Minehead: Saying Goodbye to Vera Louise Mills

Well, what do you know? I'm finally getting efficient at manipulating the painfully cumbersome search engine at The Times. My latest discovery is the death notice of Vera Louise Beauclerk Mills, beloved wife of George Mills, who passed away on 5 January 1942 at the age of 48.

The entire notice reads: MILLS.— On Jan. 5, 1942, suddenly, at 69, Summerland Avenue, Minehead, VERA LOUISE, wife of GEORGE RAMSAY ACLAND MILLS, and daughter of the late William Nelthorpe Beauclerk, aged 48.

This appears in The Times four days after Vera's actual death [right; double-click images to enlarge]. There is no mention of any services or flowers, so could one presume the body was not returned to London for a funeral, even though Vera had kin on both sides of the family in Kensington?

It may be important to note that George Mills at this time was serving as a paymaster in the Royal Army Pay Corps, and had been for well over a year. My speculation had been that, since Vera died in "Exmoor" according to records available at ancestry.com, he may have been assigned to the temporary pay office set up in Ilfracombe. Now, knowing that Vera must have been living in Minehead, it's more likely that Mills was serving at the pay office in Taunton, near family land and where his grandfather once served as M.P. If George had actually been at Ilfracombe, he'd have been almost as close to Minehead as Taunton, but what is now solidly the Exmoor National Park would have had to be traversed near the sea during winter.

Despite living often in London, George Mills showed a proclivity to be seaside throughout his life, possibly stemming from his boyhood in Bude Haven, Cornwall, near the Celtic Sea. Portslade, Brighton, Eastbourne, Seaford, and Budleigh Salterton on the English Channel were all places where Mills later in life either worked or lived.

Was Vera living with a family a block or two from Minehead's Esplanade, waiting for Mills to be granted leave so he could travel from Taunton [pictured, left] and spend a weekend with her now and then by the Bristol Channel? According to Wikipedia, "Evacuees were billeted in Minehead during the Second World War." Perhaps while an evacuee in the strictest sense, Vera probably traveled to an area well away from the Blitz to be near husband George.

Did the fact that Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth often strolled the hills above Minehead also enter into George helping find a nearby place for Vera? Wikipedia: "The wooded bluffs above Minehead feature as the Hermit's abode 'in that wood which slopes down to the sea,' in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Coleridge. Mills, apparently a schoolmaster of "English or English subjects" in his career before the war may have had a soft spot in his heart for the work of the two Romanticists and encouraged Vera to hunker down there, below the rise [below, right] where the two giants once trod.

How Vera died, we do not know. Heart attack? Stroke? Possible, but at 48 not as likely as at 58, I suppose. Car accident? Could be.

Her death record lists the location as being "Exmoor, Somerset." Perhaps that was almost the same as saying "Minehead, Somerset" in 1942—I don't know. One might think, perhaps, a fall from a horse while riding in the vast forest, but on January 5? I guess that could be more likely than I suppose, but I wouldn't think so now—not in winter. No matter: Whatever happened must have simply shattered Mills.

Anyway, the world and the war had certainly begun to change in the four weeks prior to Vera's unexpected passing. The bombing of Pearl Harbor had thrust the United States into the war in both the European and Pacific theatres. What that meant to the British I'm uncertain, but it had to be a lift knowing that reinforcements would be arriving after the frustratingly isolationist Americans were finally involved.

Just a glance at the headlines [below, left] in The Times from the day of Vera's notice, January 9th, shows clearly how worldwide the war had become and how much of the surface of the Earth deeply concerned citizens in England.

Now, for all we know right now, Mills could have been assigned to Ilfracombe, or to Wolverton, Nottingham, or York. He might have already been assigned to post near a front. Perhaps Vera or George had friends or family in Minehead, or could it even have been that Vera had been evacuated—Could she have been injured?—from London for her own good, regardless of George's geographical location at the time? Could she even have been volunteering at the children's home at Holnicote. After all, Holnicote was on the huge 12,500 acre Exmoor estate owned by the Aclands—kin of George Ramsay Acland Mills.

The question there is: Why would Vera have been staying at 69 Summerland Avenue when Mills's relatives had vast holdings in the area. The domicile on Summerland is lovely, but not exactly what would seem to me to be Acland-worthy, at least not back at that time, when the land was may still have been, or else extremely recently was, Acland land.

We don't even know how close George was to that side of his family at the time—his sisters, Agnes and Violet, lived with their mother, Edith, who may have tended to be closer to the Ramsay clan after the death of patriarch Revd. Barton R. V. Mills. The only person by that name who attended George's 1925 wedding was a "Miss Acland," whose name was not listed by The Times anywhere near the close family.

