A Hodge Podge of Mills Miscellany

The temperature here in steamy Florida—and across the U.S. for that matter—simply has been sweltering! I should be out finishing the task of painting the house, but it has been easier just to stay indoors, enjoy the air conditioning, and work at cleaning out the George Mills-related folders that have been squirreled in and all around this computer, I have some miscellaneous items that I want to post before we wrap things up here at Who Is George Mills?

Here they are, in no particular order:


WWII R.A.P.C. Regimental Pay Office:


First up, Part I of the April 1944 edition of the Quarterly Army List provides a snippet of information that may help us understand one aspect of the life of George Mills a bit better.

In October 1940, Mills rejoined the army and was named an officer in the Royal Army Pay Corps. I have been unable to locate information regarding where he was assigned after that. We do know that M ills had family that at one time owned much of Devon—the Aclands—but there's no reason to suspect that the army would have given much care to that in assigning him.

However, we do know that Vera Mills, George's wife, passed away at Minehead, Somerset, on 6 January 1942. Why she may have been residing at Minehead in January is unknown, but the Quarterly Army List does contain this, in a list of APC Regimental Pay Offices:

Exeter

Regimental Paymaster —
Booth, Lt.-Col. E. W., O.B.E., M.C., R.A.P.C.

Second in Command —
Coate, Maj. (war subs. 1/7/42) R. D., R.A.P.C.


It may simply be a coincidence, but the second in command at the Exeter pay office in 1944 had drawn his assignment there on 7 January 1942—the day after Vera's death.

Mills may not have been there at all, and Major Coate may have taken over as second in command at Exeter in an unrelated transaction. Still, it is a clue as to where George may have been between late 1940 and early 1942.


Manifests and Paperwork, 1913 and 1919:


We know that it is extremely likely that Vera Mills (née Beauclerk) had been abroad (in Canada or the United States) with her mother and sister during most of the First World War before returning to England and later marrying George Mills.

Found are a couple of indices recording the entrance of 19 year old Vera Louise Beauclerk into Honolulu, Hawaii, on both 26 March 1913 (arriving aboard the Marama) and again on 16 June 1913 (aboard the Chiyo Maru).



You can see the records above. [Click to enlarge any image in a new window.]


Warren Hill in 1896:


George Mills was born in Bude, Cornwall, in 1896. At the same time, across England, A. Max Wilkinson, Head Master of Warren Hill School in Meads, Eastbourne, had had a telephone installed at the school. You can see pages from that seemingly ancient 1896 directory.



George would be grown and working at Warren Hill by 1930.


We also recently located the master's residence across Beachy Head Road from the school, circa 1901. Thanks to the yeoman work (yeoperson?) of the resourceful Jennifer M., we also know who lived there during the 1911: Charles Ridley Witherall and Robert Mervyn Powys Druce, both "schoolmasters" at a "private" school. Also on the census form are Scottish sisters Mary and Janet Robb, the housekeeper and cook respectively.



This is the residence in which George Mills would have lived while he was teaching at Warren Hill, and is likely the one described in his first novel, Meredith and Co.

And, before we leave a subject that concerns A. Max Wilkinson, his Times obituary card has been located: It reads: "WILKINSON.—On Oct. 27, 1948, at Exmouth, very peacefully, A. MAX WILKINSON, sometime of Warren Hill, Eastbourne, and Wittersham, Kent, aged 92 years. Cremation, private."


Monica Cecil Grant Mills (née Wilks):


There are dual listings for the second marriage of George's half-brother, Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills, born 1887: His second wife in one place a Monica Wilson, and in another she is a Monica Wilks. The correct one is clearly Monica Wilks, and here is her birth record from 1902 at Ecclesall Bierlow:



There is also a record of her death—the only one I can find—in the London Gazette dated 17th August 1981 on page 10642. After her name, Monica Cecil Grant Mills, in a column labeled "Address, description, and date of death of Deceased," it reads: "Rivlyn Lodge, Shorefield Road, Downton, Lymington, Hampshire, Widow. 5th August 1981."



