day," many of which required follow up investigations. That overwhelming workload would have steadily increased as the war dragged on into 1917 and 1918.

One must keep in mind that Black has pointed out that the APD and APC were at the vanguard ushering in office technologies that most would have found uncommon at the time, especially in the UK. He offers the following quote: "In the United States [at the time] office mechanisation was driven in large part by an ideology of systematic management; this ideology did not make it to Britain until after World War 1."

Finding enough capable workers to operate in fast-paced, increasingly modern offices full of the latest technology—yes, even the clacking typewriter was still 'modern technology' at that time—must have been a yeoman task. A man like George Mills, schooled at Harrow and sequestered in the The Grove, a house "strong in Art and Drama, and increasingly in Music, with a longer reputation for sporting prowess," was unlikely by education or by breeding—George was great-grandson of the Aclands of Killerton, grandson of rich and powerful Arthur Mills, MP, and son of well-to-do cleric and biblical scholar, the Rev. Barton R. V. Mills—to have had even the most remote clerical skills to allow him to keep pace with his distinctly plebeian office mates.

The patience shown by harried superiors is unlikely to have been much, and his situation must constantly have been tenuous at best. I will offer this olive branch of understanding to Mills regarding reverse-sexism that must have bitten him often at the time: Officers watching civilian women of that "inferior and inexperienced type" outperforming him, with his 30-inch chest and upper-crust upbringing, on a daily basis for an entire year must have, indeed, made him seem, by comparison, like one of the biggest failures in khaki.

And there were certainly enough women around to outshine him continually. In March 1917, a month before George Mills transferred into the APC, its overall military manpower was 7,693. That was augmented by 959 male civil clerks and a whopping 11,920 female civil clerks.

In August 1918, just before Mills was unceremoniously shown the door, the totals stood at 11,761 APC military staff, 997 male civil clerks, and a stunning 17,532 female civil clerks in the employ of the Pay Corps.

Between August 1918 and December 1918, the staff of the APC ballooned from that 11,761 figure above to 18,184—an influx of 6,423 actual soldiers in just four months—to reach its high water mark of wartime military staff.

However, at least one soldier was being transferred in the opposite direction, and involuntarily at that: Pte. G. R. Mills, APC 12892.

In a branch of the military so obviously starved for labour, it must have been quite an indictment of Rifleman George Mills to have been described, as we've seen, as a "fatigue man" who wouldn't "ever make corporal" and was simply "not much use."

To have been summarily and permanently sent on his merry way must have been a crushing blow to young and sensitive George, whose Uncle Dudley Mills was a highly respected captain in the Royal Engineers, and whose elder half-brother, Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills, was a recent war hero who had been wounded in France and awarded the 1914 Star, the British War Medal, and the Inter-Allied Victory Medal [left].

This is not to imply that George's family would have been ashamed of him in any way. Still, he would have to have been utterly oblivious or the owner of a certifiably bullet-proof self-esteem not to have felt injured to some degree by the way circumstances had played out for him.

George Mills—Army Form W5010 in hand and on his way to the O.C. Transfer Centre in September of 1918—would need to reinvent himself, both as a soldier in what was left of the Great War and as a potential member of the workforce when peace finally arrived.

How much of the responsibility he must have borne himself, perhaps out of laziness or even an initial feeling of disrespected privilege, is open to conjecture. It seems clear, though, that the slight, polite, and possibly even timid (at least by comparison with other recruits) Mills was quite unprepared in a great many ways for his military duties.

Next time we'll examine in more depth some of the medical reasons Mills had been classified physically as a BIII, including some issues that certainly couldn't have helped matters at all.

A Closer Look at 1932, David Niven's Mother, and the Family of George Mills

Today I'm learning a lesson: There is no such thing as a small bit of information.

Thinking I'd sit down and fire off a short posting regarding yesterday's study of wills and probate, I find myself knee deep, once again, in information. Perhaps all of it is not George Mills-related, but some of it's quite interesting. At least to me. And other aspects of it are very pertinent to questions we've often asked here...

The probate record for the Revd. Barton Reginald Vaughan Mills contains this excerpt: "clerk died 21 January 1932 at 5 Collingham-gardens South Kensington Middlesex"

This was the first indication that we've had that, when Revd. Mills passed away "suddenly," he was not at home with his family at 24 Hans-road in Chelsea.

I thought, "Well, I'll go to Google Maps, take a virtual snapshot of 5 Collingham Gardens [above, left], and see if I can find out who he might've been visiting when he expired. I'll punch it up in a short post this morning and be done!"

