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!

Onslow Gardens, Action in South Africa, and an Epic Match on Court No. 18

Some thoughts after watching the U.S. and England advance in the World Cup, and spending the entire rest of the day not working in the garden, but watching the incredible Nicolas Mahut-John Isner match in the inexorably fading lightof Court No. 18 at Wimbledon. After 188 service aces, 108 5th set games, two sweaty players, and a partridge in a pear tree, the match will resume—once again—tomorrow, and apparently during that long-awaited royal visit…

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was wondering about the address 38 Onslow Gardens, S.W. I think I'll just take a moment here to reflect on that.

I'd wondered about George Mills using the 38 Onslow Gardens address on his WWI enlistment papers in 1916. I wondered, since I knew the family had an address of 12 Cranley [or Cranleigh] Gardens in the recent past, might it have been George's own address, one which he shared with his half-brother, Arthur.

We've seen, however, that according to telephone records, the family had, indeed, moved to Onslow Gardens by the publication of the August 1915 London telephone directory. Now there wouldn't be any reason to think that George—who claimed to be a student on his 1916 enlistment form—wasn't residing with his parents.

And Arthur F. H. Mills, George's half-brother, talked of going to his "rooms" in London before embarking to France in 1914. Those rooms might've been at 12 Cranley Gardens, but they almost assuredly weren't at 38 Onslow Gardens, something I'd wondered about.

And as we saw in our last post, it's apparent that Rev. Barton R. V. Mills, George's father, had begun using 7 Manson Place, S.W. as a his address by 1919, even though the family ostensibly was still living at 38 Onslow. It's likely that the aging Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay—almost 92 at the time of his 1920 passing—had a family member caring for him full time in 1919, possibly Barton, or Barton in conjunction with his wife, Edith, Sir George's daughter.

Perhaps, given that the Mills used that address when George was enrolled at Christ Church, it might have been George's address. The young man may have been "enlisted" to care for his ancient grandfather after his return from the First World War, and may have been living there full time before embarking for Oxford.

Most of my questions about 38 Onslow Gardens S.W. have ended up being answered by the London telephone directories. But those directories have propmpted some new queries that we'll examine soon.

"The telephone book is full of facts, but it doesn't contain a single idea" -- Mortimer Adler

It's Father's Day, Sunday morning, 20 June, and as I write this my girls are still in bed. Last night we went out for dinner at my favorite restaurant and I had a wonderful meal: Fried calamari and bell peppers, crab and corn chowder, mussels in a light garlic wine sauce with tomatoes and basil [left], and crème brû·lée. What happy and satisfied guy I was!

This morning I find myself thinking as much about telephones, though, as anything else. They've caused me to readjust my thinking on several issues related to George Mills and his family, and have also left me with as many unanswered questions as the London telephone records have been able to answer.

George's grandfather, Arthur Mills, died on 12 October 1898. His will was probated in 1899. In 1900, George's father, the Rev. Barton R. V. Mills, lists his address as "The Vicarage, Bude Haven, N. Cornwall." Father's Day seems as food a time as any to delve more deeply into the world of Reverend Mills, George's dad!

By the 31 March 1901 census, however, the Mills family—then Barton, his wife Edith Mills, and young children Agnes, 5, and George, 4, were living at 13 Brechin Place [right] in London. In February, he had already preached sermons at the Chapel Royal at the Savoy as Vicar of Bude Haven, Cornwall, but by 24 November, Barton is listed among the Royal Chapel's assistant chaplains.

Then, by 25 April 1902, the family was found living at 16 Cranley Gardens [left, spelled "Cranley-gardens" in the London Gazette], and on 12 November George's younger sister, Violet, was born.

Later, the year of 1907 brought something else: The family's first telephone! The July 1907 listing read: "Western…. 3184 [MILLS] Rev Barton R. V… .. .. 16 Cranley Gdns." I don't know if it was a party or a private line, but it did cost £5 a year, plus long distance and trunk charges.