Winds Cottage, Downton, is where Monica lived with Arthur Mills until his death in 1955. I am still unsure whether or not Monica—15 years younger than Arthur—bore him children. If so, they are not among the records at ancestry.com.


Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills in China:


We have had only one image of Arthur Mills here, and the on-line caption I found with the photograph makes reference to Arthur having returned with relics from a trip to China "circa 1925," pictired, left.

We now know that trip occurred during 1928. While I cannot find a record of him arriving in England, there is a record of him steaming into Los Angeles, California, aboard the S.S. President Cleveland on 23 February 1928, having departed Hongkong [sic], China, on 30 January. He is listed a 40 year old "writer," who had obtained his visa on 26 January in Hongkong.

There are oddities: Mills lists his birthplace as "Woltexton, England," although his birth took place in Stratton, Cornwall, and he was raised in Bude.

Incredibly, is it possible that this was simply a mistake, and that the typist simply placed an "x" where Mills had wanted an "r"? Wolterton is the ancestral family home of his wife, Lady Dorothy Mills, who was estranged from her family because of her marriage to Mills. Was this simply a perverse joke on the part of Arthur, or did he think listing his birthplace as the estate of peerage—the Walpoles—would gain him some shipboard advantage?




In addition, Mills is the only person on the manifest's page [above]. Apparently no one else was making the trip from China to L.A.

Having always wondered if Arthur had missed george's 1925 wedding because he was in China, the answer now comes back a resounding 'no'...

Uncle Dudley and Jamaica:


Although Arthur and George's uncle, Dudley Acland Mills (Lt.-Col., Royal Engineers), is commonly associated with his eccentric activities in China, we find him here, on page 2326 of the 3 April 1906 edition of the London Gazette, being named by the King to be a member of the Legislative Council of the Island of Jamaica [below].




The Rev. Barton R. V. and Rev. Henry Mills:

I did not record in which text I found the following thumbnail sketches [below] of the lives of Barton Mills, father of George Mills, and Barton's uncle, Henry Mills, also a cleric in the Church of England. (We met Henry once before.)




Gillmore Goodland, Revisited:


In our seemingly never ending study of Gillmore Goodland and family, there was an additional weirdness that has just come to light. The 1901 census lists Gillmore, a 34 year old "civil engineer," as living on London Road at Royston, Hertfordshire—a place we recently examined in relation to the maternal family of Egerton Clarke—with his daughter, Kathleen G. Goodland, aged 5 months, a 28 year old Scottish nurse/domestic named Mary Woodhams, and his 23 year old wife, "Martha L. Goodland."

Goodland's wife was also named "Kathleen." It’s odd that the census taker managed to get her middle initial—standing for "Lillis"—correct, but somehow managed to get "Martha" in as her first name. Peculiar.


In addition, when we looked at Gillmore Goodland's children, we found Kathleen and Joan Goodland, his daughters. What we did not find was much about his son, Desmond Gillmore Goodland, who must have been born around 1910.

There is a birth record for him now, seen below, having been born in Godstone, Surrey, in the summer of 1910. That's the location recorded for his older sisters on the 1911 census.

We had thought young Desmond (he would sign his name in 1941 as "Desmond Gillmore Goodland" below, right) was in Wales, during that census, possibly with his aunt, Grace Goodland.

We now know that's incorrect. The infant in Wales recorded as "Gilmore Goodland" actually had that first name spelled correctly: Gilmore, with one "L". This child was actually Frank Gilmore Goodland, son of Gillmore's brother Ernest Talbot Goodland, who was then living in Australia, and Ernest's wife, Winifred Margaret Goodland (née Owen), who was visiting "her sister Florence Owen together with my great grandmother Selina Owen in Cardiff."

