Egerton Clarke, Parenthood, Paper, and the Second World War

School is back in session here in Florida—stifling heat indices of well over 100°F be damned—and I've fallen behind in my correspondence.

This week I received news from Janine La Forestier, granddaughter of Egerton Clarke [pictured, right]. It was actually a note accompanying a forwarded message from, I believe, her cousin Camilla.

Here's Janine's note, followed by Camilla's correspondence, both which I have taken the liberty to adjust slightly for ease of readability here:


Morning Harry: I received [this] from one of [Uncle] Anthony's daughters. Very interesting about the paper—and that would explain a lot and be a much simpler explanation—so he was writing but [had] no way to get it published because of the shortages......I had heard of a shooting, but don't know any details.

Anyway - it might shed some light on why George didn't publish too—I guess we were looking for something a bit more interesting.

Take care and hope school is going well. They don't go back until September here—nice long holiday. Cheers, Janine


The following is from Camilla, on Wednesday, Aug 24, 2011 at 4:14 AM:

Dear Janine,

Where to start?

My father and the other two sent to boarding school long before the start of the war and not because of it. That was always the plan. By then money source was doubtful, although they always had nannies of whom my father formed a particular attachment to Nanny Toms.

Our grandparents were not untypical of the era and the old stiff British upper lip and sentimentality where children were concerned is not in evidence.

The children were sent [to school]. My dad [was] age 6 in 1935. His mother dropped [him] at the school and he remembers her driving off ([actually] being driven, of course). There was no tearful goodbye. Parents knew that contact at that time would be limited, and indeed it seems that the new nannies and houses added to the [children's] detachment from parents.

I think there is also a much more feasible answer as to why Egerton doesn't publish after 1939: There was no available paper. Rationing was everywhere and for everything. All printing would have been diverted for essential printing to do with the war effort. Poetry and literature would have been limited, and it is unlikely Egerton would have had the means [to publish his own work].

As to the funding for schooling, Egerton set up a charity for the funding of Catholic education for boys, my father being one of the few beneficiaries so [it was] a bit suspect.

Remember also he was a convert and had made a lot of notable contacts at university as was the vogue in those days. Catholic conversions were very 'of the moment,' as was the literary group he ran [which contained] some very notable names.

Aunty Dorothy wrote a very moving letter to my father in the 60's when he had inquired about [Egerton Clarke's] life. She told of a life for her and her brothers where they had a distant, unattached mother and not a happy childhood.

I have researched the Percy Carmichael [Clarke] and Emma Piper marriages, etc., and Angela has visited the church in Dinard, France, where there is indeed a window [dedicated] to [Percy Clarke's] memory.

Percy had an interesting life and was married before he married Egerton's mother. [He] worked for a bank, was sent to Australia for the bank, and was involved in the shooting of a man before he became a Church of England minister, but I think you might know all this.

Probably enough for now. Hope this gives a different view.


Fascinating! Thank you so much, Janine and Camilla!


We learn quite a bit from this missive beyond the most interesting aspect: Egerton Clarke's father apparently shot a man in Australia before becoming a vicar!

It seems that the distance between Egerton and his mother, Emma Anna [right], after the death of his father when Egerton was just three years old may have been, at least in part, because she was not a mother very involved with her children, and not because of financial hardship.

The nannies mentioned above, women who attended to Egerton's children, apparently mirrored the care given to him by nannies as a boy. We have seen that one nanny in particular was of such importance to him as to have been mentioned in the dedication of his first book of poetry.

In addition, we learn that Egerton may have missed his children during the Second World War, but that they were had not been separated from him by the hostilities, but by previously arranged design. It seems likely, however, that the war may have heightened his worry about them, or increased his desire to spend time with them, especially as he was becoming increasingly ill.

Regarding aspects of Camilla's message that would pertain to George Mills, a friend of Egerton's since their deployment in the Army Pay Corps at Winchester during the First World War, we learn that it was apparently somewhat fashionable at the time, at least among intellectuals, to convert to Roman Catholicism.

We know that when Edith Mills, George's mother, passed away in late 1945, services were held at Holy Trinity Church in Brompton, the locale of George's marriage in 1926. Despite the fact that George's father had been a convert to Catholicism since the 1880s, Rev. Barton R. V. Mills served as a Anglican vicar, chaplain, and cleric for his entire career.

We don't know if Edith Mills also had been a clandestine convert to Catholicism like her husband, Barton, but her 1945 funeral services were held under the auspices of the Church of England. The 1972 memorial service for George Mills much later, however, would be held at the Catholic Church of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, in Budleigh Salterton [left]. George obviously was not a convert because it was chic at mid-century, but one of deep faith and conviction.

Finally, we find that it is speculated that reason Egerton Clarke did not publish after 1937 or so may have been simple: The rationing of a limited supply of paper.

While I am certain that certainly would have played an important part in the difficulty poet Egerton Clarke and children's book author George Mills may have found in publishing during the war, it doesn't explain a few things.

First, we know that Egerton Clarke was disheartened about having at least one poem rejected, circa 1942. A shortage of paper may have caused him to be upset, but it does not explain why any bitterness would not have been felt during the entire war, but was encapsulated only in the rejection of a particular poetic submission.

Secondly, although Clarke succumbed to tuberculosis in 1944, George Mills never published another original work after 1939's Saint Thomas of Canterbury, through his death in 1972. Paper, at some point, did become available generally, and Mills saw his prep school trilogy of titles reprinted in the 1950s. Still, he never wrote again, save the odd letter to The Times.

Looking over publishing in the United Kingdom during WWII, we find that poetic volumes did continue to be printed. From 1940 through 1940, we find complete volumes of poetry published by Sir John Betjemen*, Cecil Day Lewis*, T.S. Eliot*, William Empson, Roy Fuller*, Robert Garioch, Rayner Hepenstall, Louis MacNiece*, Stephen Spender*, Dylan Thomas*, Henry Treece, W.B. Yeats and Rudyard Kipling (posthumously), Laurence Binyon*, Edmund Blunden*, G.S. Fraser, Alan Ross, A.L. Rowse, Sydney Goodsir Smith, Terence Tiller*, Vernon Watkins, Walter De la Mare*, W.S. Graham*, John Heath-Stubbs, J.F. Hendry*, Patrick Kavanaugh, Sidney Keyes*, Alun Lewis, Robert Nichols, Leslie Norris, John Pudney*, Henry Reed, Stevie Smith, Dorothy Wellesley, Kenneth Allott, Keith Douglas, Lawrence Durrell, David Gascoyne, Geoffrey Grigson, Michael Hamburger, Kathleen Raine, Keidrych Rhys, William Soutar*, George Barker, Alex Comfort, Patric Dickinson, Laurie Lee, John Lehmann, Mervyn Peake, Herbert Read, E.J. Scovell, and Charles Williams.