The address 5, Collingham Gardens has an interesting history. The terraced freehold recently sold, on 29 January 2010, for £8,900,000 to Michaelis Boyd Associates of 108 Palace Gardens Terrace, London, who applied in December 2010 to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for "the provision of rooflight on the second floor roof and alteration of 3 rear basement windows to french doors."

The building now houses Alphaco, a British waste-to-energy company, dealing in "Waste tires, Waste tyres, Scrap tyres, Scrap tires."

It also is the home of Collingham Gardens Child and Family Unit, an NHS psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents [right], apparently one of the few facilities providing inclusive "in-patient child psychiatric care for learning disabled children."

Here's a brief description of the 1883-1884 construction of 5 Collingham-gardens from 'The work of Ernest George and Peto in Harrington and Collingham Gardens', Survey of London: volume 42: Kensington Square to Earl's Court (1986), pp. 184-195:

"No. 5 is much the larger house [than No. 4], partly because of an extra low wing (which has now lost its stepped gable) to the north. Here too the plan and some features survive, showing that the levels were split, with the drawing-room this time at the back on the half-landing. The wooden residence by March 1886, was the fourth Earl of Wilton, who fitted one of the rooms up as an organ-saloon replete with model organ and patent hydraulic engines. The house and its fittings were reputed to have cost him upwards of £25,000."

No. 4 could have been your residence at the time on these terms: "The price of a long lease here was £8,000, or it could be rented for £600 a year." No. 5 being "much" larger, can we assume the original price tag was "much" greater than those figures?

There are images of the interior, circa 1886-1888 and photographed by H. Bedford Lemere, to be found at: http://www.europeana.eu/portal/brief-doc.html?embedded=&start=1&view=table&query=5+collingham+gardens+brompton

By 1889, however, the Earl of Wilton no longer resided at 5 Collingham Gardens. On 22 March 1889, Mr. Robert Duncombe Shafto, a rich, former M.P. for North Durham died in his "London residence" at that address according to the Monthly chronicle of north country lore and legend, volume 3, 1889.

By 1902-1903, the address appears in the Royal Blue Book: Fashionable Directory and Parliamentary Guide as the residence of merchant banker John Conrad im Thurn, of J. C. im Thurn & Sons, merchants, 1, East India-avenue, EC.

And in 1938, Beryl Dallen (née Umney), wife of Deryck N. Dallen of Hartley Manor Farm, gave birth to a baby girl at 5 Collingham-gardens.

The above news, found in the 1938 periodical Chemist and druggist: The newsweekly for pharmacy, volume 128, indicates that perhaps the locale was no longer an upper-crust luxury abode at that time.

In fact, according to the website Lost Hospitals of London, 1947 would see the Metropolitan Ear Nose and Throat Hospital purchase "two freehold houses, 4-5 Collingham Gardens, SW5, which were converted to a 45-bedded hospital and Nurses Home."

But converted from what? The birth of baby girl Cherry V. Dallen at 5 Collingham Gardens in 1938 was probably not due to a visitor suddenly giving birth in the drawing room of a stately home. And that 1938 birth date is fairly close to the date of our interest: 21 January 1932, and why Revd. Barton R. V. Mills was at that address on that day when he suddenly died.

A clue to what became of 5 Collingham Gardens between being the residence of the moneyed J. C. im Thurn at the century's turn, and its sale to the Metropolitan Ear Nose and Throat Hospital in post-war 1947, was found in the strangest of places!

In 2003's Niv: The Authorized Biography of David Niven by Graham Lord, we find this reference to Niven's mother on page 48: "In 1932 [Niven] was in Aldershot on a physical training course when Uncle Tommy telephoned to say that Etta was dying in a nursing home in South Kensington. He rushed up to London and was stunned to see how wasted she was by her cancer, but it was too late to say goodbye. Following an operation, peritonitis complications set in, she did not recognise him and she died on 12 November at 5 Collingham Gardens with her beloved husband at her bedside. She was only 52."

So, we know now that Barton Mills had been committed to a nursing home at 5 Collingham Gardens, about a mile southwest of his home at 24 Hans-road. Obviously not in the best of health, the death of Revd. Mills on 21 January of that very same year was apparently still unexpected.

