New Information: Lady Frances Ryder, Jack Mitchell, and Dr. Harold J. Penny

Hello, everyone! My, it's wonderful to have something to write about George Mills again—even if it won't be about George directly!

I'm delighted! And when it rains, it tends to pour—well, at least here in sub-tropical Florida—and I awakened this morning to find not one, but two Mills-related items in my mailbox. The first regards the home of George's widowed mother, Edith, and spinster sisters, Agnes and Violet, during the Great Depression, when the Mills women lived at 21 Cadogan Gardens, S.W. [left].

During that time, and during the Second World War, a boarder at the home, specifically in "21B," was Lady Frances Ryder. In a previous post we discovered that she did, indeed, live with the Mills during the war, and facilitated the Isles Dominion Hospitality Scheme from her flat with the help of Miss Celia Macdonald.

Reader Roger Kelly writes:

In Who Is George Mills I see you are -like me- puzzled by Lady Ryder and what went on at Cadogan Gardens. It was a club, and used as a postal address and meeting place for people of no fixed address. Close to the heart of the British establishment, there were filing clerks behind the scenes: think of the first ten minutes of "A Matter of Life and Death" -"Stairway to Heaven" to you.

Lady Ryder's organisation comes up in an online biography I'm writing of an overseas student [Jack Mitchell, right] in England towards the end of 1935.

See it on my website here
www.kosmoid.net/technology/jackmitchell

best wishes
Roger
near Edinburgh



Thank you so much, Roger!

While the Mills women are not mentioned on that web page, we find there must have been quite a bit going on. The hospitality scheme is clarified here at the well-researched website:

November 1935

Social efforts to engage new Rhodes scholars continued to target Winston. Jack also would be drawn into the net by the end of the year. It started with an invitation to meet Miss Macdonald of the Isles at Rhodes House on Friday 1st. It was an informal dance evening making things go with a swing and about 30 Rhodes Scholars were there of all nationalities –a high proportion Americans - with a good number of quite nice English and Danish girls. Miss Macdonald of the Isles, whose very name helped to cast a spell, announced that a social week was being arranged in London for Rhodes Scholars and others in the second week of December, and there would be a chance to stay with different people in the Christmas break too. Very kind, but as Jack says, these people arrange the “scheme” in much the same way as others as well-to-do go “slumming”.

Miss Macdonald ran Lady Ryder’s Empire hospitality scheme for English-speaking officers, Rhodes scholars and other eligible students from the dominions and overseas. At the scheme’s headquarters in 21B Cadogan Gardens, Sloane Square, London, tea was dispensed and dances were held. Card indexes were kept of 1600 or so potentially lonely visitors who might be helped each year, and of appropriate households prepared to provide a home, friendship and the prospect of some suitable female company for weekends, vacations, leave, study and convalescence. Girls of good family could be drafted to serve as live-in help for host households while the young overseas guests came to stay. It all seemed very well organised. The recipients were duly grateful if sometimes a little amused by all the thoughtfulness for their moral and physical welfare. In the war years ahead Miss Macdonald’s pastoral work would be extended to Czechoslovak, Polish, Norwegian, Dutch and French free forces officers and to the airmen who would find themselves stationed in the hundreds of airfields scattered around the country.


Later in this wonderfully thorough biography, we find:

Hospitality ahead

Saturday evening [7 December 1935] was set for Miss Macdonald’s big At Home at 21B Cadogan Gardens. Among the throng with Winston –and missing Jack– were Eric Haslam, his friend Hoon of Victoria, Gibson a friend of Wood, Porus, Rossiter of Merton, Norman Davis again, Lionel Cooper of Capetown, McPherson, Stewart of Canada, and more ad infinitum. Among the girls were Miss Lovegrove of Canada and Miss Dinah Nathan of Wellington NZ.

The Lady Ryder Scheme’s hospitality continued through the week with a Sunday trip to Hampton Court Palace, a personal tour of Sir Christopher. Wren’s Old Court House [right] and afternoon tea with its owner Norman E. Lamplugh, dinner with the Holding family in Kensington, on Monday a coach tour from Cadogan Gardens to be shown round the vast HMV record factory at Hayes, then to hosts Mr and Mrs Powell in Earls Court with Gunther Motz, Miss Hearn from Canada and Miss Lewis from Australia. Afterwards all were invited to a magnificent Ball given by the Goldmiths Company where Winston spent time with Motz, Miss Johnson from England and Miss de Charme from Paris. Tuesday took them to Twickenham for the varsity rugby match where Oxford’s kiwi captain Malcolm Cooper excelled against Cambridge; in the evening to a studio performance at the Gate Theatre by Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies. Wednesday was set for lunch in Kensington with the family of Sir John Gilmour the recent Home Secretary and dinner in the City with the Grocers Company where the speakers were Jack’s old friend Lord Bledisloe and Miss Macdonald of the Isles. Thursday’s trip from Cadogan Gardens was to Hatfield House with a personal tour conducted by the tough old Marchioness of Salisbury. On Friday the academic aspirants were dispersed to their hosts in the country for the weekend. And Jack could join in for a break at last after his busy week in the Lab.


The context in which we discover this information is through the life of John Wesley “Jack” Mitchell, FRS, (1913-2007), an outstanding international scientist from New Zealand whose work in chemistry and physics examined the properties of materials and extended the possibilities of high speed photography [left].

It turns out that Lady Ryder's scheme encompassed far more than simply caring for servicemen (and presumably women) during the war, and it seems natural to think that, with Ryder hosting teas and large parties—note that a "throng" of international personalities on that "Saturday night" mentioned above—the Mills family must have been involved quite closely with the scheme and attendant at parties and dances, and perhaps even the scheme's outings.

This fits well with what we know about the Mills sisters: Posh, even a bit snobbish, and socially comfortable with a wide range of individuals from many different walks of life and diverse nationalities, especially peerage. One look at the list of croquet players they played with and against while situated at their retirement home in Budleigh Salterton attests to that!