[Poets whose names are followed by an asterisk (*) published multiple volumes of poetry during those war years, having been allotted a great deal of that scarce paper!]

It's instructive to look at one young Irish poet of the era, W. R. "Bertie" Rodgers (1909 – 1969).

Rodgers [right] had attended Queen's University Belfast and showed promise as a writer. After graduating in 1935, however, he was ordained a Presbyterian minister and was appointed to the Loughgall Presbyterian Church in County Armagh, where he served through 1947.

In 1941, Rodgers published Awake! and Other Poems, which was critically acclaimed in both Britain and the United States, despite the fact that, according to Wikipedia, "the first edition was almost totally lost when the publisher’s warehouse was destroyed in the London Blitz."

Again, despite the destruction of his first edition, along with other texts in that warehouse, newcomer Rodgers was anointed with the publications of subsequent editions, despite the paper shortage. Rodgers soon eschewed his calling and became a script writer for the BBC after the war.


We find, sadly, that there was, indeed, paper enough to support the publication of a great deal of poetry during the Second World War, enough even to support the literary debut of a little known Irish cleric like Rodgers.

In the case of Egerton Clarke, there seem to be two possible conclusions as to why the available paper was not lavished upon his work.

First, he may not have been prolific enough. Perhaps, had he a portfolio of poems under his arm in 1942, his earlier lengthy string of critically well-received poetic texts may have caused a publisher to take him to press. Janine believes that it was Egerton's failure to have a single poem published that he "took very hard."

It's also possible that the critical acclaim that Egerton had earned had been somewhat forgotten. The poets publishing during the war, listed above, were not among his circle of literary friends, and it is possible that he had become "old news," having been relegated to the status of a minor poet during the years he spent during the 1930s writing children's books for Burns, Oates and Washbourne, a Catholic publishing house. He may have been consigned to the pigeonhole "Catholic poet," instead of simply being considered, as he once had been, an "up and coming poet."

Let us not forget that, making things far worse, Egerton was in poor health during the war and would not live to hear of the fall of Berlin [left] or Tokyo.

George Mills was also in poor health during the war. He had returned to the Royal Army Pay Corps as an officer in 1940, but after a string of tragedies in his life, he relinquished his commission in 1943 due to "ill health."

While George's physician later in life, Dr. David Evans of Budleigh Salterton, claims that George was in good health at the end of his life and quite independent, something had overwhelmed him during the war, and George never wrote again.

Trolling Wikipedia's lists of notable children's books, very few are from the era of the Second World War: Curious George (1941) by H.A. Rey; Five on a Treasure Island (1942) by Enid Blyton [left]; The Littlest Prince (1943) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; and Pippi Longstocking (1945) by Astrid Lindgren.

A contemporary British children's author Noel Streatfeild, for example, published only The House in Cornwall (1940) and Curtain Up (1944) [also published as Theater Shoes; pictured, right) for children during the war. Perhaps it was due to a shortage of paper—but she also managed to publish three novels for adult readers during the same years, 1940 – 1944.

Perhaps, then, it was only difficult to publish children's books in the U.K. during the war.


That also would seemingly be incorrect. Enid Blyton is listed as having published only one notable work [below, left] during WWII, but her entire published output between the years 1940 and 1944 was an incredible 88 books!

Clearly, there was enough paper to publish the works of major authors and poets, as well as minor works that would have been seen by publishers as a way to make some money (as in the case of the prolific Blyton) during the worldwide conflict.

Regarding George Mills, even if the recuperating author had been pitching book ideas to publishers during 1943, 1944, and 1945, it's likely that he was seen by then in the same way we see him today: A minor author with limited earning potential for a publishing house.

In the cases of both Egerton Clarke and George Mills, the lustre that once had been found on their careers a decade earlier had diminished dramatically, and pages they once might have published were being given instead either to dependable and established authors, or to new writers who might be potential literary stars.

It is easy to see why Egerton and George would have taken the subsequent downturn in their careers poorly, and perhaps bitterly.


Thank you once again, Janine and Camilla, for helping to fill in some of the gaps in this research. It is very much appreciated.

Rediscovering Egerton Clarke

I'll admit that sometimes doing this research is frustrating. So much of it is names and dates, births and deaths, an address here, a telephone listing there. And from those very spare bits of data, one tries to reconstruct a life.

Who would you be if you were summarized by only your key dates, your addresses, and your phone numbers?

It's not exactly as if I simply sit by the mailbox, waiting for more, but sometimes that's more or less the form that it takes. Patience in this research is a virtue, and sometimes it pays off!

A week ago I received a message out of Toronto from Janine Le Forestier, granddaughter of Egerton Clarke [above, right; click to enlarge], whose life and friendship with George Mills we recently attempted to examine here. Since then, my mind has been spinning trying to determine how I could best organize and set forth the information she and her family have so kindly and generously shared.

In the end, I think it is best to let Janine tell the story, just as she told it to me, and to follow the thread through the past seven days. I will only interrupt her narrative to fit her information into the outline of what we already know.


Saturday, August 06, 2011 9:39 PM

Good evening:


I am fascinated. The reason for my writing is that Egerton Clarke is my grandfather. I just stumbled upon George Mills - I had googled G.K. Chesterton [left] another of my grandfather's friends - and Egerton Clarke. I am curious about your interest in him.

Would love to connect.

Janine


Sunday, August 07, 2011 11:54 PM

I am deeply touched by your interest in a man who was so loved by my mother and respected by my father.

It is quite bizarre - absurd - that now of all times, we should be communicating like this. Over the past week I have been forced to clear out my mothers office and indeed, my parents home having just had to place them in a retirement home. I will endeavour to relay your research to her and indeed to her two brothers, Michael (# 2 child born in 1928) is visiting from England on Wednesday. The third brother - the youngest (Anthony - born in 1929) closed Burns & Oates in 1970 and began his own business with much of the remaining stock as (Anthony Clarke Books).

What I have had confirmed from reading his letters and poems - some unpublished is, as you say, is that he was a very sensitive talented man, a loving husband and father. I do not recall my mother ever telling me that he took an active role during WWI and am actually shocked. It must have been incredibly difficult for him to partake of such madness on any scale.

(He wrote a lovely poem to her and I wonder if the MC you refer to, is in fact Mary Clarke. Just a thought) .