Interestingly, on the heels of yesterday's examination of wills, probates, and bequests, there's also this snippet from Niven's biography: "She left an astonishingly large estate of £14 169 3s. 9d. net, the equivalent in modern terms of about $950,000 [obviously valued against the RPI]... three times as much as she had inherited from William Niven sixteen years previously. This huge increase in wealth was not caused by inflation, which was nil between 1916 and 1932, nor probably by clever investment, since the British stock market index fell fifty-five per cent between 1919 and 1931 as it was battered by the Great Depression. The only explanation is that Etta left her inheritance from William Niven untouched to grow for sixteen years in some high earning account... Niv's claims that she was desperately poor were quite untrue."

This additional bit of information is instructive for our purposes.

Revd. and Mrs. Barton Mills inherited £22565 8s. 9d., from Edith Mills's father, Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, with whom they lived at the time of his death in 1920.

At the time of Barton's passing in 1932, his "effects" were valued at £17007 11s. 7d.—a greater legacy than that of Niven's mother, Lady Henriette "Etta" Comyn-Platt—but less than Sir George had previously bequeathed to them upon his passing in 1920.

Etta's legacy was worth "three times" its original value in 1916, meaning she had likely been left less than £5000. It's value had trebled by 1932 despite economic troubles in the intervening years.

The Mills family had taken almost £23000, and in four fewer years than Lady Comyn-Platt, diminished it to roughly £17000. And this does not take into consideration the residue of any 'effects' from the inheritance that Barton Mills had received upon the passing of his father, Arthur Mills, M.P., in 1898, which may have approached £10000. Afterwards, he spurned a secure living as vicar of Bude Haven, Cornwall and took the family and his career as a cleric to London. Mills then worked from 1901-1908 as an assistant chaplain at the Queen's Chapel at the Savoy, a position which probably paid little, but also would have helped them 'pay the bills' through the 20th century's first decade.

During that time in London, Mills also published a book of sermons, a book entitled Marks of the Church, and several works on the writings of St. Bernard that are still valuable resources to theologians today, as well as having served as a military chaplain during the First World War.

Figuring at least some small income from those ventures, it seems the Mills family was far from impoverished during the decades preceding Barton's death, as evidenced by the seven servants and governess listed in the household by enumerators of the 1911 UK census.

In fact, it seems the Mills family pretty much lived a life of ease on money and 'effects' they'd inherited at various times, further evidence being provided by Barton's probate listing of his son as "George Ramsay Acland Mills, gentleman."

Other men listed among the names on the very same page of probate documents are described as "foreman," "baker," and "engine driver." There's no reason George wouldn't have been listed as a "schoolmaster" if he'd, indeed, been employed in 1932.

Apparently, Mills was at the very least 'between positions' as a schoolmaster at the time of his father's death, probably at home, being a gentleman and tapping out the manuscript for his first book, 1933's Meredith and Co.

Thoughts on this have already been explored, and George's financial situation would have been augmented, along with that of his wife, Vera Louise, upon the death of his mother-in-law, Evelyn Amy Hart Beauclerk, in 1933. Although the executor of Beauclerk's will was Westminster Bank Ltd., it seems highly probable that some of her effects, totaling £9235 19s. 9.d, found their way down to her daughter, Vera, and son-in-law, George, gentleman.

Two things:

● Were George and Vera living with Evelyn Beauclerk or Barton Mills in 1932-1933? There are no telephone listings for the couple, so unless they were rooming with someone else or living in a hotel, they would have been secure with one London family or the other.

● And, given the firm financial footing the Mills family finds itself in, circa 1898-1920, why does the autobiography of Lady Dorothy Mills cry poverty during her courtship and marriage to Barton Mills's elder son, Capt. Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills of the D.C.L.I., George's half-brother by Barton's first marriage?

In 1914, Captain Mills is sent off to the war in France, but according to his autobiographical book, With My Regiment: From the Aisne to La Bassée [Lippincott: Philadelphia, 1916] written under the pseudonym "Platoon Commander", before departing he first "went up to London to my rooms to collect a few things."

His father lived in a 20-room abode at 12 Cranley Gardens, S.W., the likely location of those "rooms."

So Revd. Mills had room in his home for son Arthur, even if no money in his wallet for the newlywed couple after his nuptials to the above-mentioned and apparently disowned Dorothy Rachel Melissa Walpole in 1916. If Capt. Mills couldn't afford to support his wife on an infantry captain's wage, he certainly wasn't renting unlived-in "rooms" in London as well as a bed at a boarding at a house near his barracks on the Thames!