Of course, George's step-brother, Arthur Mills, and sister-in-law, Lady Dorothy Mills, did not attend what appears to have been a fairly lavish society wedding in Brompton and the Hans-crescent Hotel.

Why, exactly was Vera in Minehead? Had it anything to do with the Aclands? Had it more to do with the proximity of the Taunton office of the RAPC? Or had it simply been that Vera had been evacuated there and never made it back to London? Who owned 69 Summerland (Oh, for a copy of Kelly's Directory, Somerset, for 1939!) and how did Vera hook up with them? And where was George?

As always, if you have any information to share, no matter how little it may seem, please contact me. It would be greatly appreciated!

World War Two, Malta, and my Ilfracombe Supposition

The internet is certainly a wonderful thing! If one wants to know about paymasters in the Royal Army Pay Corps during the Second World War, just tweak the search terms, and continue to do so, until the information bubbles up to the top!

Here's another memoir from the BBC's archive, "WW2 People's War," this one written by Leonard Francis Cuthbert Knight (1912 — 1991, pictured, left), who began in the Pay Corps on 5 November 1940 at the age of 27, less than a month after George Mills had returned to the service as a paymaster himself.

Enough of me telling the story, however! Here are L. F. C. Knight's own words:

"I had reached the age of 27 when hostilities commenced, a clerk at the Birmingham Electric Supply Department. The future in the expanding business looked good but prospects were denied over the war period, which lasted until demobilisation in 1946, at my age of 33. A fresh start had to be made.

Many of our staff were members of the Territorial Army. These were immediately posted to the Forces. Although a no volunteering rule was imposed several left for the R.A.F. Official requests for R.A.O.C personnel resulted in several departing for that branch of the forces. With myself working on civilian pay duties the R.A.P.C. (Royal Army Pay Corps) became my destination.

From the 5th Nov 1940 for over five years I was a member of the Armed Forces. Shrewsbury was the first depot, where a detachment of the R.A.P.C. was stationed. It was real November weather, bleak and dreary, with the town almost surrounded by floods from the swollen River Severn. In keeping with the weather it was personally a dreary time with several inoculations and vaccinations which did not help. We were billeted with civilian families, myself with a household near to the Abbey Church, containing husband, wife and young children. His trade was that of a farm wagon maker. The skill of his craft was displayed by an example on his premises. Farm wagons have ever since gone up in my estimation for I learnt of the skill which went into their construction.

For a while acclimatization to the new conditions became the main concern. I remember our first assembly in civilian clothes, a motley crowd with cardboard boxes containing our gas masks. We sat at long tables for our first meal, the majority wearing spectacles, one humorist remarking that we looked more like an opticians re-union than an Army intake. Those responsible seemed to be at a loss to know what to do with us and found all sorts of odds and ends to occupy our time. We went around clearing up litter and marched around suburbs to fill in time. Visits to stores were made, where civilian clothes were replaced by Army Uniform. Little did we know this was to be our everyday wear for many years. Very little Pay Office work was done in those first weeks. Lectures and so on were attended. After duty we had opportunity to get to know Shrewsbury, a fascinating small provincial town. After about six weeks we were considered fit and attuned for more serious and useful duties. We were then dispersed to those Pay Offices rapidly expanding and needing more personnel."


From this, we can gather that the closer one was assigned to Leicester, the more difficult the initial training and workload. Yesterday, we learned that an unnamed recruit in Leicester worked 9 am to 7 pm every day except Sunday [when the office closed at 4] in 1939.

We don't know where Mills was assigned for his initial RAPC training, but perhaps Knight's experiences can be instructive. Here is an excerpt about how he spent his time after a transfer to Ilfracombe:

"Wives could live with their husbands and several including myself enjoyed this occasion. Our honeymoon, the 17th Jan 1941 was at Ilfracombe whilst a member of the Pay Corps. We travelled down from Birmingham in complete pitch dark conditions by rail and on arriving at Ilfracombe were greeted by the sight of the monster fires from enemy air raids across the Bristol channel in South Wales. I was at first billeted with about fifteen others in a terraced house off High Street which in peace time was a smaller type of guest house. Newcomers were always allocated to the front bedroom down. I thought this excellent until I found it was an arrangement to answer the front door to let in others any time up to well after midnight…

As better weather conditions approached on off duty occasions we enjoyed a Spring time in Devon, walking many miles in the surrounding valleys and exploring the sea coast, together with my wife who had joined me in Ilfracombe lodgings. "

In the text, Knight mentions family members visiting, taking taxis from Exeter to Ilfracombe. George Mills certainly had Acland kin in Devon, both in Exmoor and southern Devon, near Broad Clyst, as it was primarily Acland land.