I have discovered wonderful loving letters that he wrote to her before his death, from TB in 1944. I am in the midst of going through all the letters, cataloguing them, and pulling out as much information as I can. He was deeply religious. A devout convert who lost his inheritance when he joined the Catholic Church. But I believe there was money up until then and indeed pictures I have of him as a young boy - several years after the death of his father, would confirm this. His clothes are certainly those of a little boy who was pampered [right, with mother, Emma Anna Clarke]. So I am intrigued to learn that he was poor prior to the conversion. I do know that the family relied on my grandmother's money when they were married and he was a poor business man, quickly going through it.

His sister Dorothy died in 1972 (I can confirm the date) He did have a brother. I will be able to provide you with exact dates and additional information after I have had a chance to go through what I have although I feel you have more than I do. I have a family bible, photo's of both sides of the family including, Kelly's, Sheils, Pipers, Clarkes.

My grandfather did write beautifully as did my mother, uncle and various members of the latest generation. It is in the blood I think.

This is just a quick note. I can't tell you what your research means to me.

I must pass on this to the rest of the family over the next week or so. My father has just, at the age of 92, had two surgeries. Again ironically - his memory was amazing up until a week ago. It has slipped somewhat but he will also be intrigued by this and I will confirm some details with him. I am hoping may be able to shed some light on the "missing years".



What a wonderful message! It confirms some of what we knew and provides insight into other things we did not.

Egerton Clarke's children were named Mary, Michael, and Anthony, and were born between 1926 and 1929. At least in the case of the first two, the location of the birth is recorded as Winchester.

We also learn, sadly, of the cause of Egerton's untimely death at such a young age.

And, finally, we are privy to information that would seem to contradict my assumption that young Egerton attended St Edmund's School in Canterbury, Kent, as a poor orphan out of Brittany. Clarke did have at least two relatives who were doing quite well in business: His Aunt Hannah, a widow and owner of a large farm called Thorley Wash in Bishops Stortford, Herts, and his Uncle Egerton Harry John Clarke, a London stockbroker.

The wild card here is actually what Egerton's father, Percy, left to his mother, Emma, upon his death while chaplain at Dinard, France. She may have been fairly well off herself, although her own probate in 1931 does not reflect the assets of a wealthy woman. However, by being careful, she may have lived on her own means for thirty years after Percy's passing and put Egerton through school with proceeds from his father's estate.


Monday, August 08, 2011 3:09 PM

Just to give you a wee bit more. When my grandfather was ill, they did an experimental treatment on him - deliberately collapsing his lung(s)? - the treatment failed. Clearly.

Tony (Anthony) lives in Hartfordshire and would likely know much more than I do. If you can give me a few days I will dig up as much information as possible in answer to your question. I have been going over letters this morning and he certainly was writing - and in fact had one of his poems rejected which he took very hard - this around 1942. (I have found a notebook with additional poems in it - at least I believe they are unpublished - again I must research this more closely.) I am just getting snippets and when I am more organized I will certainly provide you with what I have. I am just on my way to visit my parents and will discuss this with my father. I am excited to also speak with my Uncle Mike (Michael Egerton-Clarke) when he arrives…

Couldn't wait - just got off the phone with my Uncle. He is fascinated that you were able to get so much information, some of it new to him also. He is a bit suspicious of your intentions - don't get me wrong - he is thrilled but wonders why? I read him your letters and because my grandfather really didn't have that much attention bestowed on him Mike wonders why you would be interested. He did not know about the WW1 corp.

Thank you so much Harry for stirring all this up. Incredible.


First of all I can completely understand Mike's suspicion of my motives in researching his family. One cannot be too careful these days. I do think it is a shame, though, that Egerton Clarke did not have more attention bestowed upon him, both during his lifetime and posthumously. The reviews do show that his poetry was well-received, and I'll admit that the 'free verse' he wrote later in his career really moves me personally.

More importantly, we discover here that Egerton Clarke did not stop writing when his work was no longer being published. In fact, I can only imagine the pain he suffered when he received a rejection in 1942 after years of documented success.


Monday, August 08, 2011 11:28 PM

Just thought I would share my father's thoughts with you. I saw my parents today and my mother was having a very good day. She recognized the name George Mills, was not aware of any heart problems. She was thrilled naturally to hear of your interest in her beloved father.

In answer to the question of why he did not publish after 1939, my own father said the war profoundly affected him, especially because he was such a gentle and sensitive man. He was walking through rubble most days on his way to his office in Westminster. His beloved country was being bombed and the Germans were ploughing through his home in Dinard [right, with Nazi beach obstructions in place]. A man of his nature would not have been able to write the kind of poetry that he loved in that atmosphere. He wasn't well as he suffered from TB early in the 40's. The war would have been a disaster to his creative spirit. Also his children were sent out of London to boarding schools and he missed them terribly. He was saddened by all that was happening around him. He must have missed his children terribly.

Could he have been suffering some sort of depression or as we call it post-traumatic stress? Quite possibly - but this is personal speculation. If I am able to get a better answer from his other son Tony, I will certainly let you know.

Cheers, Janine


There isn't much that can be added to Janine's amazing insight into the life of her father during the Second World War. She has, I feel, captured him perfectly: Feeling isolated in one of the world's largest cities, ailing, seeing his world coming apart—brick by brick at times—around him. Unable to publish and share his feelings. Missing his children. Nazis with a stranglehold on his childhood home in France.

While Clarke's feelings would not have been unusual, I'm certain, during the hostilities, they remind us of how devastating the war was to individuals of the entire society. Nightmares were common on the battlefields, but on the 'home front' as well.

Here we do find out that Egerton had an office in Westminster, less than a half mile from the home of the family of George Mills, who by 1944 had relinquished a commission in the Royal Army Pay Corps as a war substitute reserve officer and was using the damaged Naval and Military Club as his mailing address.

It comes as no surprise that the name George Mills might be remembered. Egerton Clarke had helped George survive his tenure in the military during the First World War. It would be stunning to me to find out that Mills had not reached out, trying to be a comfort to his friend during the second global conflict—at least when Egerton found himself in London.


Tuesday, August 09, 2011 7:31 PM

In front of me now is a letter in which [Egerton Clarke] is answering a question my mother must have asked concerning his brother. The letter dated December 1, 1942 refers to his brother as John (Jack) Percy Dalzell Clarke born in 1892 and died 21/02/1915 - war injury likely as he served. His name comes up if you google it. Yes - there was certainly a very wealthy stockbroker and I do remember hearing about that - thank you for the memory. Dorothy Mary Clarke is Egerton's sister. She is who my mother is named after. She died in the '70's - in fact I just read a letter regarding that, too. - can't find it but it is there somewhere.