The next year, 1908, at the age of 51, Reverend Mills and the Savoy part ways around November for reasons that are not clear. The address of the family's listing in that year's January telephone directory changes their address to 12 Cranley Gardens [right]. The move would have been made sometime in late 1907, before Mills left the Savoy.

The telephone records remain the same until August 1915. The family listing then has a new number and a new address: "Kensington 2397 Mills Barton R. V., Rev. .. .. .. 38 Onslow Gdns SW."

The 1920 book adds a listing for "Victoria .. 2285 Mills Arthur .. .. .. .. .. 91a Ebury st S.W.1 [left]." That listing would be for George's older half-brother, Arthur F. H. Mills, and his wife, Lady Dorothy Mills.

Something else in the on-line copy of that April 1920 book is interesting. A handwritten note at the top of page 713 [MIL] reads "K 3545 Mills Barton R. V. Rev. *e/* R 4/6" [* = illegible character].

On 16 January of that year, Edith Mills's father, Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, passed away. His home was at 7 Manson Place, S.W.7 [right].

Sir George's listing in that 1920 directory stays the same; presumably the note above simply had been switched the billing of that telephone number to the responsibility of Rev. Mills.

1921 found a big change, however: Two listings, this time in the name of "Mrs. Barton Mills," one for 38 Onslow Gardens, S.W. [Kensington 2397], and one for 7 Manson Place, S.W. [Kensington 3545]. Not only has the extra number been added to this single listing, but it has been taken out of Barton's name.

[Note: It's now three days later, Wednesday morning, and I'm finally getting around to finishing this post!]

Now, it's debatable how many siblings Edith Mills—Mrs. Barton Mills—had. Her brother, Alexander Panmure Oswald Ramsay had passed away in 1897 at the age of 30. Ramsay family genealogists today often show a third sibling, Edith Judith Ramsay, in their family trees, but I can find nothing about her except information that clearly belongs to the life of Elizabeth Edith Ramsay [Edith Mills], like a marriage to Rev. Barton R. V. Mills.

It's likely, then, that Sir George's daughter, Edith Mills, was his only surviving heir—his wife, Eleanor Ramsay, had passed away in 1918 at the age of 90. Barton Mills had been using Ramsay's '7 Manson Place' address as his own since 1919, and after Sir George's passing in 1920, that address is firmly associated with the Mills family by telephone records as well. It seems likely that, any Edith Judith Ramsay notwithstanding, Rev. Mills's wife, Edith, had inherited that Manson Place home.

In 1922, the telephone listing for Kensington 2397 returns to the name of "Mills Rev. Barton R. V." and the old Ramsay number, Kensington 3545, is no longer associated with the Mills household. Perhaps they had either sold the property at Manson Place or were renting it.

1923 brought an interesting addition to that April's London telephone directory: "Kensington 4353 Beauclerk, Mrs. Nelthorpe .. .. .. 4 Hans mans S.W.3." After arriving from America in 1919, this is the first telephone listing for the mother of Vera Louise Beauclerk, the future wife of George Mills. Therefore, by April of 1923, Vera had entered Kensington [coat of arms pictured, right], where George had likely returned after his educational stint at Oxford. Target 1923 as the year during which George meets and begins to court and woo Vera.

The last entry we'll consider here will be the 1925 listings for Rev. Barton Mills. In the archival copy of the April edition of the directory, the address of Rev. Barton R. V. Mills has bee crossed out and a note added. In the October edition, the address of the Mills family is listed as residing at "24 Hans rd S.W.3 [pictured below, left]," an address with which I was completely unfamiliar!

As you'll recall, the wedding of George and Vera Mills occurred in April of 1925. It's hard to say this event occasioned this move of the entire Mills family, but we know George and Vera bought a house in Portslade in 1925 as well. With the Mills family dwindled in size to four members: Barton, Edith, Agnes, and Violet, perhaps it was to a location that was more fitting for a family of four adults.