We also found out that a telephone listing for a "Mrs G Mills" does crop up in the "Portsmouth / Southampton / Bournemouth / Exeter / Plymouth / Taunton / Bristol / Gloucester / South Wales (East) / Swansea" telephone directory in February 1941, bearing a number in the Credition exchange [Crediton 112]. Crediton is seemingly a stone's throw from Broad Clyst, and just about 35 miles south of Ilfracombe.

Had George Mills been originally stationed in south Devon and transferred to Ilfracombe [as Knight had been transferred from Shrewsbury], Vera would likely have followed him north to the sea, near Exmoor, since accommodations for men with wives were clearly being made available.

A quick check of Google Maps shows Ilfracombe being slightly west of the lands of Exmoor—and Exmoor is the location of the death of George's wife, Vera Mills, in January 1942. We don't know any of the circumstances of her passing. She may have been ill. She may have been injured and passed away in a hospital later. She may have been pronounced dead at the scene of her death. Nonetheless, it must have been somewhere in that vicinity: Today's maps show Ilfracombe being located just 5 km from what is now the western tip of Exmoor National Forest.

Knight stayed at Ilfracombe until he was transferred to Reading in 1941. Presumably, Mills would have stayed in Devon since Vera Mills was still at the very least near Exmoor in January of 1942.

What happened to George afterwards and where it would have happened would be purely speculation, just as it would be as to the cause of Vera's death. Although Ilfracombe was not completely isolated from the war [pictured, left, is a Luftwaffe aerial reconnaissance photograph of the area, labeled "Zum Verbrauch! Mitnahme von Ausschnitten des Bildteiles zum Feindflug gestattet" ("To be used! You are allowed to take these photographs with you on raids")], the memoir of a child of that time reads:

"My father was a Baptist minister and in about 1944 my father took a church in Ilfracombe. They had virtually never heard of the war there: they had rationing of course, but no bombs. One of the mines blew up in the harbour and that was all they had of bombs."

Does she mean for the entire war, or from 1944 on? Either way, I can find no records of bombing or attacks any closer to Ilfracombe than South Wales, across the waters near the mouth of the Severn, or in Braunton [a good 10 miles to the south].

Vera's death, whether war-related or not, certainly seems to pin George Mills to the Ilfracombe area, working in the RAPC offices at the Ilfracombe Hotel and St Petroc's.

The next gap in the record of George Mills occurs between Vera's passing on 5 January 1942 and 3 November 1943, when he relinquished his commission and assumed the honorary rank of lieutenant. The bestowal of the 'honorary rank' would seem to imply that whatever circumstances of his health that caused George to leave his post during a global conflict during which England was fighting for her life, they must have been deemed sympathetic and acceptable to the brass.

What occurred in the life and career of George Mills during that 22-month span is uncertain. We do know that a young friend from Kensington, Terence Hadow, aged 21, had been killed in action during the Burma campaign against the Japanese on 18 March 1943. It's likely that a fellow as sensitive as Mills felt another metaphorical shell burst against his hull, although not nearly as devastating an impact as Vera's passing must have had on him.

L. F. C. Knight eventually embarked for the RAPC installation in Malta with a contingent of other RAPC men for the duration of the war [a photograph from his stay is pictured, right]. We know that, at some point, there were enough females to "man" RAPC offices in the British Isles, and that from 1941-1942 most males were then shipped overseas. George Mills would have been an officer, not an enlisted man, and an aging one at that, approaching 46. It's difficult to know if Mills would have been shipped abroad.

Was George Mills among those RAPC men who ended up on Malta? I can't say, but I do know that he had a cousin, Mordaunt Mills, son of George's uncle, Dudley Mills. Mordaunt, apparently a woodworking artisan who eventually opened a factory in London that produced wooden-handled cutlery, never married and apparently retired to Malta. Why Malta? Is it possible he'd heard his elder cousin's stories about the beauty of the Mediterranean on Malta, situated between the southernmost tip of Sicily and Tunisia on the North African coast? Is it possible he'd later vacationed there and decided to stay?

Is most of this evidence circumstantial? Certainly. Could much of it be dismissed as mere coincidence? Absolutely!