Many thanks to Winifred's descendant, John Owen, for providing the above information in his own words, as well as for helping me work out the lad's identity.

However, that begs the question: "Where was infant Desmond Gillmore Goodland—less than a year old, with his mother and father in North America for a year and his sisters in Godstone—during the taking of the 1911 census?"

It still seems odd that Gillmore and Kathleen would have sailed to America when he was a newborn—and they clearly did—presumably leaving him in England, but sequestered in a place where the infant would not make the census count.

Peculiar. But, then, there were many peculiarities in the story of Gillmore Goodland, Engineer.


Sir Leonard Daldry on Tape:


Daldry was a croquet player who competed at the time the Mills siblings were on the circuit along the south coast of England. Those with an interest (and the access, which I do not enjoy) may want to peruse a taped interview with Sir Leonard. It is entered in the text: A Guide to Manuscripts and Documents in the British Isles Related to Africa: British Isles (Excluding London) by James Douglas Pearson and Noel Matthews (London: Mansell, 1994).



The entry, seen above, reads: "1935 – 1961. Daldry, Sir Leonard Charles: Transcript of taped interview, 1970, relating to service in east Africa and Nigeria, 1935 – 1961; banking, railways, House of Representatives, Senator. (MSS Afr. s. 1576)"

My hunch is that the interview would be fascinating.


I Wish I Could Dial It and See Who Answers:

Lastly, there is something about a single, innocuous entry, tucked away in the 1951 Brighton telephone directory that holds my interest. There is no way of knowing if it is our George Mills, but it reads:

Mills G. 36 Vernon ter, Brighton 1 . . . . . . . . . Hove 36575

Is it the George Mills of our interest? For all we know, it could be a Gareth or a Guy Mills.

I'm not certain why entirely, but of all of the G. Millses I've come across in all of the telephone directories, on all of the World Wide Web, this one makes me think it could be George...


And, as always, if you have any information, speculation, or recollections of George Mills, his family, his friends, his life, or his times, please don't hesitate to contact me, and thank you very much in advance!

Considering the Relationship Between Joshua Goodland and George Mills

George Mills taught at Warren Hill School sometime in the late 1920s. Historians at Windlesham House School [left, now in Brighton, but then in Portslade] believe that Mills was in his first job as a schoolmaster when he spent over a year there, from Lent, 1925, through the end of the summer term in 1926.

Mills published his first novel, Meredith and Co.: The Story of a Modern Preparatory School, in 1933, and since we know from a promotional leaflet he was not on the staff at Warren Hill around 1930-1931, it's likely he would have been employed in Eastbourne sometime between 1926 and 1929. Mills also found himself teaching at The Craig School in Windermere and the English Preparatory School in Glion, Switzerland during those years, but it makes sense to surmise that he made a smaller move from Portslade to nearby Eastbourne before exploring career opportunities farther afield

George's Uncle Dudley Mills had been an officer in the Royal Engineers during George's childhood, and he had been quite a raconteur and world traveler. It's easy to imagine George and his siblings gathered around Uncle Dudley during one of his returns to England, listening intently to stories of faraway lands. For example, Dudley once apparently traveled around China dressed as in Chinese garb, speaking the language, and eating local delicacies.

It's also easy to imagine George sitting in the lounge at Warren Hill or having a pint in Meads at The Ship Inn, listening to Joshua Goodland's tales of travelling around the entire world, and his experiences as he had studied education, architecture, and law to that point in his life. Goodland was the holder of an M.B.E., had designed buildings, taught elementary school, tried important cases, hunted big game in Canada, hiked near the Arctic Circle in Sweden, golfed in Sussex, coached law at Cambridge, sailed around the world, saw San Francisco recovering from the 1906 earthquake, visited modernizing Japan and Czarist Russia before the revolution—well, it probably seemed to George that Goodland had done just about everything!

George's own schooling had taken him south to Haywards Heath and his military experience had led him to exotic Dover and Shropshire [below, left].