Speaking of croquet, an Australian player by the name of Dr. Harold J. Penny took to the lawns against the Mills family (including George), and he was the subject of the second message I received this morning, this one from Dr. Robert Likeman:

Harry,

Here is a brief bio of Harold Penny from my forthcoming book. It may help to fill in some of the blanks in your blog.

Kind regards,
Robert

1. PENNY, Harold John, Captain (1888-1968). MB BS Adel 1913. Penny was born in Semaphore SA, the youngest son of Charles James Penny, a teller in the Bank of Adelaide, and his wife Emma Stephens. He was educated at St Peter’s College and Adelaide University. He rowed for the University in 1911 and again in 1912. After graduation he completed his residency at Adelaide Hospital and the Children’s Hospital. During the former term, he made the papers three times for treating patients with gunshot wounds. He was commissioned in the RAMC in March 1915, and sailed for England on the RMS Mongolia. The first thing that he did on arrival in England was to get married, to Winifred Annie Lake from Bristol. Penny was promoted Captain in March 1916. He returned to Australia after the war, and set up practice in Nailsworth SA, but evidently Winifred did not care for Australia, and the couple returned to England. They were divorced in 1925 on the grounds of Winifred’s adultery with a dentist, Frederick Rowat. The same year Penny married a vicar’s daughter from Harrow-on-the Hill, Mary Violet Ridsdale (1901-1974). They returned to Nailsworth, but in 1928 announced their intention of moving to Western Australia. It is uncertain how long they remained there, but before 1938 they had returned to England to settle at Tunstall, Staffs. Penny was a world class player of croquet. He died in Bournemouth in 1968.


Dr Robert Likeman


Thank you, Dr. Likeman!

Interestingly, the news reports we read involving Dr. Penny were, indeed, regarding gunshot wounds, a subject in which he obviously became an expert. It would then be wholly natural that he would have been highly desirable as a medical officer during the war.

Dr. Likeman is Director of Health for the Australian Army and the author of Gallipoli Doctors: The Australian Doctors At War Series, Volume 1 (First Edition 2010, Slouch Hat Publications, McCrae, Victoria), and I presume Penny's biography will be found in Volume 2. Dr. Likeman (LtCol, CSM) is the author of several other books on Australian Military History that can be found at the Slouch Hat Publications website. Volume 1 was awarded a Silver Medal in the New York Independent Publishers Awards earlier this year.


(Oh—and just an aside regarding the film A Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven in the U.S.): It starred David Niven, whose mother, Etta, coincidentally was dying in a nursing home in Kensington along with Revd. Barton R. V. Mills, father of George Mills, when the Mills family patriarch passed away in 1932!)


It really is wonderful to be writing about the life and times of George Mills once again! Should you have any information, theories, details, ideas, suppositions, hypotheses, or just want to discuss George or his family and friends, please let me know at the e-mail address, far above, to the right.

Many thanks!

Rooms to Let: 21, Cadogan Gardens, S.W.3

It's a sunny morning with gentle breezes wafting through the horse country of north central Florida off the tail of Hurricane Irene. The heat index is supposed to creep up to a stifling 108°F today, but it's no longer summer here as it is in most of the United States: The children here have already been back in school for a week!

My plan had been to wrap up our study of George Mills by the time I returned to my classroom, but I fell just short of that. Today, we'll look at one aspect of the Mills family that may be of interest, although it's uncertain exactly how much it deals with George Mills directly.

As you may recall, George was married in 1925 and purchased a home in Portslade. His father, the Rev. Barton R. V. Mills, passed away in January 1932 while his family was residing at 24 Hans-road in London. The name on the family's telephone listing changed to "Mrs. Barton Mills" that same year.

Labouring under an assumption that George may still have been residing in his Portslade home when he was not away teaching at Windermere and Glion, Switzerland, the residents of 24 Hans-road would have been Edith Mills, Barton's widow and George's mother, and Agnes and Violet Mills, the spinster sisters of George.

Then, in 1933, the address for family's telephone listing in the London directory changed from Hans-road to 21 Cadogan Gardens, S.W. 3, although the telephone number—SLoane 3278—remained the same.

The family obviously had moved to new quarters after the patriarch's death. Let's go to the London Times, however, for more information.

A classified advertisement in the 11 April 1933 edition of The Times reads:


COOK-GENERAL, required for flat; 3 in family. Apply after 3 or write, Barnard, 21 Cadogan Gardens, S.W. 3.


We don't know exactly when the remaining members of the Mills family moved to Cadogan Gardens—just that the address appeared in the November 1933 telephone directory. The relocation came early enough, however, to make the printing deadline for a November directory.

There are two ways to look at the above entry at first glance. One way is to assume that the previous residents were simply in need of a cook, a domestic who later moved away with them when that family left in favour of the Mills.

"Barnard" may, I suppose, have been a dependable servant in charge of interviewing the new cook, but for which set of residents we do not know. It may have been the surname of the new owners just as easily. Still, if George and his wife, Vera, were still living in Portslade in 1933, the members of the Mills family moving into 21 Cadogan Gardens would have, indeed, numbered three: Edith, Agnes, and Violet.


Let's see what else we may find in The Times…

In the 9 December 1933 edition, almost two years after the death of Rev. Barton Mills, we find this advertisement in the classified category FLATS & CHAMBERS:

ADJACENT HARROD'S, KNIGHTSBRIDGE. — LARGE ROOM on entrance floor, adjoining bath room to be LET, Unfurnished ; constant hot water, electric light and power ; excellent service and catering ; 42s. per week. — 24 Hans Road S.W. Sloane 4025.