On the other hand, until I see possibilities that offer far more certainty, I'm disposed to pencil much of this in on my "George Mills Time Line." Well, maybe not the Malta part, but I'm sticking with the Ilfracombe supposition right now!

Do you agree or disagree? I'd love to hear your thoughts, ideas, and speculation! And for more chronological information and wonderful images of the life and adventures of L. F. C. Knight of the R.A.P.C. during the Second World War, please visit the family's website at http://website.lineone.net/~glb1/war/index.html.

Peculiar. Very peculiar...

My father retired, I think, in 1979. I remember asking him about something and he replied that he hadn't had time to think about it yet.

"Time?" I asked him. "You're retired, Dad."

"I'll tell you," he replied, "I don't know how I ever squeezed in working full-time. It seems like I've more to do now then ever!"

That's basically how I feel just a few weeks into my summer. Time to write about George Mills? Not as much as I would have thought, and having my work e-mail shut down for a week for a system upgrading didn't help at all.

Long ago, it seems, we looked at phone numbers and addresses for the Mills family through 1925, the year of the wedding of George Mills and Vera Louise Beauclerk. It seemed a natural time to graze the British telephone directories for new listings involving George Mills. I knew he and Vera had gone to Portslade to work at Windlesham House School. I'd have expected to find him there.

Geoerge and Vera never crop up in Brighton or Portslade listings, but apparently did surface in the October 1926 London telephone directory—perfect timing, considering George had cut ties with Windlesham at the end of the Summer Term in 1926.

He had appeared at a time I would have expected, given how the events at Windlesham played out, but it was at an address I didn't expect. The 1926 listing reads: "Mills George R. A, 51 Wickham Rd. S.E. 4… New X… 2332." [And, as we know, George's full name is George Ramsay Acland Mills.]

Now, I found these London directory pages at ancestry.com, but their search engine always frustratingly teases you with only occasional dribs and drabs of specifically what you're looking for while often barraging you with completely unrelated references. It took awhile, but I eventually ferreted out listings for that same name, address, and phone number through the March 1929 book.

Thinking about the Mills time-line we know, George worked for some unspecified time at Warren Hill School in Meads, Eastbourne, after he and Windlesham separated in 1926. This address would seem to imply that George remained working on the southeastern coast through the end of the decade. the 51 Wickham Road address is a building housing multiple flats today, as it likely did then.

I speculated things must have been going well for the young couple, being able to both buy a home in Portslade and keep a flat in town. Of course, they may immediately sold the home in 1926. Still, it seemed a bit odd that their flat would have been in Lewisham, so far away from Kensington, where all of the kin on both sides of their families lived within a small radius.

We also know that by 1933, George had also taught in Windermere at The Craig School, and in Glion, Switzerland, at the mysterious English Preparatory School.

A second 1929 London directory came out that September, and the same listing has changed significantly, reading: "Mills, G. R. A, 27 Le May av S.E.12…….LEE Gn.. 4643." G. R. A. Mills then stays listed at 27 Le May Avenue [pictured, upper left] in each year through the May 1934 London directory.

I wondered about that, but realized that Vera would probably not have been inclined to go north with him, or to Switzerland, and probably wanted to stay near her family. 27 Le May Avenue [right] in Lewisham is actually a pretty nice home today, and must have been then as well. Still, it struck me as quite odd that, if George had been living away from home in Windermere and Switzerland, why would Vera have wanted to be residing so far from Kensington?

Vera's mother had passed away in June of 1933, as had George's father in 1932. It wouldn't be surprising if George and Vera had come into some money during that span of time, and there also would have been additional income for the couple from the publication of his first book, Meredith and Co. in 1933.

Given the financial windfalls the couple likely would have experienced, it wasn't surprising for me to find yet another new listing for G. R. A. Mills in the November 1934 phone directory: "Mills, G. R. A, 24 Beadon rd, Bromley….. RAVensbrn 0819." Using Google Maps to take a peek at 24 Beadon Road reveals a extremely fine-looking house to be moving into in the midst of the Great Depression. Not bad for a fellow who, at this time, would seem to have then found some employment as a schoolmaster at institution, seemingly lost in the mists of time, the Eaton Gate Preparatory School, London, S.W.1.

This would all seem to blow my theory about a struggling and often jobless George Mills during this time frame right out of the water! The only thing I wonder: With kin in Kensington and a job right there in Eaton Gate, why keep addresses—no matter how lovely—so far across the river in Lewisham and Bromley. Perhaps, I thought, real estate was much cheaper at the time if one purchased in the southeast of London, on the far side of the Thames.