Theresa Clarke [pictured, left, as a nurse at Guys Hopital in 1922] was born in Dublin. Her mother was Clara Sheil - a twin. There was a brother James who died during the first world war - actually - after it was just over - falling off a horse I believe. You need to come up to Toronto some time and I can show you pictures of all these folk.

I am going to email my cousin in London and ask her to see if there is any correspondence from George Mills in the possession of her father Anthony. He was supposed to have had much of this type of thing.

So - off to the library tomorrow for sure to print this all off and pass to Mike upon his arrival in the evening. He was so excited last night when I called him, he was concerned he wouldn't get any sleep. He is the last with the name Egerton and I suspect very like my grandfather in temperament. A very gentle man. As is Anthony who is an incredible writer and wonderful poet - unpublished though.

So there you have it for another day.


As I've done my research here, I have always been struck by how easy it is for family members to lose track of each other. It has even happened in my own family. I have to admit, it is extremely rewarding to read, not simply of the memories of Egerton Clarke's descendants, but of the warmth that they all continue to share.

And imagine how exciting it would be to find correspondence from or about George Mills among the letters Janine mentions!

The following taut but powerful message regards the circumstances in which writers, poets, and artists would have found themselves, even long after the last shot of the war had been fired. Is it any wonder that the creative energies of many—including Egerton Clarke and George Mills—had been sapped?


Tuesday, August 09, 2011 7:39 PM

As a very small child, I remember seeing bombed out buildings in London - it was 1954 and there was such a lot of destruction still - I remember the colour gray and we still had rations [right]. Bleak and dismal. I cannot imagine what they went through and how it affected them. Especially the sensitive artistic type. Horrible. So - there seems to be a recurring theme here doesn't it?


Thursday, August 11, 2011 9:59 PM

I had a very interesting afternoon with Mike and my parents.

I read out our emails to them and a couple of points were clarified......

John Percy Dalzel Clarke died not of a war injury but from falling off a horse - on the morning of his wedding day.

James - brother of Clara Sheil - my great grandmother died during the war on the front. (there is a plaque in Liverpool which I have seen with a James Sheil mentioned on it.)

Did not know of a sister Hannah - But my uncle remembered the Thorley Wash Farm [left] and said it was sold in the 70's - a town of Thorley now sits on the property.

I meant to mention that not only is there a plaque to Percy in the Church in Dinard - but also a couple of stained glass windows.

Sounds as though there was a stock broker on both sides of the family - Theresa's and Egertons. My uncle thinks there was one on Theresa's side - - they were quite well off.

But what was interesting and pure speculation is this regarding the writing stopping in 1939.
My uncle says Egerton was fired from Burns Oates and Washbourne.

He was in charge of the Children's Branch and at some point participated in an exhibition of children's books. He was accused of claiming some books as his own when apparently they were not. He was honest to a fault. The books must have been his but since he worked for B & O, were his writings then the property of B&O. Apparently he was very distraught over this. If that is the case would George Mills have rebelled also. Egerton then went to Hutchinson's as Art Director.

[A display of Hutchinson's mid-1930s children's offerings is pictured below, right.]

So - that is the best I can do unless I can update you further if more info comes from the UK.

Hope all of this doesn't confuse the issue too much and like I said - there is some speculation here and I am sure the war also played a part as discussed earlier.

Cheers, Janine


Janine's message above bears out her speculation that her grandfather was not a businessman—but how many poets could claim to be? It seems he may have been taken advantage of in this situation. That is not to imply that there were any illegalities in his contractual relationship with Burns & Oates, but as I grow older I find out more and more that what is legal isn't always what is morally right, and it would seem that was likely the case for Egerton Clarke.

Interestingly, Egerton's family seems to have had some stake in the publishing house as we read above. Nonetheless, Clarke took his talents to Hutchinson's, which incidentally was the publisher of the brother and sister-in-law of George Mills, authors Arthur Hobart Mills and Lady Dorothy Mills, during that era.


Thursday, August 11, 2011 11:15 PM

One more thing - I was just reading another of your articles that I hadn't seen and it brought to mind a trip I made to Canterbury where I went to the Hospital of St. Thomas [left]. There on a plaque was the name of Percy Carmichael Clarke. One of the masters - didn't get a date but it was him. Egerton was definitely at St. Edmonds also.


One uncertain aspect of the life of Percy Carmichael Clarke and Emma Anna Clarke, parents of Egerton, was their relationship with the city of Canterbury, where Egerton had been born and baptized. Discovering that Percy had been one of the Masters of the Hospital of St Thomas, which still serves as an almshouse for elderly poor today, provides us that link between the Clarkes' life in Dinard and their roots back in England.


Thursday, August 11, 2011 11:52 PM

1923 Hugh Egerton - This our Egerton. He joined with a man by the name of somebody Hugh or Hugh somebody, and they published The Death of Glass and the Earring. Hugh took off with all the money.


'Hugh Egerton' would have been the name of the firm that published The Ear-ring: A comedy in one-act [London: Egerton, 1922] and The Death of Glass and Other Poems [London: Egerton, 1923].

Again, this would substantiate that Egerton Clarke clearly was not a businessman, and an eventual mistrust of publishers may have played a role in the difficulty he had in having his work published after his fractured relationship with Burns, Oates & Wasbourne.


Thursday, August 11, 2011 11:53 PM

Don't believe Egerton resided at Egerton Gdns. They were in Tisbury, Hertfordshire, for much of their lives.


Tisbury, in Wiltshire, is situated about 25 miles west of Winchester, a locale that plays a significant part in the story of Egerton Clarke. A telephone listing for him in 1929 gives his address as "Kennels Lr Lawn Cott" within the Tisbury exchange.


Friday, August 12, 2011 11:46 AM

Just got this from my cousin (Mike's daughter here in Toronto)

I think Lr would stand for lower. There was probably an upper and a lower cottage with the same name - perhaps beside each other. Just a guess.

I just asked Dad and he said yes is does mean "lower". That there was a Lower Lawn
Cottage where Tony was born and a Lawn Cottage. It is in fact not Tisbury but Fonthill
Gifford. The address might have included Tisbury in the address as it is in the next village.

Dad doesn't know anything about Egerton Gardens or even heard of it.


As of today, here is real estate information on 'Lower Lawn Cottage': "This property is located at Lower Lawn Cottage West Tisbury Salisbury SP3 6SG and has 16 houses and flats located on it. The average current estimated value for homes in SP3 6SG is £604,313."

Also, on page 247 of Wiltshire (Vol. 26, 1975), the authors, Nikolaus Pevsner and Bridget Cherry, reference information from "Mrs. C. Lloyd-Jacob" that some ancient doors originally from nearby Fonthill Abbey [above, right], from before the 1755 fire, were still in place at Lower Lawn Cottage at the time.