So, we find ourselves approaching the holidays in late 1925. The Mills are settling in at 24 Hans Road, Mrs. Beauclerk and Hilda live at 4 Hans Mansions, Arthur F. H. Mills and his wife, Lady Dorothy, are ensconced at nearby 91a Ebury Street, and George and Vera Mills are off to the southern coast near Brighton for George's junior appointment as a schoolmaster at Windlesham House.

The phone records will begin to take some interesting twists and turns as we enter the records for 1926. They'll verify some speculation, add detail to some things we already knew, and open up some new questions as they reveal some very unexpected information.

But we'll look at all that next time…

Word from a Relative of George Mills...

A few weeks ago I was doing a routine internet search for George Mills-related web pages and stumbled on something interesting. At a genealogy site in a section entitled Ramsay Family Genealogy Forum, I found this posting:

Looking for information on the children and further generations of Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay C.B 1828-1920. He was married to Eleanor Juliat Chartris Crawford and they had issue Edith E. Ramsay and Alex O.P Ramsay. Sir George was the son of Sir Alexander Ramsay 2nd bt of Balmaine and by his second marriage to the Lady Elizabeth Maule (dau 1st Lord Panmure). I believe Edith married Barton Reginald Vaugh Miles.

I thought about it and sent the person requesting the information, David, this reply:

Edith Ramsay did marry Reverend Barton Reginald Vaughan Mills [M.A. Oxford, 1883, b. 29 October, 1857, d. 21 January, 1932], a "holy cleric and scholar". He was the son of Arthur Mills, Esq., M.P., from Taunton and Exeter, one of the leading experts on Colonial Economics and the cost of the Sepoy Mutiny, so much so that his books on the subject are still in print today. Barton was the first living son of Arthur Mills, and had a younger brother, Col. Dudley Acland Mills [Broadlands, Jersey. Retired; b. 24 August 1859]. They were also grandchildren of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland [pictured, right], Killerton House, Broadclyst, Devon.

Barton had a son, Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills, b. 12 July, 1887, with his first wife, Lady Catherine Mary Valentia Hobart-Hampden. they had been married on 10 July, 1886, when she was granted the rank of Earl's daughter. Lady Catherine died on 25 September, 1889.

Elizabeth Edith Ramsay and Barton R. V. Mills were married on 10 January, 1894, and had three children: Agnes Edith Mills, born 11, June 1895, George Ramsay Acland Mills, b. 1 October, 1896, in Bude, Cornwall, and Violet Eleanor Mills, born 17 November, 1902.

Barton was the vicar of Bude, Cornwall [I believe the vicarage is pictured, left], at the time, a position in which he remained until 1901. He then became the Assistant Chaplain of the Royal Chapel of the Savoy, where he stayed until 1908. He wrote, edited, and translated religious texts, notably involving the writings of St Bernard, and his work is still cited by theologians today.

George Mills attended Parkfield in Haywards Heath and Harrow before fighting in WW I, first as a private and finishing as a lance corporal, in the Royal Rifles and the Royal Army Service Corps. He then attended Christ Church and Oxford, but did not receive a degree. He went on to be a Junior Teacher at Windlesham School, then in Portslade, at Lent, 1925. That same year he married Vera Louise Beauclerk, a granddaughter of Sir Robert Hart and daughter of the Duke of St Albans, on 23 April, 1925, and they bought a house in Portslade.

He was off the teaching roster at Windlesham [right] by Fall, 1926, and subsequently taught at Warren Hill School in Eastbourne, The Craig in Windermere, the English Preparatory School in Glion, and Eaton Gate Preparatory School in London. Vera died on 5 January, 1942. They were childless and he apparently never remarried.

Most notably, Mills authored four very popular books, mostly about preparatory school boys: Meredith and Co. [1933], King Willow [1938], Minor and Major [1939], and St. Thomas of Canterbury [1939], all of which can be found in the British Library. The books were reprinted into the very late 1950s, but it appears Mills never published another word after his prolific 1938-1939 period.