In Goodland, George may have seen some possibilities for himself and his future that were not apparent within his family of origin. George's father, Rev. Barton R. V. Mills, had been ticketed for university, and eventually a life as a cleric and scholar, while his brother, Dudley, went to military school. My supposition would be that many parents with a pair of sons at the time may have made similar decisions: An education for one, the military for the other.

During the early 20th century, George's father did indeed make a similar decision regarding his own two sons. Barton's elder boy, Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills, went from Wellington, to Sandhurst, to the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry as an officer. Young George was ticketed for Harrow, where his learned and degreed father and grandfather both had been schooled. It's even possible George ended up in an apprenticeship after he left Harrow in 1912.

We know from his records that the military simply didn't work out for George during World War I. After an initial and quite unofficial stint as a lance corporal, he was kept at the level of "fatigue man" for the duration of the war without any hope of promotion. George enjoyed none of the military success that his brother—who was decorated for heroism under fire—had found in the Great War. The younger Mills had washed out as a clerk. Perhaps he simply was not cut out for the military.

It's difficult to say how well George Mills did when he attended Oxford following his hitch in the military. We know he was there from 1919 through some time in 1922 at the very latest, but there are no records of what he might have studied and no record of him having taken any examinations.

Perhaps George simply was not cut out for academia, either. In a family that seems to have valued the dual career choices mentioned above, things must have looked grim for George Mills in regard to gaining and retaining the genuine respect of his family.

Both the military and institutes of higher learning would seem to organizations which have a great many rules to be followed, expectations to be met, and a fundamental duty to reshape their clients into something different—something better—than they had been upon entering. Routines, procedures, systematic progression, and an institutional socialization would have been de rigueur, and perhaps that aspect of military and academic life was what Mills had the most difficulty with in both.

George Mills was probably not considered an extremely able student when he left Harrow [right] after two years. He was tall, slightly built, and beset with both varicose veins on his lips and a speech impediment. His interaction with strangers—and upon entering Harrow, everyone there must have been a stranger—may have been difficult and painfully protracted by his impediment.

Under the pressure of other boys teasing him or stern schoolmasters demanding answers, he may have continually wilted, unable to effectively communicate, eventually becoming reticent even to try.

Humor would have been a marvelous coping mechanism for George as he grew to know some of the other boys and his masters, but one wonders if he could have made enough people laugh to have deflected what must have been a great deal of cruel teasing, and to achieve academically all he might have at Harrow. He may simply have been in survival mode most of the time (and actually may have spent time after his time at Harrow involved in the harrowing speech therapy and familial support of the day, as depicted at the beginning of The King's Speech [left]).

Things must not have gone much better for him in khaki, with orders being barked, snappy replies requested, and impatient superiors continually crying, "Spit it out, soldier!" Increased anxiety under pressure, and an inability to communicate clearly and efficiently in the midst of the most brutal conflict that had engulfed the entire planet, could not have been looked upon very favorably by anyone.

Ironically, however, Mills had a keen ear for language and an exceptional facility with its use in manuscript, despite his speech. The characters in his books are realistically articulate in both the King's English and the unique adolescent slang of the era.

Far from being perfect, the student characters in George's stories possess foibles and traits that often lead to trouble—sometimes a less-than-pleasant bout with the Head Master's tennis shoe or being ostracized by one's peers. Mills has insight into the mistakes boys make, but more so, he has insight into how adults could—and in his mind—should handle them.

It is no accident that his first novel bore the subtitle "The Story of a Modern Preparatory School [my emphasis]. "

George, in becoming an educator in the late 1920s, had for all intents and purposes returned to the scene of the metaphorical crime, or at least the very real schoolboy "crimes" that he felt had been perpetrated upon him. George, clearly a part of a new, humanistic, "modern" world of education, would right many of the wrongs that he'd experienced at his own schools decades before. And there is a good reason to believe that Joshua Goodland acted as the lynchpin in developing that goal and career choice.