The Egerton Gardens locale I wrote of came from Who's Who in Literature, in both the 1928 and 1934 editions. The entry read:

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

I did not capitalize that address, but found it printed that way. And, since it apparently hadn't been corrected by 1934, I'll admit I assumed it was correct. On the other hand, nothing in the above entry seems very "up to date" regarding Egerton Clarke's career after the mid-1920s, despite having been published in 1934.

One wonders if it is possible that, while visiting his office in Westminster, Clarke stayed in rooms at Egerton Gardens, less than a mile away.


Saturday, August 13, 2011 12:36 PM

Here are a couple of pictures - the family shot shows Theresa, Egerton and children from left to right
Anthony, Mary and Michael 1929 - Tisbury

Not sure of the date of the single - likely early 20's.


And, with that, I have been able to use the family photographs of Egerton Clarke you have seen illustrating this entry.



At this point, that is everything that Janine and her family have generously provided. It all has been meaningful to me because so rarely has anyone become so 'fleshed out' and truly human during this research.

Egerton Clarke is a man we can begin to understand: Sensitive, talented, complex, loving, and born during a time during which many of those adult characteristics would not have been rewarded.

Egerton endured the First World War, during which he suffered from severe health issues, raised a family through a worldwide global depression, and endured the fear, loneliness, carnage, and deprivations of the rise of fascism and ruthless attacks on his childhood home in France and England itself [depicted below, right].

Clarke was among a cadre of writers and poets who lived and wrote at the time: Dorothy L. Sayers, Gerald H. Crow, G. K. Chesterton, and Mills himself. In Egerton, we see a model for how a sensitive gentleman like George Mills may also have handled the difficulties of such era.

Mills died childless, as did his siblings, ending his branch of the family tree. He largely has been forgotten.

In breathing life into the memory of George's friend, Egerton Clarke, however, Egerton's descendants have given us insight into how Mills himself may have dealt with the horrors of World War II, and why he may never have published another word either.

Thank you so much, Janine and everyone. If any readers have any additional information or insight, please contact me and I will pass it along to the family!

Messages from George Mills: His Prefaces and Dedications

Let’s take a moment today to reflect a few messages George Mills sent out into the world without knowing who might read them. His books were primarily for children, but the same can't be said for the dedications and prefaces of his texts: They were meant for persons other than schoolboys.

Taking a look at these brief but meaningful messages within the books—but not part of the stories themselves—may tell us something.

Or they may simply let us know how much more we may want to know.


The 1930s:


• First let's look at the preface of 1933's first edition of Meredith & Co.:

PREFACE

ALTHOUGH all the incidents in this book, with the exception of the 'bait charts,' are imaginary, the book gives an accurate impression of life in a Boys' Preparatory School.

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

----------------------------------------------------------- G.M.


We've examined fairly recently the life and career of Mr. A. Bishop—Arthur Henry Burdick Bishop [right]—and have seen some references to Mr. H. E. Howell, although we have no real idea who he was.

The annoyingly critical Mr. E. M. Henshaw—whose mention was deleted from subsequent editions of Meredith—has so far been difficult to identify. Henshaw must have been an unliked and unwanted obligation, one that in later years no longer needed to appear.

Once again, if you have any notion of Henshaw's identity, or have some clever skills in a database like ancestry.com or The Times, please don't hesitate to let me know!


• Next, we'll examine the dedication to the 1933 edition of Meredith & Co.:

To MR. J. GOODLAND, sometime Head Master
of Warren Hill, Eastbourne; to the STAFF AND
BOYS OF THE SAME SCHOOL, and to those of
WINDLESHAM HOUSE, BRIGHTON, THE CRAIG,
WINDERMERE, and the ENGLISH PREPARATORY
SCHOOL, GLION, among whom I spent many
happy years, this book is affectionately
dedicated.


We've had far more luck tracing our way through this dedication. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Over time, we've been enlightened by Dr. Tom Houston at Windlesham and tracked down a smattering of information about The Craig and the English Preparatory School at Glion.

The amount of information we've unearthed about both Joshua Goodland, a mentor of George Mills, and Warren Hill School in Eastbourne [left], seems comparatively to be a wealth of knowledge!


• Mills's next published book was 1938's King Willow. Let's look at its preface:

PREFACE

READERS of Meredith & Co. will recognize here some old friends ; nevertheless King Willow can be read as an entirely independent story. The characters have no connexion with any people, alive of dead, but the book is typical of life in any big Preparatory School.

Once More I wish to record my thanks to my friend, Mr H. E. Howell, who has read the manuscript and offered helpful criticism ; and also to a host of schoolboy readers who have encouraged me to continue.

------------------------------------------------------------- G.M.

June, 1938


Again, by June, 1938, the mysterious Mr. H. E. Howell remains a dear friend of George Mills, schoolmaster and author.


• Let's look at the 1938 dedication to King Willow:

TO
THE HEADMASTERS, STAFF, AND BOYS
OF
EATON GATE PREPARATORY SCHOOL,
LONDON, S.W. 1.


That's a rather all-encompassing dedication. We have discussed the fact that no school by that name has been found (although I would be delighted to be corrected), and the current school at that location has no real interest in exploring its own past or in assisting in educational research.

It's interesting that Mills misnames the school, yet is precise enough to include the location "S.W.1." It's also noteworthy in that, while it must be the most recent school at which he'd worked, Mills singles out no Headmaster or Principal by name. Might that indicate he had already severed ties with the institution, and under less than joyful circumstances?

These inconsistencies make this is by far the strangest of Mills's prefaces or dedications.


• Now we'll examine the 1939 preface of Minor and Major:


PREFACE


THIS book deals with life in a big preparatory school, and tells about the boys and masters, their goings-out and their comings-in. All the characters are imaginary, and no allusion is meant to any living person.

The boys, who first appeared in Meredith & Co. and King Willow, once again present themselves for a short time during a cricket match.

I wish to record my thanks to my old friend, Mr H. E. Howell, for so kindly reading the manuscript and proofs. I also recognize the kindly aid of a schoolboy, Terence Hadow, whose criticisms have been invaluable, as also has the encouragement given to me by my friend, Mr Egerton Clarke, who has read the book in manuscript form. My thanks are also due to Mr A. L. Mackie, who has kindly helped to read the proofs.

------------------------------------------------------------- G.M.


Mills for a third time pays tribute to "old friend" Howell, but this time extends thanks to a few more individuals.