I'm not exactly sure what this tells us, save what a large room near Harrod's went for per week. It is possible the family had held onto the property, and that the Mills were subletting rooms at 24 Hans Road [right] as a source income—as far as we know, none of the Mills women were working. While the number Sloane 4025 was not their own phone number, it may have been the number of an agent who handled rentals for them or an additional line at 21 Cadogan Gardens.

Or it may have had nothing to do with them at all: I can search London directories by name, but not by telephone number.

Once again assuming the property to have something to do with the Mills family, we can see the worldwide economic depression has tightened on London. Here is virtually the same advert, this time from 30 October 1934:


KNIGHTSBRIDGE (adjoining Harrod's):. — BED-SITTING ROOMS. Furnished and unfurnished; h. and c. basins, constant hot water; house telephones. Furnished from 27s. 6d. ; unfurnished from 25 s.-45s., to include service and light; all meals at moderate prices. — 18 and 24, Hans Road, S.W.3 Kens. 7541.


Less than a year later, 24 Hans-road had multiple furnished and unfurnished rooms to let, and "excellent catering" had become "meals at moderate prices." Couple that with the addition of 18 Cadogan Gardens and change in phone number and we might assume that, even had the Mills retained 24 Hans through 1933, it likely was no longer among their assets. Someone else had acquired the property.


Why might the Mills family have held 24 Hans Road in order to let rooms, even for a short while? It seems to be what they were doing during that time, evan at Cadogan Gardens [left]. Let's take a look at a few more classified advertisements from The Times.

This is from death notices in the 20 December 1937 issue of The Times:

HIBBERT. — On Dec. 17, 1937, at 21 Cadogan Gardens, S.W., HELENA MIDDLETON (LENA), widow of CAPTAIN EDWARD ROWLEY HIBBERT, and last surviving child of Christian Allhusen, of Stoke Court, Stoke Poges, in her 80th year.


While it's possible Mrs. Middleton had simply been visiting, why then was no actual address provided? She clearly would have been boarding at 21 Cadogan Gardens with Edith and the girls.


From the 25 May 1938 issue of The Times, in the column entitled FORTHCOMING MARRIAGES:

MR. P. N. LOXLEY AND MISS E. L. DAWNEY

A marriage has been arranged, and will shortly take place, between Peter Noel Loxley, H.M. Diplomatic Service, only son of the late Captain Noel Loxley, Royal Navy, and of Mrs. Loxley, temporarily of 24, Cadogan Gardens, S.W.3, and Elizabeth Lavender Dawney, daughter of Major-General and Mrs. Guy Dawney, of Longparish House, Longparish, Hampshire.


Here we find another widow of a British officer living with the Mills, albeit seemingly temporarily in this case.

One wonders how many boarders of this era quite honestly took a room 'temporarily' yet subsequently never relinquished it.


In addition, we find this item in the 29 September 1939 edition of The Times:

MR. R. H. AMES AND MISS C. ZIMMERMAN

The engagement is announced between Robert Hugh Ames, only son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Y. Ames, 21, Cadogan Gardens, and Miss Carlotta Zimmerman, niece of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Meyer, 440, Park Avenue, New York City.


Here we find a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Ames, taking up residence with Edith and the girls. London telephone directories show that the Ames had their own phone in the house, and a Robert Y. Ames was at the time a barrister of the Temple Bar.


In a section entitled LADY CLERKS & TYPISTS, in the 13 April 1942 issue of The Times, we find:

LADY Francis Ryder requires a Secretary and a Card Index Hand, both for Services hospitality organization ; trained, experienced ; good references ; 40 or over ; Write 21, Cadogan Gardens, S.W.3.


Records show that Lady Ryder was involved in hospitality for servicemen during the Second World War. From the website Australian War Memorial, we find a paper written by Hank Nelson for the "2003 History Conference – Air War Europe" entitled A Different War: Australians in Bomber Command.

Of the bomber crews, Nelson writes:

Even when they were operating frequently, aircrew could eat, sleep, read, and play a game of billiards in conditions far removed from those inside a bomber fuselage. When crews were stood down, had a “48” (a 48-hour leave pass), or took their regular six days leave in every six weeks, they could travel to the local towns – Lincoln, Grimsby, Skegness, and York – and go to a dance, have a meal at a pub, see a movie, or attend a service at Lincoln Cathedral or the Thomas Cooper Memorial Baptist Church in St Benedict Square, Lincoln. They could go to the home of an English crew member, or that of a family nominated by the Lady Frances Ryder and Miss MacDonald of the Isles Dominion Hospitality Scheme, sleep in, read the newspapers, and wander across the fields. Or they could catch a train to London, stay at the Strand Palace Hotel close to the Boomerang Club and Codger’s bar, see the sights, and take in the show at the Windmill Theatre, John Gielgud as Hamlet at the Theatre Royal, Noel Coward’s Blithe spirit at the Duchess Theatre, or a concert at Albert Hall. Less than 24 hours later, aircrew could be taking a Halifax on a test flight preparing it for an operation over the Ruhr.

The National Portrait Gallery listing for Lady Ryder states: "Lady Frances Ryder (1888-1965), Organiser of Dominion Services and Students Hospitality Scheme; daughter of 5th Earl of Harrowby." A pair of 1925 portraits of her taken by photographer Alexander Bassano is seen above, right, and at left.

Apparently much of Lady Ryder's organising was done from the home of Edith, Agnes, and Violet Mills!


Among the death notices in the 19 May 1944 issue of The Times, we discover:

KITTERINGHAM. — On May 18, 1944, at 21, Cadogan gardens, S.W.3, MATILDA JEMIMA KITTERINGHAM, passed peacefully away. Requiem, St. Mary's, Cadogan Street, S.W.3, to-morrow (Saturday), at 10:00 a.m., and afterwards at Kensal Green.

A spinster, Kitteringham had been a nurse at "T.F.N.S. No. 5 City of London General Hospital" according to the 15 April 1919 edition of the Edinburgh Gazette, page 1479.