Goodland was living at 144 Ashley Gardens in 1925, although it's difficult to tell exactly when he and his family vacated that address. Ashley Gardens is less than a mile from George's family's residence in Kensington at the time [24 Hans Road], and even closer to where his George's step-brother, author (and veteran of campiagns in France, China, and Palestine) Arthur F. H. Mills, was living with his wife, Lady Dorothy Mills, on nearby Ebury Street.

Given Goodland's proclivity to travel, and being a member of the Royal Geographical Society (also conveniently situated in Kensington), it's quite possible that Joshua was acquainted with George's globetrotting Uncle Dudley or Lady Dorothy. Lady D. already had begun traveling the world in the early 1920s, an activity that led her to become the era's foremost female travel writer/explorer. She published multiple monographs as a Fellow in the society (as well as a books and articles for mainstream periodicals) and was renowned throughout the United Kingdom and much of the world.

Lady Dorothy was the sister-in-law of George Mills, and a great deal of interesting activity—Lady Dorothy's travels, Goodland's own interest in travel, George's return home from Oxford and engagement to be married in 1925, and Goodland's waning interest in practicing law—were centered in less than a square mile of acreage in Kensington. George's fiancée and soon to be wife, Vera Beauclerk, was a granddaughter of legendary Sir Robert Hart and had herself been born on China! It's easy to surmise that the paths of George Mills and traveler Joshua Goodland must have crossed at some point.

George may have decided to try his hand at teaching just after Goodland had become a partner of F. R. Ebden [left] at Warren Hill, and Joshua actually may have been soliciting additional staff for the preparatory school in Eastbourne. At that time George, who was successfully engaged as in a junior appointment at nearby Windlesham, may immediately have sprung to mind. It's easy to imagine that George—then thirty years of age and gaining confidence as he taught—may have become more comfortable in his skin, and with his speech.

The Summer Term at Windlesham House this year (2011) runs from 1 May through 9 July. Assuming it was similar at the time, Mills would have been teaching at Windlesham through the Summer Term, July 1926. If Goodland had connected with Mills earlier in Kensington, it's possible that they became reacquainted during early 1926, possibly during cricket or football matches involving the boys at Windlesham and Warren Hill.

We have always assumed Mills left Windlesham against his will: Perhaps because of the General Strike, perhaps because he was found inadequate, or perhaps because it was discovered he had lied about his Oxon credentials.

Is it possible Mills left of his own accord, eschewing a newly purchased house in Portslade near Windlesham for the chance to work with Goodland in Meads? Mills might even have been lured by a bit more salary or the offer of a free residence, allowing Vera and him to sell their new home in Portslade.

George always had struggled in determining 'what he wanted to be when he grew up.' In Joshua Goodland, he'd have found a somewhat kindred spirit, a man who was had always been wanderer along a circuitous career path that included elementary school assistant, architect, law coach, barrister, schoolmaster, entrepreneur, and eventually, as we know, "sometime Head Master of Warren Hill School," all within a four decade span from 1891 to 1931.

Mills thought enough of Goodland [right] to make the "sometime Head Master" the only person singled out by name in the dedication of his first novel. It's likely the feeling was mutual. It is possible that Goodland saw something in Mills that might never have been noticed before. It is also possible that, even if George's potential had been recognized in the past, Goodland was the first to help him begin to realize it.

George never made it through Oxford, earning a degree, although that fact didn't stop him from telling potential employers that he had. It may be that he even told Goodland he was degreed. No matter, George suddenly saw possibilities—even the possibility of future success—despite having a made few career changes, and even if he had already turned thirty.

Joshua Goodland was short, gregarious, intelligent, and probably an energetic man with a wealth of talent, but it does seem he his ambition was accompanied by a lack of clear focus.

George Mills had his own set of talents, and a certain charm, wit, intelligence, and affability that eventually drew people to him. Both men were essentially social beings who obviously enjoyed teaching, and they were keen observers of people.