Schoolboy critic Terence Hadow died in 1942 serving as a chindit[some are pictured in Burma, right] under Major-General Orde Wingate. His remains were interred in Burma.

Egerton Clarke, as we recently learned, was a friend of George's in the Army Pay Corps, and at Oxford before leading George to the publishing house that would print Mills's final new book in 1939. Egerton passed away in 1944.

Finally, we simply do not know the identity of the kindly Mr. A. L. Mackie. Once again, if you have any idea, please let me know!


• Moving along, we arrive at 1939's dedication to Minor and Major:


To the Headmasters, Staff, and Boys of
Parkfield, Haywards Heath, where I received
my early education, this book is affectionately
dedicated


For the first time, Mills takes a nostalgic bent in creating a dedication, hearkening back to the first decade of the 20th century in dedicating Minor and Major to his own masters, as well as the boys with whom he attended Parkfield.

Parkfield is a school we've located and learned about to some degree after hearing from alumni.


The 1950s:

The prep school books of George Mills all were reprinted, Meredith and Co. twice.


• The edition we'll look at here is from 1950, published by Oxford University Press.

In addition to the preface and dedication found in the first edition, Mills, as we know, added this verse by Rudyard Kipling [left]:

Give me a willow wand, and I
With hide and cork and twine,
From century to century,
Will gambol round thy shrine

------------- —Kipling


There is also a subtle change in the preface. The last sentence of the 1933 original reads:

I am also much indebted to Mr. E. M. Henshaw for his devastating, but most useful, criticisms, and especially to that splendid specimen of boyhood, the British Schoolboy, who has given me such wonderful material.

The 1950 version simply reads:

I am also much indebted to that splendid specimen of boyhood, the British Schoolboy, who has given me such wonderful material.


Oxford University Press kept no records from that era, so we have no way of knowing if Henshaw was associated with the company in 1933, but had passed away or moved his career to another locale by 1950. Hence, the expression of gratitude to person for whom it's likely Mills cared very little was no longer necessary


• Jumping ahead to the late 1950s and the undated edition of King Willow, we find this revised dedication:


To
BERYL and IAN

Two young people who have just set
out on a long voyage in the good ship
Matrimony. May they have smooth
seas and following winds: may they
from time to time take aboard some
young passengers who will become
the light of their lives until they sail
into the last harbor.


Here George looks back on his life in the context of looking ahead to the lives of this young couple. He reflects on growing old together—something George was himself unable to do with his own wife, Vera, who died 30 years before he did. George and Vera passed away childless, and there is more than a little melancholy in Mills's best wishes for for the couple to be blessed with children.

Despite help from Michael Downes in Budleigh Salterton via his blog, we still have been unable to determine the identity of the newlyweds, Beryl & Ian, who probably would have been born between 1930 and 1940, and would be 70 or 80 years of age by now.

If you know Beryl & Ian, or if you actually are Beryl & Ian, please let me know!


• The 1950s edition of King Willow of also contains an expanded preface:


READERS of Meredith & Co. will recognize here some old friends ; nevertheless King Willow can be read as an entirely independent story. The characters have no connexion with any people, alive of dead, but the book is typical of life in any big Preparatory School.

Once More I wish to record my thanks to my friend, Mr H. E. Howell, who has read the manuscript and offered helpful criticism ; and also to a host of schoolboy readers who have encouraged me to continue.

I also wish to record my thanks to Benedict Thomas, a schoolboy who has suggested many practical alterations for this new edition.

---------------------------------------------------- G.M.


Here we meet a youthful Benedict Thomas, a lad who was helping an approximately 60 year old George Mills with his latest reprint of King Willow.

The only person of that name born in the U. K. between 1940 and 1960 was a "Benedict J. G. Thomas," who was born in late 1953. If Willow was published in 1960, Benedict would have been about 8 years of age when he offered his practical advice to Mills.

The only record at ancestry.com involving a Benedict J. G. Thomas involves his birth—nothing else. There is a location—Northeastern Surrey—and one other interesting bit of information: Benedict's mother's maiden name was Bishop.

That could make young Benedict the grandson of Arthur H. B. Bishop, mentioned in the first preface of George's first book. It would indicate that Mill's friendship with Bishop was long-lasting, but it could also indicate that the aging Mills may have been teaching or living in or near Surrey.


• The 1950s-ish edition of Minor and Major has the same dedication as the original in 1939, but has omitted the original preface seen above.

But there is this, in italic font:


All the characters in this book
are imaginary, and no allusion
is meant to any living person.


Did the publisher, London's Spring Books, include that as matter of course in all fiction books printed in that year? If so, that would provide evidence that the reprinting of Minor and Major was, indeed, the last of the late 1950s – early 1960s reprints. If not, could it be that a schoolboy, schoolmaster, or even headmaster from back in George's past had an issue with a character, thinking it Mils had taken a slap at him?

We'll never know if the latter was the case, but it seems that as the world approached our seemingly increasingly litigious times, that disclaimer may have been inserted across the proverbial board.


The Missing Text:


There is only one bit of information I have been unable to uncover: What might we find in the dedication and/or preface to Mills's final book, Saint Thomas of Canterbury, published in 1939 by Burns, Oates and Washbourne, the Catholic publishing house in London.

A glimpse of what is there could be most informative. One wonders if—given it was Mills's 'swan song' as an author—there might have been some clue in a dedication or preface that would provide insight as to why he never penned another book. Although I frequently check booksellers around the world, a copy of this title simpy hasn't arisen, and the closest library copy to here is about 600 miles away! It may be some time before we get the very last of the messages of George Mills...


As we wind our way down to the last few topics regarding George Mills that I have left to write, many thanks once again to everyone who has contributed in an effort to help me answer the question: Who Is George Mills?

Egerton Clarke: A Final Look at the Man and his Work

After a month of almost full-time study, I feel as if Egerton Arthur Crossman Clarke—orphan, scholar, soldier, poet, librarian, and art director—has become a part of me.

While I can appreciate and enjoy Clarke's poetry, I'll admit to being far more of a "free verse" sort of fellow, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda being my one of my favourites, along with American Langston Hughes. Egerton's early work in couplets and quatrains simply doesn't move me the way I am certain he would have preferred, and any critique I could offer, save a dim "I like it," would be embarrassingly uninformed.

To the rescue comes friend of the website Jennifer M., an English Literature major from prestigious Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. Over the past few weeks of my obsession with Egerton Clarke, I've shared information and his poetry with her, and she has generously consented to share with us her thoughts on our subject.