In the 22 September 1944 edition of The Times, we find this interesting advertisement:

REQUIRED shortly, COUNTRY ACCOMODATION for mother, two small boys, and nurse, for one or two months. — Gilmour, 21, Cadogan Gardens, S.W.3.


Without speculating on the reason for requiring these "country accommodations," one must envision 21 Cadogan Gardens as having been a rather interesting place during the war: Married couples, elderly spinsters (one of them a Peer), aging military men, and single mothers with young boys, all living with the genteel Mills ladies in London at a time when wartime rationing and German rockets must have made each day quite trying, to say the very least.

It sounds like quite an interesting place to live, and we do know that, in 1944, George Mills was using the Naval and Military Club in London [left]—which itself had suffered damage from Nazi bombs—as his address, having relinquished his commission in the Royal Army Pay Corps in 1943.

We find, then, that it is possible that housing in London may have been so difficult to find that Mills couldn't get a room in his family's own home. It's also possible, though, that he simply didn't want one there, preferring the club to 21 Cadogan Gardens.


On 12 December 1945, Edith Elizabeth Ramsay Mills, mother of George, Agnes, and Violet, would pass away. From the 14 December issue of The Times:

MILLS. — On Dec. 12, 1945, after a few days' illness at 21, Cadogan Gardens, S.W.3, ELIZABETH EDITH, widow of REV. BARTON R. V. MILLS, and daughter of the late Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, C.B. Funeral at Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, on Monday Dec. 17, at 2 p.m. Please, no flowers.


The family did not immediately vacate 21 Cadogan Gardens, and death would soon visit once again. From the 21 June 1946 issue of The Times:

DRUMMOND. — On June 18, 1946, CAPTAIN FREDERICK HARVEY JOHN DRUMMOND, M.C., of 21, Cadogan Gardens, S.W.3, beloved husband of Elizabeth, and son of the Lady Katherine Drummond and the late Allan H. Drummond. Funeral at Sherbourne, near Warwick, Monday, June 24, at 2 o'clock. Memorial service at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, June 24, at 2:30 p.m. Flowers to Messrs Ashton and Co., 235, Fulham Road, South Kensington.


Funeral arrangements and services for boarders like drummond [his geleaology is seen, excerpted from the 1908 text Coke of Norfolk and His Friends by Anna Maria Wilhelmina Stirling, at left] may have been becoming a bit too much for the Mills sisters—assuming George was not living with them at Cadogan Gardens.

As noted before here, by 1947, Agnes would have been 52 years old, and Violet, 45. Now with no mother [who'd been born, married, lived, and died right there in Kensington] to keep them in London, it would be no surprise to find that the girls might leave town to live out their Golden Years.

1947 also found these additions to the British Library's Manuscripts Catalogue: "Ramsay (George Dalhousie) of the War Office; knt. 1900. Correspondence and papers 1835-1898," and "Papers of G. D. Ramsay rel. to the Royal Army Clothing Dept. 1855-1898," Add. 46446 – 46450.

The donors of those manuscripts? "Mills (Agnes Edith). Miss. grand-daughter of Sir G. D. Ramsay. Presented, jointly with Miss V. E. Mills 1947," and "Mills (Violet Eleanor). Miss. grand-daughter of Sir G. D. Ramsay. Presented, jointly with Miss A. E. Mills 1947."


It seems that the girls had been busy cleaning out 21 Cadogan Gardens following their mother's passing, and finally arranging a place for the papers of Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, their maternal grandfather, to reside in perpetuity [right].


Since the presentation of Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay's papers to the British Library was in the name of Misses Agnes and Violet Mills, may we assume that George was not in residence with them at the time of the discovery and bequeathing of their grandfather's manuscripts?

The listing for Mrs. Barton Mills [SLOane 3278; 21 Cadogan gdns, S.W.3] stays in place in the London directories until its last appearance in the 1947 book.


The Misses Mills then appear in the 1948 telephone directory at Budleigh Salterton, residing at Grey Friars. Given the actual listing—"The Misses Mills"—George was not residing with them in Budleigh at the time.


To summarize the life of the Mills family between 1932 and 1947, after the death of Rev. Barton Mills, his wife and daughters relocated from Hans Road to nearby Cadogan Gardens and began running what was basically a boarding house (although I am certain that, given their elite neighbourhood and clientele, there must have been an upscale euphemism they would have preferred) through the Great Depression and the Second World War.

Their rooms must have had a quality of exclusivity about them as we do not find any advertisements to let them. "Word of mouth" about the Mills home must have been enough to keep them full of tenants.

[We should, however, keep in mind the capricious and obstinate nature of the on-line search engine of The Times database. When we used it to collect croquet results for the Mills siblings, it provided access only a small fraction of the information available. It is distinctly possible that the Mills did advertise for tenants in The Times on many occasions and the exceptionally poor search engine there cannot locate those entries.]

Following the death of their mother Edith in 1945, the spinster sisters of George Mills cleaned out 21 Cadogan Gardens in 1947 and took their lives—Agnes was 53 that year, and Violet 45—to Devon, where they took up residence at Grey Friars, at 15 Westfield Road [left], in Budleigh, literally just a hundred or so feet from the croquet club.

Eventually George finally would—probably in the late 1950s—come to live with them, all of them playing bridge and croquet until the 1970s, when George passed away in December 1972 and the girls both in July 1975.

From The Grove to Budleigh, via Picadilly Place

Today, it is time to hit the rewind button—I almost said "on the tape," even though that now sounds, in a DVD/DVR world, like saying that I donned "spats" and my "fob"—and travel back in time for a while. We'll leave behind the coastal croquet lawns of Budleigh, Parkstone, and The Saffrons and turn the compass northward as well. Our destination? London, much earlier in the 20th century, where we'll try to find young George Mills, the teenager!