Mills, it seems, also shared Joshua's lack of focus.

The eminently successful Goodland must have been a larger-than-life image and role model to Mills, and it is no wonder George found himself gravitating to the man.

Why Mills soon departed Meads and ended up teaching in isolated and far flung locales like Windermere and Glion is unknown. For whatever reason, however, Goodland was still the only person mentioned by name in the dedication of George's first novel in 1933. It is difficult to believe the two men parted acrimoniously.

We don't know if Mills and Goodland remained close, but we do know that after Joshua's passing in 1939, Mills [left] never published another book despite living until 1972.

If Goodland had truly been an inspiration, and if subsequent texts continued to win Joshua's approval for George, Goodland's death may have been a real hurdle that Mills found it difficult to clear.

Mills had lost his own father in 1932, and it is possible that George—failed apprentice, failed soldier, failed academician, and a schoolmaster unable to hold the same teaching position for longer than a year or two—knew he had been a disappointment to his father. Goodland was 23 years older than Mills, and may have become an understanding and sympathetic father figure to George at a time when Mills realized he'd never lived up to his late father's expectations.

It may be a coincidence that George's most noteworthy success—1933's Meredith and Co.—was published on the heels of his father's passing in late 1932, the same year Joshua had lost his brother, Theodore. It may also be a mere coincidence that the book's dedication singled out the older Goodland for his influence on George at that critical point in his life. And it may be that the eventual demise of Joshua Goodland only coincidentally occurred in the very same year that saw the demise of George's career as an author.

But that would be too many coincidences for me to dismiss out of hand.

Mills closed the book (no pun intended at first) on his life as an author in 1939. War was imminent for Great Britain, with a resurgent emphasis on the realm's military. Having recently come to grips with finding a literary success that would have pleased his father—a scholar who had authored and edited texts of his own—Mills still had some unfinished business owing to his failings in the military..

After spending more than a decade as an schoolmaster and author, it was time for George to return to the scene of yet another crime against him: The Royal Army Pay Corps.

But that's a story we already know much of, at least pending access to his Second World War military files.

I'll have just a bit more on Joshua Goodland—a man I believe had as powerful an influence on George Mills as anyone—next time. Then, on to other topics!

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 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.

"Study the past if you would define the future" -- Confucius

In a world of dates, facts, and figures, it was nice to post something more personal yesterday. Take for example last week's probing of the military career of Arthur F. H. Mills: There are things to be learned from the dates, facts, and figures, but it only takes one so far.

The message I posted yesterday from Oriana, great-granddaughter of Col. Dudley Acland Mills, R.E., was a breath of fresh air, and I thank her profusely for it. We may not have learned anything that could really fit neatly into a time line of events, nothing packaged with indisputable numbers that could be shoe-horned into a sequence of events, but I do know I learned one thing quite clearly:

It was just a beautiful message about her family, written with love.

First of all, I was wrong about Dudley Mills having written a book. I actually ordered it from a bookseller in Australia and it turned out to be "British Diplomacy in Canada: The Ashburton Treaty" by Dudley A. Mills, an article from the journal United Empire, pp. 681-712, October 1911, that had been torn from the original periodical. That doesn't make it a bad thing. It's just not a book, as I had thought when I found it on amazon.com.

Apparently, that article and its maps are the Gold Standard regarding the issue, and one can easily find numerous references to it across the internet. Dudley was apparently a truly amazing man, and you can read about him in his London Times obituary from 26 February 1938 at the upper left of this entry [click to enlarge].

As far as fleshing out their branch of the family tree went, I had done pretty well, but Oriana's remarks really flesh out the people. It's hard to say how close the members of Dudley's family were with the family of Dudley's brother, Rev. Barton R. V. Mills, but telephone records show that Dudley Mills first got a London telephone in 1929 [pictured, right]—actually two phone numbers—under his name: "Mills Colonel Dudley A," one being listed at "29 Pembroke rd W.9" with the number "WEStern 5941," and the other listed at "24 Washington ho Basil st S.W.3" with the corresponding number "SLOane 6624."