The real beauty of what she has written is found in being able to follow her along the linear path of her thinking about Egerton Clarke, his life, and his work. Flavoring it along the way with thoughts of the poetry she's read, as well as some personal experience and the influence of outside readings she has done, makes the result a commentary, rooted in informed speculation, on the life and times of Clarke, and to a degree, George Mills.

Mostly regarding Clarke's text, Kezil and Other Poems, and presented in her own words, here it is, interrupted only an occasional note answering any questions she had along the way. You can also click HERE to read the poems in a different window as she discusses them.


Sunday, June 26, 2011 11:49 AM

What really interests me is the dedication. Ernest "opened the door for me," Gerald "opened my eyes once and for all," and the mysterious "Kezil" who inspired so much. My first thought is that Egerton was gay, and he's subtly paying tribute to friends/lovers who helped him come out in some small way. The poem refers to Kezil as a "she" but of course that could have been just for cover.

It's an interesting coincidence that you would send me this now, because I just added Wilfred Owens' poetry [Owen is pictured, right] to my Amazon wish list, and Clarke's book was written around the same time. I know I had read "Dulce et Decorum Est" in high school or college at some point; when I read it again just recently I appreciated it on a whole new level, and I decided I would like to read more of his poetry. Clarke's poetry is different, of course, not all about the horrors of war.

I often prefer "old fashioned" poets like Clarke or Owens; I can understand what they're trying to say, and because they don't use the surrealistic or outlandish imagery of later poets, the ideas can really sink in more easily.

I like "Kezil." It's very romantic in a mysterious, "Far East" kind of way. The imagery of all the red and the sun and the feast on the lawn reminds me of some of the imagery of Maugham's stories. I imagine a landscape hot, maybe in the desert, the sky is shades of red, orange and gold, and lying about as the heat starts to increase as the sun rises, remembering the lovemaking of the night before as "poems of his body's memory/Carved upon the lawn." Clarke is remembering all this from a long time ago, and it was so wonderful he thinks it may have been "but a garden dream." The poem is "writ/But as yet unread," maybe because Clarke never told "Kezil" of his feelings for her/him?

Feel free to tell me I'm way off base, if I am. But I have a feeling I'm pretty close.

I loved "Shadows" because the imagery is of a time that I enjoy reading and watching movies about: a graceful old England, tea in the garden but not a simple picnic, no, we have a table with lace cloth and the good china things brought out to the garden by the servants. It reminds me of some reading I've done about the British Raj, where these people in India would go on an outing and take half a dozen donkeys with tents, furniture, household utensils, and loads of other things just to spend the day outdoors, but in
comfort and with as much style as they would have at home. I was just out on my balcony cooling off before coming in to write this, and while I just have my little folding chair, it is nice to sit outside, away from TV and music and internet, and just laze around with a book on my lap, or just look around me at the trees, thinking my thoughts.



Monday, June 27, 2011 7:30 PM


It occurred to me yesterday after I sent you my thoughts about Egs that maybe I was viewing him through "Maugham colored glasses," so to speak. I've read most of Maugham's works and two biographies of him (the best by far is The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham by Selina Hastings). He was gay, but for most of his life homosexuality was illegal in England, so he constantly had to hide who he was. He traveled all over the world, where in some places it was more tolerated, and retired to France. He had two long term relationships (Gerald Haxton and Alan Searle) and a number of other lovers, as well as a wife (Syrie) for cover, who bore him a daughter (Liza). The caption under the first picture of him is "a lonely child, guarded and withdrawn." People who knew him guessed that having to hide his sexuality went a long way towards making him a guarded and private person in general, who often had little tolerance for other people's foolishness. His stories are brilliant, his travel writing also fascinating, yet most people who knew him felt they didn't really know him. There is one *ahem* remarkable picture in the book of Maugham and some male friends sunbathing nude. So on their private estates they could let their hair down a little, but they also had to be careful who was around.

Anyway, I realized that I was applying many of these standards to Egs, and assuming he was gay. And they could all be true, or none of them true. But that dedication sticks with me. I'd be curious to see the dedications in his other books. I think the one in Kezil is one of the longest I've seen in any book. Do you have any idea who Gerald Crow and Ernest Duggan were? (And I agree with Egs that deciding who to dedicate your first book to would be a difficult choice, which makes his selection of Gerald and Ernest all the more significant.)

[Crow was an influential poet at Oxford during the time. Duggan did not attend Oxford, and there is not enough information about him to identify him from among the many Ernest Duggans of the era.]

I was thinking too about George, and your comments in your croquet article that there was really no trace of him after WWII, except for the croquet results. I imagine it would be hard for him, serving as an Army paymaster but not serving in the Army itself, handing out pay to men he knew might never come home. That could mess with your head. Do you know how George and Egs met? Was it in the Army?

[As we know, Egerton served almost exclusively with the Army Pay Corps in Winchester, Hampshire, where he became acquainted with George Mills, during his months in the military.]

After living through WWII, with Nazi rockets slamming right into your house, I can see how one would want to retire and just play croquet for the rest of your life. After something like that, maybe stories about boys' schools didn't seem so consequential anymore. I'm sure a lot of things that seemed important wouldn't matter much anymore after an experience like that. Perhaps some of the real boys he based the characters on died in the war.

So, back to the poems (in no particular order).

Envy: Well, I saw a whole bunch of "the love that dare not speak its name" in this poem. Making of evidence a lie, he dares taste only the seeds, coward comforts, nought is real before the eye, and in spite of all this make-believe, contented he would be. Of course, if the poem turns out to be something else entirely, I'm gonna feel like a goof. But the more I read them over the more I'm convinced he's talking about something he can't really talk about. Do you know what year he was married? I would be interested to see if it was before or after this book was published.

[Clarke married Teresa Kelly at Winchester, Hampshire, in 1926, and they had three children together.]

Reverie: This one made me sad, because I can relate to his feeling of going back to the places of your childhood and realizing that those days are gone forever. I, too, "understand the present lack of all the half-remembered moods." The places where you were a child may not have changed, but you, the person, surely have. "Is irretrievable the time/When afternoons meant nurse and walk?" Sadly, when you're a grown-up, they do seem to be.

In Hospital: This one brought to mind some of Wilfred Owens' poems. This one is a good portrayal of someone in pain in the hospital, not really aware of their surroundings, but everything makes them uncomfortable and they just want to sleep…

Was Egs in WWI, and was he wounded?

[Exclusive of his first few days under the Colours, Egerton served only in Winchester, Hampshire, in England. He easily could have come in contact with casualties receiving treatment for combat wounds, though.

By the way, is it a mere coincidence that his service and his marriage both occurred in Winchester? Might Teresa even have been one of his nurses?]