This note arrived yesterday from Michael P. of the Eastbourne Local History Association:

"Having noticed that GM was educated at Harrow, I told Rita Boswell, the archivist there, of your website and asked whether she had more info on him. Below is her response:

I have checked our school paper and photograph collection for George Mills but both have drawn a blank so far. We are having the paper digitised at the moment which will enable a better search in due course. It is also possible that a photo will turn up in due course, so I will keep looking. Meanwhile, all I can tell you is what appears in the School Register. That is:

George Ramsay Acland Mills, son of the Rev. B. R. V. Mills (Old Harrovian) of 38 Onslow Gardens S W London. George entered Harrow in September 1910 and left in the summer of 1912; while here he resided in a small boarding house and another house called The Grove [pictured, right]. He served in the Great War from 1916-1919 as a Corporal in the Rifle Brigade but transferred to A.P.C. and then the R.A.S.C. He went up to Christ Church Oxford and became a Preparatory Schoolmaster. His address in 1951 is given as the Naval and Military Club at 94 Piccadilly, London W.1.

I hope this is of interest to you."

Yes, it is, Michael, and thank you so much!

First of all, it's quite exciting to think that there may be a story or two, and perhaps even a photograph, of a young George lurking in a school paper somewhere at Harrow. Mills arrived at Windlesham House School in 1925 after having attended Oxford as a schoolmaster and immediately became involved in that institution's stage productions. It isn't difficult to imagine that, as a boy, Mills had been involved in extracurricular endeavors at Harrow that included drama, and that Harrovian student productions were well covered by the school paper.

"The above makes even more sense when one reads the current description of The Grove on Harrow's website:

The Grove is situated on what is nearly the highest point of the Hill, next to St Mary's Church, and is home to about seventy boys.

The Grove occupies a central and prominent position near the highest point of the Hill, yet its quiet location is an attraction. Boys come from all over the United Kingdom and links with more distant prep schools are actively maintained. The Grove is strong in Art and Drama, and increasingly in Music, with a longer reputation for sporting prowess.

Variety in the intake of boys gives the House its strength, and its success depends on their talent."

Given the proclivity of George Mills to have been involved as a schoolmaster in the arts, particularly drama and music, as well as sports, The Grove must have been a perfect locale for his education!

I suppose it is even possible that we might gain a clue as to where George Mills went when he departed The Grove in the summer of his 15th year. Mills reappears in the historical record in the summer of 1916 when he is recruited to the Rifle Depot in July and sent off to war.

Still, one wonders what a sixteen-year-old in early 20th century England, from a well-to-do family and with an education at Harrow does with himself for four years.

I've speculated that the teenaged George may have tried to follow to some degree in the footsteps of his uncle, Major Dudley Mills of the Royal Engineers, eschewing the military for the time being and becoming an apprentice at the engineering firm Wallis & Steevens, Ltd.

However, that supposition rests on the tenuous evidence of a ship manifest from 1915 containing the name George Mills, who at the time was a 19-year-old British apprentice sailing from Buenos Aires to Liverpool with then-54-year-old Alfred Wallis of the famed engineering firm [right].

The point of Stanley Elkin's novel, George Mills, is that the world has always been populated by a plethora of run-of-the-mill, indistinguishable men by the name of George Mills. Hence, basing any supposition on a U.K. document containing the name 'George Mills' is, I realize, a longshot.

However, while freely admitting it may not actually be the case, I have no other peg upon which to hang my metaphorical hat regarding the missing years of George Mills, 1912-1916, especially since Mills signed his army recruitment papers with his occupation listed as "student"—a term which could loosely, I suppose, be applied to an apprentice, particularly one from a scholarly family such as George's.

One other interesting aspect of the above information is George's 1951 address: The Naval and Military Club, then at 94 Piccadilly, London W.1. [left].

We've seen George use this address before. In 1944, he wrote The Times about the Royal Army Pay Corps, having been an officer in it recently, and used that exact address. And, now, here we have Mills still using the same one some seven years later.

His father, Rev. Barton R. V. Mills, used The Athenæum, Pall, Mall, S.W.1 [below, right], as his professional address even when he lived nearby in Kensington. The Military and Naval Club is, coincidentally just blocks away from his George's father's haunts at The Athenæum in 1951, and less than a mile away from the family's past residences, west of Green Park and Buckingham Palace.

George's mother, Edith Mills, had passed away in 1945 while living with George's sisters in Kensington. By 1947, the spinsters Agnes and Violet Mills, had moved to Grey Friars in Budleigh Salterton, where George was certainly known to have resided, where he passed away in 1972, and where he may have been buried.

It's possible, I suppose, that Mills resided at the Military and Naval Club after the war, well into the 1950s. I understand that it's affordable for one to stay there now, compared to other lodging in central London. It may have been even more affordable at the time, especially given that it would have been undergoing construction to repair bombing damage in 1941 [pictured in Life magazine in 1941, right].

The question becomes: After relinquishing his commission in the RAPC due to ill-health in 1943, where did Mills go? Did he then live in Cadogan Gardens with his mother and sisters? And, after the Misses Mills departed for Budleigh in 1947, did he tag along, or stay? Or even relocate elsewhere—something quite possible given his lifelong inclination to Sussex?

Thank you, Michael, for the information above! It inches us closer to a more thorough knowledge of the author, George Mills. But, as always seems the case, with answers come new questions. And if you have any information that can help, please don't hesitate to contact me!

Solving the Mystery of Barbara Mills... by Telephone

After catching up with my incoming mail, it's time to go back to something I'd started before I left for Michigan: There's more to be gleaned from the British telephone directories.

A caveat would be that just because a person's name is on a telephone in a certain location at a certain time, it doesn't mean that the person in question is actually there. A case in point would be the fact that my mother never took her phone out of my father's name after he passed away in 1997. It stayed that way until she also left us in 2004. That telephone number stayed Dad's for an additional 7 years after his death.