London was a big place in 1929 and out of all of it, that Pembroke Road address in Kensington is about a mile west of the Hans Road address of Barton and family at the time, and the Washington House address would be less than 750 feet away from Barton's front door. Yes, Dudley was "in the neighborhood," although the next year he would drop the Washington House line from the directory and keep the Pembroke Road until it disappeared from the book after his death in 1938.

I didn't know much about Mordaunt Mills except that he was a wood worker who exhibited under the name "Algar." A brief article from the Montreal Gazette of 15 December 1931 [pictured, left] reads: "Mr. Mordaunt Mills, grandson of the late Sir Henry Joly de Lotbiniere, is showing under the trade name of "Algar" an interesting exhibit of his work in the utilization of various fine-grained woods for boxes and other articles at the handicrafts exhibition at the Horticultural Hall this week."

It makes sense that he ended up being involved as a patron of the arts, although I'm unsure of the connection to Malta. I've speculated, but not in any really informed way, that it may have had something to do with his uncle, George Mills, but that may be way off base!

All I really knew of Verity Mills was this tantalizing and incomplete snippet from Hawkeseye: The Early Life of Christopher Hawke by Diana Bonakis Webster: "Verity Mills, whose father, Colonel Dudley Mills, had a house on the further side of the Beaulieu River, was invited to tea one afternoon while Christopher and his father were staying, and she danced for them on the lawn." Hawkes was an British archaeologist and a professor of European prehistory at Oxford University.

Verity's wedding was covered in the London Times on 20 July 1934 [right], and we know she was a bridesmaid at the wedding of her cousin George Mills on 23 April 1925, which she attended with her sister, Ottilie [misspelled 'Othlie' in the actual Times article]. Interestingly, George and Vera Mills apparently did not attend Verity's nuptials. Verity also sat for a charcoal and pastel portrait by Lady Chalmers that was quite favorably reviewed in the 14 December 1933 edition [below, left] of the Times.

Of Ottile, I really only knew that she'd married Michael Heathorn Huxley, who I found was a scholarly fellow once described as a "soldier-diplomat."

Knowing some more about these people, their families, and their closeness as siblings, was something I simply wasn't used to in doing this research. Visualing the large painted portraits hanging in the living room, the elegant, colourful, crocheted scarves, the beautiful house and garden in Malta, and the flowing, elegant scarf amongst the dunes near St. Augustine all breathe some life into the entire Mills family, and its something that was unexpected, but quite wonderful for me.

I smiled when I read that Agnes and Violet Mills were "charming and very keen on the girl guides," but had to wonder who Brigadier Hallam Mills was. I looked him up quite easily, but still have no idea how he fits into the family tree.

Thank you, Oriana, for talking the time to share some of your mother's insights, as well as your own. Is there a book in all of this, you asked? I definitely think so.

It can't be an ordinary book, a dry compendium of names and dates, or a time-line in paragraph form. Without much to go on regarding the personalities of actual characters we're studying here, I think the book will end up being more about my relationship with these people who, outside of and at times even within their families, have been largely forgotten.

I'm coming to an age myself where I wonder about how I may be remembered, or if I will have marched through the world destined to be anonymous after the passing of more time. I think it's what drives and has driven me here. In a sort of plea to the notion of 'paying it forward,' meaning that if, perhaps, I can save George Mills, et al, from being lost in the sands of time, perhaps someone will someday do the same for me.

Finally, part of the story here is how to research someone who's never been researched. There are no authorized or unauthorized biographies. There are no 'up close and personal' interviews, no sound bites, no film clips, and no one has ever sat down and attempted to put the lives we're examining here into the context of the times in which these people lived. There's an autobiography of Lady Dorothy Mills, but one must stretch the definition of autobiography to Twiggy-like thinness to consider it any kind of a personal recounting of her life.