Sunday, July 03, 2011 7:31 AM

I've been rethinking my sweeping assertion that Egs and Gerald were gay. I was reminded yesterday of a book by Sharon Marcus called Between Women: Friendship, Desire and Marriage in Victorian England. I've never read it, but I've heard it referenced elsewhere.

In this persuasively argued, provocative book, Marcus makes the case that women in late 19th-century England engaged in intimate friendships—which "the Victorians... believed cultivated the feminine virtues of sympathy and altruism"—that often had a sexual component of visual objectification and even sexual intimacy.

The history of gender and sexuality becomes much more interesting, difficult, and subtle after [reading] Between Women. Reading the love and affection of nineteenth-century women now requires a new level of care and historical self-consciousness that may be painful to possess, as it will remind us of our own losses--of the affection, eroticism, attachment, encouragement, and tremendous fun between the ordinary women--real and fictional--Marcus has so valiantly re-imagined, recovered, and recorded.

I think both men and women can form deep attachments to members of the same gender without it having be a gay or lesbian romantic relationship. I think that's what I was missing when I was looking over Eg's and Gerald's poems. Today people don't generally express such deep emotions so openly. Also taking into account that these men served in WWI, a horrific experience, which would probably bind them closer to their comrades then ordinary friendships. So I withdraw my assertion that I'm certain one or any of them are gay. I just don't know, and there's really no way of knowing, now.

I'm planning to read through Kezil again so I'm sure I'll have more to say about some other of the poems.


Sunday, July 03, 2011 7:40 PM

I've read this poem over several times in a row now, and I'm still not sure what to make of it. On the surface, it's about two people sitting up all night with a friend's body. From reading I know that used to be a custom in many places, that relatives would sit up all night with the dead the first night after they died.

And yet little phrases come in and kind of skew the meaning, and make me think there's something else behind it:

Customary vigil kept
Yet gave no thought to the dead

Knowing Convention had bought
Our silence, we were afraid

But never a thought we took,
For the pale and shuttered eyes

Each thinking the other's thought,
With never a thought for him,

We knew how Custom had bought
Our love for a dead man's whim

So these two people are sitting up with their dead friend, but why aren't they thinking about him? What thought are they sharing? Seeing phrases like "convention has bought our silence" makes me drift back to the idea that Egs was gay, but I'm trying to steer myself away from that, to be open to other interpretations. Whatever is going on between him and the other mourner, it's eating at them both, and they can't think of anything else, and they don't want anyone else to know about it. Something that happened in battle, in WWI? Or they're sitting up with the dead person out of custom, but that don't really want to, it's a "dead man's whim"? I just can't get a handle on that this poem is trying to say, or rather, trying not to say.



Saturday, July 23, 2011 1:33 PM

You know, I'm really starting to second guess myself on the whole "Egs is gay" thing. I was so sure at first, but the more I learn about him from all the research you did, I'm kind of changing my mind. I think he and George were very close friends, sure, but I'm no longer convinced it was anything more than that. I think friendships between people, women or men, were different and sometimes more intense "back in the day," and I was trying to apply that using today's standards. I mean, maybe I was right, but we'll never know for sure.


Saturday, July 23, 2011 7:29 PM

Reading [this] all over, I don't think I really have a summing up to write... Just that Egs was a good poet, and maybe we're not meant to know for sure, much more about him than that.


This missive arouses a notion that has crossed my once in a while during my time researching George Mills: Could George have been gay?

Egerton's dedication, if nothing else, certainly plants the seeds for wondering something like that. He and George had been friends in the Army Pay Corps and likely also at Oxford, although they studied at different colleges: Mills at Christ Church and Clarke at Keble.

They both were extremely sensitive individuals who probably never fit into the regimentation of the military, and perhaps not even into the institutional discipline required for success at Oxon. It seems they may have relied upon one another to make their way through those experiences, although it seems as if Mills may have been more reliant on the Clarke, who ostensibly had been an orphan and already must have had ample experience taking care of himself under the auspices of an institution, St Edmund's School [left].

George's 1925 marriage to Vera Beauclerk, indeed, could have been a cover for his romantic preference. That would explain in part his childlessness, as well as providing a possible reason that Vera was residing away, in such an unusual place—Minehead—at the time of her death early in 1942.

Still, not a bit of that means, or even really suggests in the least, that he was homosexual.

It seems far more likely that George's dirty little secret as a young man—something his family knew but most others would not—was that he, like his father, was a closet Roman Catholic in a land brimming with Anglicans, of both the Low and High Churches.

It's quite possible that his faith in Catholicism might have rubbed family members the wrong way. There must be, after all, a reason why his relations today are often unaware of the existence of Georges entire branch of the family. It is possible that his mother, Elizabeth Edith Ramsay Mills, may have found herself distanced from her own family when, after they believed she was marrying an Anglican vicar, it turned out she had married a secretly devout Roman Catholic. As much as I am told it really didn't—and doesn't—matter, something certainly 'mattered' that managed to erase Revd Barton Mills and his progeny from all of his in-laws' family trees.

I find it difficult to believe that, by chance alone, they all simply happened to be entirely forgotten by everyone.


There have been other suggestions along the way here that things with Mills may not have always been what they seem. The sentence, "I'm afraid that the Catholic school system, as you probably know, was infested for many years by paedophiles and ghastly sadists," once shared by a friend of the site, springs immediately to mind. It regarded why, in the end, George [pictured, right, at Ladycross School in 1956] may have been disappointed by the union of his faith and his career in education, and eventually left teaching.

This is not to take a swipe at only Catholic prep schools regarding a problem common to many institutions. We recently received this message, attached to an entry regarding Parkfield School in Haywards Heath: "In hindsight it was a hideous, sadistic and monsterous Dickensian nightmare of a school."

There may, in fact, be some aspects of the story of George Mills that one might consider a bit on the dark side. Still, there's nothing in the evidence to verify or even indicate that George participated in any of it.


George Mills may simply have been a relatively bland fellow: A bit sickly, tall, slight of build, overly sensitive, with a speech impediment, a fine sense of humor, a keen eye for observation, and a proclivity for failing to finish what he started, especially regarding any of his careers. There may be a part of us that would like some sensational quality upon which to hang our metaphorical hat regarding George Mills. We are, after all, often privy these days to many of the controversial secrets of those in the public eye, and we have almost come to the point as a society where it's not a matter of 'if they exist,' but 'when they will be revealed.'

But that does not seem to be the case right now with our George Mills.

Returning in conclusion to Jennifer's implication of some Higher Power overseeing all of this, or with at least the sure and steady hand of fate writing out this script, she sums up everything succinctly above: "Maybe we're not meant to know for sure much more about him than that."