We can assume, however, that it is in someone's interest to keep paying for a telephone number listed in a certain location. I think we can also assume that when a telephone listing moves, the person, persons, or that "interest" moves along with it.

That said, there's still much to be learned from the London listings that we've already looked at in terms of the nuclear family of Reverend Barton R. V. Mills through 1925, and then the listings for "G. R. A. Mills" after his wedding in that same year—listings that may or may not have been listings for the George Mills with which we're concerned.

In the April 1925 London directory [pictured, above left], the number of George's brother Captain Arthur H. Mills [Victoria 2285, listed at 91A Ebury st., S.W.1] is marked by handwriting on the page's margin: "R120 27/6."

The only other listing marked by hand is that of George's father, Rev. Barton R. V. Mills [Kensington 2397, listed at 38 Onslow Gardens S.W.7], designated by what appears to be: "Kx R 27/7."

Why those listings had been singled out to be marked by the telephone company is a mystery because one subsequently changed and the other did not. Could the notes it have to do with a change in billing? Barton Mills is ostensibly retired at this point, immersed in his research about St. Bernard. Arthur, on the other hand, has begun to make a name for himself as an author, having just published his sixth book in the past four years. His wife, Lady Dorothy Mills, had also published five books during that same span of time. Perhaps Arthur has taken on the cost of his father's telephone.

Regardless, Arthur's listing remains the same in the October 1925 London directory [right], but Barton's listing is changed to "Sloane ….. 3278 Mills Rev. Barton R. V. .. .. .. .. 24 Hans rd S.W.3."

That listing for Rev. Barton R. V. Mills stayed in place through 1931. Barton Mills passed away suddenly, however, on 21 January 1932 in London.

The 1932 London directory contains a new listing for that address and telephone number: Mrs. Barton Mills.

In 1933, the telephone number for Mrs. Barton Mills remains the same—SLOane 3278—but the address changes. The new address is 21 Cadogan Gardens, S.W.3.

That's an address we already know. It was associated with Agnes and Violet Mills at the time of the death of Major Reginald Ramsay Wingate, DCLI, in March 1938. He was a relative on their mother's side of the family, and had passed away in Cornwall. At Maj. Wingate's funeral, you may recall, flowers had been received from "Misses Barbara, Agnes, and Violet Mills (Cadogen Gardens S.W.)."

Cadogan Gardens is in Kensington, where Major Wingate's mother was living in 1938 at the age of 90, so a close connection between the two families at that time is easy to see.

The real impact of the juxtaposition of this telephone listing and the Major Wingate's obituary is that it apparently clarifies the mystery of who, exactly, Barbara Mills was!

We've experienced the fact that clerks like census enumerators, and even 21st century digitizers, often end up with things spelled incorrectly. Let's take a look at who would have ordered the flowers for the Wingate funeral in Cornwall.

The telephone listing at 21 Cadogan Gardens, S.W. [and we can see that somewhere between London and the publication of the newspaper obituary in Cornwall (left), "Cadogan" has changed in spelling to "Cadogen"], in 1938 was in the name of "Mrs. Barton Mills."

The flowers were sent from "Misses Barbara, Agnes, and Violet Mills."

Let's assume they were ordered by telephone, with a bill subsequently being sent from Cornwall to London. The person taking the message was told the flowers were from "Mrs. Barton, Agnes, and Violet Mills," but mistakenly heard "Misses Barbara, Agnes, and Violet Mills," and wrote the latter on the card. What difference an incorrectly transcribed syllable can make!

Until the existence of an actual relative named Barbara Mills comes to light, this is probably the best explanation for "Barbara's" kindness in sending flowers to that funeral—she was actually Edith [Mrs. Barton] Mills!

The combination of the card pinned on those flowers and that current telephone listing also tells us something else: Spinsters Agnes and Violet Mills still live with their mother in 1938. Married brother George [getting ready to publish his second book, King Willow], and his wife, Vera, obviously do not.

The listing for Mrs. Barton Mills [SLOane 3278; 21 Cadogan gdns, S.W.3] stays in place in the London directories until its last appearance in the 1947 book.

In an entry posted here yesterday, however, we discovered that Elizabeth Edith [Mrs. Barton] Mills passed away near the end of the calendar year 1945. We must assume that the phone at 21 Cadogan Gardens remained in her name afterwards, with the bill being paid by her "estate," in the persons of Agnes and Violet.

By 1947, Agnes would have been 52 years old, and Violet, 45. Being spinsters who were interested in the "Girl Guides," and with no mother [who'd been born, married, and died there in Kensington] to keep them in London, it would be no surprise to find that the girls might head out of town, into the countryside, to live out their Golden Years.

1947 also finds these additions to the British Library's Manuscripts Catalogue: "Ramsay (George Dalhousie) of the War Office; knt. 1900. Correspondence and papers 1835-1898," and "Papers of G. D. Ramsay rel. to the Royal Army Clothing Dept. 1855-1898," Add. 46446 – 46450.

The donors of those manuscripts? "Mills (Agnes Edith). Miss. grand-daughter of Sir G. D. Ramsay. Presented, jointly with Miss V. E. Mills 1947," and "Mills (Violet Eleanor). Miss. grand-daughter of Sir G. D. Ramsay. Presented, jointly with Miss A. E. Mills 1947."

It seems that the girls had been busy cleaning out 21 Cadogan Gardens following their mother's passing, and finally arranging a place for the papers of Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, their maternal grandfather, to reside in perpetuity [right].

It's notable that, as in the case of the flowers sent to Major Wingate's funeral in Cornwall some dozen years before, the name of George Mills—in 1947, then five years a widower and four years past the relinquishing of his service commission in the Royal Army Pay Corps—is not one of the donors.

There's no reason to believe that George was not close to his sisters, but the evidence suggests that he was not living with them in 1938 or in 1947. The 1947 London directory alone has at least eight listings for a "George" or "G." Mills, all of whom could very well could be the George Mills of our interest.