There's quite a bit of "story" to be told here, and its scope surpasses simply the cataloging the identities, names, and dates of Monica Mills or E. M. Henshaw or Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay or Valerie Wiedemann.

Who knows? It's a book that may never end up being written, but it is a story that's being told just the same, bit by bit, right here. Thank you, Oriana, for helping me tell just a little bit more of it.

A Wonderful, Brief Glimpse into the Mills Family

It's Sunday afternoon here in Ocala and dark clouds are now relentlessly marching in, accompanied by intermittent thunder. It appears Janet and I got back from an overnight in St. Augustine, Florida [pictured, in an image taken in the heat of the afternoon from the cool,open balcony of the Acapulco restaurant], just in time.

I'm sunburned and lethargic after a weekend of pool, sangria, waves, margaritas, sand, and too much sun. I've had this message on the backburner for a couple of months now and with St. Augustine on my mind, you'll probably see why I think it's finally time to post it.

It may be as much as we'll ever know about the George Mills family personally. It just seems unlikely that, unless a cache of letters, photos, and ephemera were to suddenly surface, we will do much better than this oblique, tantalizingly slight contact with someone who'd actually met them all. Much of the family information to which she refers can be found in an entry I posted on 4 May that you can read by clicking here.

It seems there will not be any more information than this, so we may as well make the most of this, and be thankful for this lovely message! [I've added emphasis to names.]


Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2010 1:37 PM
Subject: Family of Dudley Mills

Hello Sam. I am one of Selma's daughters. My mother was delighted when I told her about your e-mail. (she is not computer literate so I act as her assistant in such matters. ) She has gone off to the funeral of a friend this weekend so I shall confirm what I can meanwhile.

Your research is correct. In fact, I learnt from it, as I did not know the names of Ottilie, Mordaunt and Verity's siblings who had died before Ottilie was born, which you said were Hubert and Jocelyn.

Yes, Dudley is my great-grandfather, and there is large painting of him in my mother's living room, as well as one of his father Sir Arthur Mills, MP (1816-1898). My mother has very happy memories of staying with Dudley and Ethel at their home near the Beaulieu River, "Drokes". As far as I knew, Dudley, a royal engineer (& Colonel) for the British army, only wrote an article on his 1886 journey through China. It was published in the March 1888 number of the Royal Engineers Journal: "A Journey through China". I do know that Dudley donated his wonderful map collection to the University of Manchester. You can find it on the web, under Mills and Booker map collections, The John Rylands University Library. Did he also write a book, then??

Dudley and Ethel had 3 children who grew to adulthood, as you already know. Ottilie did marry Michael (my grandparents), and had 3 children, Selma, Thomas and Henry. Ottilie went to a sort of alternative school called Bedales. She was always the first in our family to see art exhibitions, theatre productions, etc. She was a wonderful grandmother, too. Verity did marry Neil. Verity was a beautiful dancer, my mother always said, and later on in life she made elegant, colourful woolen crocheted shawls for us all. She and Neil had 2 children. And Mordaunt never married but was a lovely uncle and great uncle to us all. He had a factory that produced mostly wooden-handled cutlery in London, and later had a beautiful house and garden in Malta, where he became a sort of patron for the arts. His home became a place where arts were taught, and artists gathered. Ottilie, Verity and Mordaunt were all very close.

My mother does remember Barton and Edith, and has been in touch with Brigadier Hallam Mills, from Hampshire, relatively recently. She said Violet and Agnes were "charming and very keen on the girl guides".

I don't know if any of this is interesting to you. Are you writing a book?? Related somehow??

In fact, the only time we went to Florida (which I gather is where you teach) was with Ottilie. I can see her now amongst the dunes near St. Augustine, wearing a long flowing elegant scarf over her legs. We watched the first landing on the moon from the hotel there.

Yours,
Oriana