Of course, to believe that cry of poverty is to accept only the word of Lady Dorothy, who wrote her autobiography in 1929 after creating the persona of being a completely independent and modern woman, whose success was due in no part to the help of any man, be he father, lover, or husband. Her self-made, 'rags-to-riches' persona was as much what she was marketing as her stories, and if it appeared at all that she'd ever been well-cared-for as an adult by either husband Arthur or her in-laws, the Mills, it would certainly have taken much of the lustre off of her heroically feminist backstory.

Nevertheless, just one address in the probate record of Barton Mills has led to much additional knowledge of our George Mills—his career, his family, and his prospects, circa 1932. And the writing of this post turned out to be no 'quickie'!

As always, if you have anything that you can add, please don't hesitate to contact me—and thank you in advance!

Of Mills, Wills, Probate, and Executors

Lately we've been dwelling quite a bit on the passing of George Ramsay Acland Mills and members of his family. That subject may be a bit gloomy, a stark contrast to the blazingly sunny and crisp days we've been having here in Ocala, but it's been enlightening as well. Many of our speculations have been affirmed, and when some haven't, the lens seems to have brought them into somewhat better focus.

For example, we've wondered aloud about George Mills and his proclivity to pass from job to job as a schoolmaster from the late 1920s seemingly through the late 1930s. Most of that time was peppered with the fallout of the General Strike of 1926 and the worldwide Great Depression.

The question seemed to be: Did Mills pass from opening to opening, all around the U.K. and even as far afield as Glion, Switzerland, because he simply needed to teach and followed the jobs, or was it because he and his bride, Vera, needed the income.

We know that in 1911, George's family lived at 12 Cranleigh Gardens, SW, while George attended Harrow, and that the census form shows the family having seven servants and a governess attending George's father, Revd. Barton R. V. Mills, his mother Edith, and his sisters, Agnes and Violet. They lived in a home with more than 20 rooms, and were sending a son to boarding school.

It's safe to say the family was not financially distressed at the time.

Later, the family moved in with Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, retired Director of Army Clothing, and father of Edith Mills. It's unclear what became of the Cranleigh Gardens address (Was it sold or rented? Had the Mills family actually owned it?). Sir George passed away in 1920, while George was away attending Christ Church, Oxford.

Edith Mills had no living siblings at the time of Sir George's death, and Ramsay's wife had predeceased him. It seems the Mills family then lived for a time at nearby 24 Hans-road, Chelsea, following their departure from Sir George's home at 7 Manson Place, and it is while living there that Barton Mills passed away suddenly on 21 January 1932.

What occasioned the family moves? And how did the career movements of son George Mills (and wife) factor in? It sounds as if the family may have been living in homes large enough to have accommodated George and Vera between his stints as a schoolmaster during the years from 1926 and 1932. It also appears that this was a family accustomed to having servants.

Let's check the probate records. When Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay passed away in 1920, his effects were valued at £22565 8s. 9d., according to figures pulled from records available to ancestry.com [above, left; double-click to enlarge].

To calculate the value of that in terms of today, I went to measuringworth.com and used their indicators. They suggest that when valuing the worth of a person, one should calculate his or her value as a share of the GDP. Their calculations peg the worth of Sir George's estate at a whopping £5,270,000 in 2011 terms.

That's quite an inheritance for Revd. Barton and family!

Let's not forget that Mills departed a stable living as vicar of Bude Haven, Cornwall, to come to London in 1901, after the death of his father, widower Arthur Mills, M.P., also of Bude. Arthur's estate had been probated at £42 305 in 1898. Using the measuringworth.com calculator, that estate was worth £34,400,000, and would have been split among Barton, Barton's brother Dudley, and kin on the Acland side of the family. Even coming away with just 30% of the value of his father's estate, Barton would have left for London knowing he'd secured an inheritance valued at £10,000,000 in 2011.

Is there any wonder there were so many servants?

That examines two inheritances in which Barton had a stake: His father's and his father-in-law's. But Barton himself passed away in 1932. What did he leave behind in terms of wealth?

Barton's effects were probated at £17007 11s. 7d. [right]. Admittedly during a worldwide depression, that works out to a mere £5,620,000 in terms of 2011 value.

Barton's estate was bequeathed to Elizabeth Edith Mills, widow, Agnes Edith Mills and Violet Eleanor Mills, spinsters, and George Ramsay Acland Mills, gentleman.

One assumes that real estate values, for example, returned more to normal and continued to accrue value as time went by following the depression. The value of anything invested as such would have grown in value after Barton's passing, making that quite an inheritance.

Looking at those 1932 assets in terms of liquid value, one would use the on-line calculator to compare Barton's "effects" versus the RPI, making it worth "only" £875,000 of purchasing power—a tidy sum today, let alone during the Great Depression!