Nevertheless, the "Misses Mills" appear to be heading out of town in 1947, and there's good reason to believe we know exactly where they went—and that location has been tied intimately to our George Ramsay Acland Mills as well.

But we'll examine that another time. For now, let's just be satisfied with solving the previously perplexing puzzle, "Who in the world was Barbara Mills?"

Eleanor, Edie, Baby Alexander, and Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay

Another outpost heard from while I vacationed was the Isle of Man, where friend of this website David Wingate was on holiday with his fiancée. I'd been pestering him for a while about forwarding me an image he has of Edith Mills, mother of George Mills. Here's an excerpt from David's latest e-mail:

Hi Sam,

Attached is the picture of Edith as a young girl… Pictures of St. Michael's, Bude; St. Olaf's, Ploughill; and St. Andrew's, Stratton will be on their way to you on Monday.

Have a nice weekend,

Regards

David

You see the long-awaited image above, at the left. It features a photograph of "Edie," her father, Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, his wife, Eleanor Juliat Charteris Crawford, and Edie's brother, Alexander Panmure Oswald Ramsay, who died on 15 February 1897 at the age of 30.

"Edie" was born Elizabeth Edith Ramsay on 27 July 1865 in Kensington, London. She married Reverend Barton R. V. Mills at St. George's Hanover Square in Kensington on 10 January 1894. Their first child, Agnes Edith Mills, was born in Stratton, Cornwall, on 11 June 1895.

Their second child and first son, George Ramsay Acland Mills, was born on 1 October 1896, also in Cornwall where Rev. Mills was vicar of Bude Haven.

After the family moved to London in 1901, Violet Eleanor Mills was born on 17 November 1902.

Reverend Barton passed away suddenly on 21 January 1932 in London. "Edie" lived at Cadogen Gardens in Kensington afterwards with her daughters Agnes and Violet, and possibly her son, George, at times.

"Edie" Mills passed away in nearby Chelsea, probably at the Royal Hospital, during the last few months of 1945 [Oct/Nov/Dec] at the age of 80.

Knowing as we do that George Mills suffered through the deaths of his wife, Vera, in 1942, and a young friend who was important to George's career as an author, Terence Hadow, in the Burmese campaign in 1943, his mother's passing near the end of the war in 1945 certainly made it a difficult three years for Mills, already, as we know, in failing health—he relinquished a commission as a lieutenant in the Royal Army Pay Corps due to "ill-health" in late 1943.

Thank you, David, for this wonderful portrait of Edith Mills with the family of her youth. I'll look forward to receiving those images from Cornwall via snail mail!

Tracking the Life and Travels of Vera Louise Beauclerk Mills, Part 1

What an exciting World Cup match yesterday! The U.S. and England put on quite a show, and despite U.S. expert predictions of a hard-fought American 2-1 win and British prognostications of an easy 3-1 win, no one hit the nail on the head. In the States with our less-than-complete understanding of all of this, it's said that a tie is like kissing your sister. That's why we're still adjusting to games without clear-cut winners and losers on a global stage.

Speaking of the global stage, one character in our story of George Mills who could claim to be an international entity would be his wife, Vera Louise Beauclerk. Let's turn back the clock a bit…

As we know, Sir Robert Hart [pictured, right], 1st Baronet, G.C.M.G., [20 February 1835 – 20 September 1911], was a British consular official in China, who served from 1863-1911 as the second Inspector General of China's Imperial Maritime Custom Service (IMCS). After his retirement, Hart became Pro-Chancellor of Queen’s University.

Hart's first daughter, Evelyn "Evey" Amy Hart [b. 1869 in China; d. 10 June 1933], married William Nelthorpe Beauclerk [born 7 April 1849] on 5 September 1892 in Peking, China. Beauclerk, twenty years her senior, was of the lineage of the Duke of St. Albans, and eventual consul to Peru, where he died in Lima on 5 March 1908.

They had spent enough time on the same continent to have had two children, Vera Louise Beauclerk, born on 21 September 1893, and Hilda de Vere Beauclerk on 21 January 1895. The girls were also born in China, Vera apparently in the Chefoo British Consulate in Chefoo, Shan-Tung. There is a record on ancestry.com, however, that lists Vera's birthplace as "Wafangdian, Fu Xian, Liaoning, China."

Vera sailed out of Sydney, Australia, on 10 March 1913 on the S.S. Marama with her mother and sister, Hilda. She is listed as being 19 years old at the time, and the family is listed as "tourists" traveling to a final destination in London, England. Other details of that ship's manifest [pictured in excerpts below, left] assure us that each family member could both read and write, that each one was in possession of at least $50 at the time, and that Evelyn had visited the U.S. once for 3 months and had toured "all over," while the 1913 landing in Honolulu was the first visit to the United States for both daughters. The trio is listed as being in "good" mental and physical health, as not being "polygamists" or "anarchists," and are all listed as having been born in Peking, China.

The manifest states that, as citizens of England, they are going "home," and describes the physical appearance of each: Mrs. Beauclerk and Vera Louise both being 5 foot 6 inches tall, with brown hair, blue eyes, and a "dark" complexion. Hilda is also 5' 6", but with "straw" hair [straw-colored? strawberry blonde?], green eyes, and a "fair" complexion.

They arrived in Honolulu on 21 March.

In that year of 1913, Mrs. Beauclerk would have been traveling as a widow with her teen-aged girls.

The next shipping manifest on which we find the ladies listed is dated over six years later [right]. The trio embarked from New York and arrived in London on the 'Saxonia' on 5 May 1919. Although there is less on this manifest, there is still information to be gleaned.

The ladies, now aged 50, 25, and 27 [although the girls' ages are reversed, and Vera is actually only 26], list their address as both "Honk Kong-Shangai Bank." and "9 Grace Street London E C." Their occupations are given as "None."