He then disappears from sight until his death in Devon [possibly Budleigh Salterton] in 1972.

The only thing I know about his sisters, Agnes and Violet--other than that Violet Mills was a bridesmaid at his wedding, but Agnes Mills was not and attended unescorted--is that the girls donated a collection of Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay's papers to the British Library in 1947, still using their maiden names. The sisters would have been about 52 and 45 years old at the time. If they had, indeed, remained unmarried, it seems likely they were childless as well.

Almost immediately, David answered:

Edith Judith Ramsay did indeed marry Rev. Barton Mills. I was most interested to read that he was vicar of Bude, N. Cornwall. I would imagine that it was St. Michael's Church in Bude [left]. I was a choir boy there in the 60's!! I was at boarding school at St. Petroc's School in Bude, following my father's footsteps in education.

Now another interesting point here for me, was that my Great Grandfather was the Rev. George Wingate (died Dec 16, 1898) who was vicar of St. Andrew's Church, Stratton, N. Cornwall. The towns of Bude and Stratton are next to each other. Rev. George Wingate had married Elizabeth Patricia Maule. Her father was the Hon. William Ramsay Maule (1809-1859) and his father was Lord William Ramsay Maule, Lord Panmure of Brechin & Navar. His father was Lord George Ramsay 8th Earl of Dalhousie.

You mentioned Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, he was the son of Lady Elizabeth Maule and Sir Alexander Ramsay, Bt of Balmain. Elizabeth Maule (1796-1852) was daughter of William Maule Ramsay, Lord Panmure.

Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay (1828-1920) married Eleanor Juliat Charteris Crawfurd (1827-1918) daughter of John Crawfurd, Gov. of Singapore. Their issue were: Edith Elizabeth Ramsay, Alexander Oswald Panmure Ramsay (1867-1897) and Edith Judith Ramsay and the rest you know!

Thank you so much, David, and I do look forward to hearing from you again.

One oddity in all of this would be the name of George's mother. David—a man with more than ample knowledge of his family's history—writes that "Edith Judith Ramsay", not "Edith Elizabeth Ramsay", married barton Mills. Other genealogical sites list his wife as "Elizabeth Edith Ramsay".

It's possible that, due to handwriting that was difficult to read, or merely a transcription error, Judith and Edith could have been confused in paperwork. Looking in the ancestry.com database, she is listed as "Elizabeth Edith Ramsay", but her husband in that database is listed as Barton R. V. HILLS, not Mills. In fact, David's records may have had him recorded as "Barton R. V. MILES.

It's also possible that the person attending to the certificate of her birth didn't put in a correct name. In my ex-wife's family, it was years before they discovered that what they had been calling their daughter—Alice, I believe—was not the Christian name that had been written on her birth certificate, simply because the physician hadn't really cared for the name "Alice".

Stranger things have happened. Needless to say, errors likely abound. I spent countless hours looking for "Vera Beauclerc" before I became aware that the wife of George Mills was actually named "Vera Beauclerk".

Oh what a difference a single letter can make!

One primary source that I have for the name Elizabeth Edith Ramsay is the 1901 census [pictured, left]. It's unclear if the Mills family [Barton Reginald Vaughan, Elizabeth E., Agnes Edith, and George Ramsay Acland Mills] is still in Cornwall at the time it was taken, or if they already have moved to London, where Barton apparently found employment as the Assistant Chaplain of the Royal Chapel of the Savoy sometime in 1901. London, Middlesex, will be the birthplace of George's sister, Violet Eleanor Mills, in 1902.

[UPDATE: I just checked the records, and the housemaid in that census, listed immediately above Barton R. Mills, is Kate R. Neave, age 20. That sets her birthdate around 1882. She's listed in the 1901 census as residing in London, England, on the date of the census, 31 March. It appears that the Mills family already has moved to London by the late spring, 1901.]

Thanks to Jennifer for researching the above census! And if you have any information about the Ramsay family that might help David in his own genealogical quest, please let me know and I'll have him get in touch!