My hunch is that, unless George had been estranged from his father and/or family during the years between 1925 and 1932, he would likely have been able to avail himself of his family's good will as he bounced form position to position in various preparatory schools and tinkered with authoring his first novel.

It appears that George must have, indeed, wanted badly to teach, and kept at it with the support—presumably often financial—of his family.

Just for fun, let's also look at the will of Lady Dorothy Mills, once George's sister-in-law, as described in the 30 March 1960 edition of The Times [below, left]. Lady Dorothy was, indeed, estranged from her family, and for lack of other evidence was poor at the outset of her 1916 marriage to George's stepbrother, Captain Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills, of the D.C.L.I. To believe that, one must assume that Arthur was also at least somewhat estranged from his family at the time (and, strangely, we have no real reason to believe that), and that the crown was literally paying officers in the infantry a pauper's wage during the First World War (and I'm at a loss to explain why that ever would have made a military career in the UK even remotely attractive).

Anyway, after a lifetime of apparently squeezing her shillings so tightly that King George must have wept, her probate in 1960 netted out at £63446—a value in terms of 2011 totaling £1,090,000.

Passing with over a cool million of 2011 pounds, while living in a seaside hotel with flats in 1958 starting at as little as 9 guineas a week in the winter, it seems that Lady Dorothy had, indeed, come along way from her destitute days of depression, allegedly working in the East End of London, while her family enjoyed their peerage.

Incidentally, the £1000 she bequeathed to the Royal Geographic Society in 1960 that would become the one-time Lady Dorothy Mills Award would be valued today at £17,200.

That certainly leaves a lot for an executor direct to someone or something else.

Lady Dorothy passed away childless, and as far as we know, never remarried after her divorce in 1933.

George, Agnes, and Violet Mills, who would have shared an inheritance from their mother, Edith, when she passed away in 1945, also died unmarried and childless at Grey Friars in Budleigh Salterton. All were no longer with us by July 1975.

Their branch of the family tree came to an end, making the unearthing of the history of their nuclear family so difficult. But one finds it hard to believe that among George, Agnes, Violet, and Lady Dorothy, none had a will, or that they all were inclined to leave the entirety of their estates, and even their personal effects, to the crown.

Ancestry.com has no information on UK wills and probates available after 1940. If we could find out who the executors were of the wills of the Mills, we could have access to persons who potentially would also know details of the Mills family's history—details that could make them and their story all so much more real—including possible access to family photos, letters, passports, post cards, ticket stubs, train schedules, awards, military records, etc. And all of that ephemera could possibly include George's original outlines, character studies, blue-penciled manuscripts for his published books, and perhaps even plans for future texts he'd never gotten around to authoring!

As always, if you can help, please don't hesitate to let me know!

A Virtual Walking Tour of Budleigh Salterton (While Thinking Aloud about George Mills)

Churches seem to have always played an important role in the lives of the Mills family. This is probably no better exemplified than by the letter that George Mills wrote to The Times on 8 April 1959 entitled "Dogs in Church," apparently in reply to an on-going, whimsical thread of mail that had struck a chord in Mills. The missive is a nostalgic retelling of a story that George's father, the Revd. Barton R. V. Mills often told about going to church with his parents, Arthur Mills, M.P., and Lady Agnes, as well as their black retrievers, Belle and Achille.

The last line of the death notice of George Mills that we saw yesterday reads: "Funeral service at the Roman Catholic Church on Wednesday, December 13, at 10:30 a.m." Friend Michael Downes couldn't find a grave for Mills in the local burial ground in Budleigh Salterton (although that may have been due to the inclement weather), and until we know where George rests, his story in Budleigh ends in a church with that 10:30 a.m. service.

It's a dazzlingly sunny morning here in Florida, but cuttingly cold for this part of the world [37°F / 3°C] and the level of insulation found in the houses. However, technology has advanced to the point where I can sit here and virtually stroll around Devonshire, exploring—thanks to Google Maps. I know this won't be of interest if you are a resident of Budleigh Salterton, but for me, it's exciting to see the town across the pond!

First, let's look for the Budleigh Salterton Hospital [above] where Mills peacefully departed. It's at the corner of Boucher and East Budleigh Roads in what is apparently Otterton. Really it's just across the croquet lawns and cricket fields—both sporting loves of George—from his home, Grey Friars. It's about 1500 ft. from the Mills home to the main entrance of the hospital, but it appears to be a rather circuitous drive from one to the other.