They list their "Country of Intended Future Permanent Residence" as "England." Very interestingly, however, they list their "Country of Last Permanent Residence" as having been the "USA"—that being defined on the manifest as: "By Permanent Residence is to be understood residence for a year or more."

Thus, we find the Beauclerk women entering the United States via Honolulu in 1913 and departing via New York in 1919 for London. In between, the only thing we can be sure of is that they spent "a year or more" as "permanent residents" in the USA immediately before their departure for England. There is no record of them leaving or re-entering the United States between 1913 and 1919.

Wikipedia describes the state of Atlantic shipping during that time, at the onset of the First World War: "Many of the large liners were laid up over the autumn/winter of 1914-1915, in part due to falling demand for passenger travel across the Atlantic, and in part to protect them from damage due to mines or other dangers. Among the most recognizable of these liners, some were eventually used as troop transports, while others became hospital ships."

Did the Beauclerks initially stay in the U.S. either for fear of crossing the Atlantic to England, or because they had difficulty making arrangements due to declining departures? Were they simply the self-described "tourists" of the Marama's manifest, or did Mrs. Beauclerk have family and/or friends with whom they could connect and stay? After all, she had once traveled "all over" the U.S. for months without her daughters, and that may not have been alone. Is it also possible there were relatives in Canada?

Wikipedia continues: "By early 1915 a new threat began to materialize: submarines. At first they were used by the Germans only to attack naval vessels, and they achieved only occasional – but sometimes spectacular – successes. Then the U-boats began to attack merchant vessels at times, although almost always in accordance with the old cruiser rules. Desperate to gain an advantage on the Atlantic, the German Government decided to step up their submarine campaign. On 4 February 1915 Germany declared the seas around the British Isles a war zone: from 18 February Allied ships in the area would be sunk without warning."

The same Wikipedia entry goes on to say: "At the end of 1917 Allied shipping losses stood at over 6 million GRT for the year overall… [but] by 1918, U-boat losses had reached unacceptable levels, and the morale of their crews had drastically deteriorated; by the autumn it became clear that the Central Powers could not win the war. The Allies insisted that an essential precondition of any armistice was that Germany surrender all her submarines, and on 24 October 1918 all German U-boats were ordered to cease offensive operations and return to their home ports."

By the end of 1918, one can assume that the waters of the North Atlantic were again safe to travel, and the Beauclerks continued their long-delayed journey to London—a journey that could conceivably have taken them six years to complete!

Specifically regarding the Saxonia, here's information from the Cunard Line, via www.nestorsbridge.com/maghera/saxonia-1.html: "The outbreak of World War I, in July 1914, forced a change in the [passenger] ship's role. After returning to Liverpool the Saxonia sailed to the Thames to be used as a POW accommodation ship. It soon returned to the company's service and, between May 1915 and October 1916, made several voyages from Liverpool to New York. It was not until 1917 that the Saxonia was again requisitioned by the government, this time to carry troops and cargo between Liverpool and New York. After the war ended the ship was employed transporting American troops from France home to New York. This task was completed by April 1919 and the Saxonia was free to return to commercial service."

The Beauclerks were on board the Saxonia during that first post-WWI trip from New York to Plymouth and London. Why they chose not to sail on passenger cruises between May 1915 and October 1916 is open to conjecture, but it seems likely that while fear may have played into the decision to stay in the U.S., they must also have been in a comfortable situation somewhere over here and were willing to wait for an end to the hostilities.

The Beauclerks would have arrived at 9 Grace Street in London [pictured, left] soon after leaving the Saxonia on 5 May 1919. George Ramsay Acland Mills arrives at Christ Church with his father, Rev. Barton Mills, on 19 October 1919, so the future bride and groom are finally both in London! By 19 October, George was 23 and Vera was 27 years of age.

By the time of the nuptials of Miss V. L. Beauclerk and Mr. G. R. A. Mills on 23 April 1925, Mrs. Beauclerk is residing at "4, Hans-mansion, S.W." according to The Times. While entering that "Hans-mansion" address into Google Maps only turns up a location near Datça, Turkey, I can find a "Hans" area very close to the Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, where George and Vera were wed and the hotel where their reception was held. It's also a stone's throw from "Cadogen Gardens, S.W." where we found George's sisters, Agnes and Violet Mills, living with an unknown "Barbara Mills" in 1938.

In fact, the Mills' homes in both Cranley [Cranleigh] and Onslow Gardens were less than a mile to the southwest of the area of the wedding, making Kensington the hotbed of Mills family activity between the wars in the early 20th century.

Anyway, George Mills spent time at Christ Church [below, left] from October 1919 through May 1921. On the 21st of May that year, Mills entered Oxford. How long he stayed at Oxford is unknown because he neither takes his final examinations nor a degree.

By 1925, however, he is employed as an Oxford graduate at Windlesham House School, then in Portslade, and begins teaching in "Lent 1925." I'm not exactly sure when that term began, but in 1925, Ash Wednesday fell on February 25.

Two months later, Mills was married. I think it's safe to assume from the size of his wedding and location of the reception, it had been planned for some time. Is it safe to say he proposed marriage to Vera and asked for her hand in 1923 or early 1924?

How and when George met Vera is unknown. Their families obviously lived within the same London district, and perhaps they all attended Holy Trinity there in Brompton. By the early 1920's, though, George's brother, Arthur, and sister-in-law, Lady Dorothy Mills, are gaining notoriety as novelists, so perhaps George was invited to functions in exclusive literary circles where he became acquainted with Vera.

No matter how they met, the couple set sail in matrimony in 1925, after Vera, born in China, had probably spent years in the United States.

Next time we'll take a look at Vera's life after her marriage and, unfortunately, her early death. Until then, however, I'd like to extend many thanks to Alan Ramsay and his work on ancestry.com for linking the Beauclerks to the Saxonia's manifest—and for opening up a new line of research for me!

[To read Part 2 right now, click HERE.]