On the way back to Grey Friars, I strolled down The Lawn from High Street and took a look at the beautiful edifice that appears to be St. Peter's Church of England [above], although I couldn't find a sign. After receiving his Master's in History from Oxford, George's father, Barton, had been a vicar in the Church of England from 1887 through 1901, as well as having been a chaplain briefly in San Remo, Italy, and an assistant chaplain at the Royal Chapel at the Savoy. Subsequently, the senior Mills worked as a religious scholar and as a military chaplain during the First World War.

We know, however, that Barton Mills converted to Roman Catholicism while at Christ Church, Oxford, before becoming a cleric in the Church of England—sometime before 1885. From the United States, it seems odd that a cleric in one denomination would worship as a member of the congregation of a different denomination—Barton Mills certainly must have missed a few Catholic masses while busy delivering sermons for the C of E at the same hour—but no one I've discussed it with in the UK seems very much surprised by that at all (except for the current Chaplain of the Queen's Chapel of the Savoy, Peter Galloway, who found the news implausible and immediately questioned the authoritative 1885 reference book without even bothering to review it because it did not coincide with his bias). Revd. Barton R. V. Mills appears to have been Roman Catholic by faith, Church of England only by vocation. I leave it to the reader to surmise the tenets of which creed would have been passed, personally, from father to children in such a case.

The entire Mills family's repeated affiliation with Catholicism is far more than coincidental, so it's no surprise at all that George's funeral service was held at Budleigh's "Roman Catholic Church" (also named for St. Peter, a fact left out of the death notice, presumably to prevent confusion among those wishing to attend the service). Grey Friars is virtually equidistant between the two churches of St. Peter, so Mills's spiritual choice of denomination clearly wasn't based on mere proximity. The Mills family clearly was no longer associated with the Church of England.


After turning north up Slaton Road and Moor Lane, I turned north on Upper Stoneborough Lane. While walking along Clinton Terrace, I found a lovely, far more simple, brick church [above].

Turning the corner, I found the entrance [above]...

Looking carefully, the sign at front appears to read "Catholic Church of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles," obviously the location of George's funeral. I imagine Mills closing his dripping umbrella and stepping into the warm, dry vestibule on rainy Sunday mornings...

Returning to Moor Lane, I followed it out to the West, to the very end, where it meets Dark Lane, across from the primary school. There I found St. Peter's Burial Ground, presumably where Michael Downes and his wife, Annie, looked for the final resting place of George Mills one misty winter day.

Approaching the entrance, I carefully read the sign, then strolled along the hedge [above], peering over and thinking... Wishing I could enter...

I wonder if this locale is where George Mills finally went to rest. His paternal grandfather was a powerful M.P., and associated with the Efford Down House in Bude, Cornwall. His paternal grandmother was Agnes Lucy Dyke Acland, daughter of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland VI, 10th baronet, M.P., of Broad Clyst, Devon. The Columb John Chapel at Killerton [below] there in Devon was still being used for Acland family burials after Sir Thomas's death. Could George have found a resting place there?

But one wonders where his father, Barton, was buried after his death in 1932? With the Aclands at Columb John, part of the estate where he and his brother Dudley Mills had been raised for much of their youths by the aging Sir Thomas while father Arthur journeyed to many of the empire's colonies? Knowing where Dudley now rests might help in all of this!

George's mother, Elizabeth Edith Ramsay, was the daughter of Londoner Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, and she may have been laid to rest alongside her father. Might George be resting near his mother in London—or even with other kin in Scotland?

His wife, Vera Louise Beauclerk Mills, was of the lineage of William I on the Beauclerk side of the family, and granddaughter of the legendary Sinophile Sir Robert Hart on the other. Vera, who passed away in 1942 at the age of 48, may have been buried in a family plot with either family. Could it be that George ended up alongside her?

Or is it likely that the childless Mills, along with his spinster (and presumably childless) sisters, Agnes and Violet, rests together with them in the St. Peter's Burial Ground there in Devonshire, near Grey Friars, the croquet club, and the sea, where they'd all lived so happily for a quarter of a century at the end of their lives?

It's even possible, I suppose, that Mills and/or his sisters were cremated. Still, nothing in the family's past would lead me to believe that.

We've followed the life and career of George Mills—schoolmaster, author, paymaster—from his birth in Bude, Cornwall to his passing in Budleigh Salterton, Devon. He spent a great deal of his life moving around, as we're well aware. I'll admit, I'd very much like to know where, exactly, he at long last came to rest.