That 24 Beadon Road listing in Bromley stays in the London telephone directory until the next watershed year in the career of George Mills: 1939. In that year, Mills publishes two books, Minor and Major as well as St. Thomas of Canterbury, after having published his second novel, King Willow, in 1938.

Predictably, with new finacial gain, that 24 Beadon Road listing disappears from the February 1939 London directory. That's not too surprising since G. R. A. Mills seems to change domiciles in tune with the major events of his life. No listing for a G. R. A. Mills replaces it, however.

Perhaps Mills had anticipated the war in a very pragmatic way. We know that George returned to the army in October 1939, becoming a paymaster in the Royal Army Pay Corps, and perhaps, knowing he planned to make that career move, he had already started to make arrangements for a change back to a career in the service of the Colours. No matter, that 24 Beadon Road listing stays out of the London directories for quite a while.

A listing for a Mrs. G. Mills soon shows up in the 1940 Exeter telephone directory: "Mills, Mrs. G, South Vw, 28 Exeter rd……..Crediton 112." Crediton is just a few miles outside of Exeter, where George could have been stationed as a paymaster at the FCO there. It would make sense: He had kin among the Aclands at Killerton and Broad Clyst.

Vera died in 1942, however, in Exmoor—again Acland land, only farther north—where there was also an FCO of the RAPC in nearby Taunton. There are no listings for any Mills, G. R. A., George, or Mrs. George, in Somerset around 1942. In fact, there are hardly any Acland listings there at that time.

By 1943, Mills relinquished his commission in the service due to "ill health." Where did he then go? A recent widower and presumably too ill to work, it would make sense for him to head to Kensington, and the care of his mother, Edith Mills, and his sisters, Agnes and Violet.

By 1948, the listing for G. R. A. Mills at 24 Beadon Road in Bromley returns to the London directory, this time sporting a barand-new telephone number "RAVensbrn 0451." Is Mills finally well again, and ready to resume his life in Bromley once more after so much time?

Again, there are very good reasons to think that 1948 is another key year in the life of George Mills, but that's something we'll get to next time.

Before I finish, here’s the caveat regarding all of this. While preparing to write this post, I happened to notice something I hadn't seen before.

There was a listing—a new London listing— I'd overlooked in the earlier 1926 London directory, the edition that had been published in April: "Newcross .. 2332 Mills, George Robert Alexander .. .. 51 Wickham rd S.E.4."

George Robert Alexander Mills. G. R. A. Mills…

That 51 Wickham Road address apparently never did belong to George and Vera Mills. I'd been fooled by the fact that after one publication, George Robert Alexander had condensed his full name to G. R. A in subsequent editions of the London directory.

What of those other addresses? Have I simply tracked the upwardly-mobile movements of George Robert Alexander Mills through 1948, and not those of George Ramsay Acland Mills at all?

Is it sheer coincidence that key dates in the life of our George Ramsay Acland Mills always seemed to—somehow, through the ether—prompt someone named George Robert Alexander Mills to relocate as well?

Or is the coincidence simply that one of those listings coincidentally saw the permanent removal of the George Robert Alexander Mills listing at the same time George Ramsay Acland Mills began his own new listing?

It's odd: I can't find any other documentation in ancestry.com that a gentleman named George Robert Alexander Mills existed in the United Kingdom. No birth record, no marriage, no death certificate—nothing. The only reference I could squirrel out myself was that single, April 1926 London telephone listing providing his full name.

Peculiar. Very peculiar.

Next time we'll look at some other interesting listings in the London telephone directories between 1925 and 1948 that aren't in doubt and clearly aren't listings for any George Millses at all.

These listings would have had an impact on the life of our George Mills. In two days, I'm leaving for a 10-day holiday in Michigan to spend time with friends and family there.

If you don't hear from me by then, check back around the 14th of July!

Tracking the Life and Travels of Vera Louise Beauclerk Mills, Part 2

When last we peeked in on the life and travels of Vera Louise Mills [née Beauclerk], she had just pledged her troth to George Mills at the altar of the Holy Trinity Church in Brompton on 23 April 1925.

A reception was held at the Hans-crescent Hotel afterwards, after which the couple must have honeymooned and began their lives together. The honeymoon likely didn't take too long as George was likely on holiday from his duties as a schoolmaster.

Mills, then recently of Oxford, had just secured what appears to have been a "junior appointment", a position that was "seldom held for long," at Windlesham House School [its gardens as seen in Portslade, above left]. Despite that, the new couple apparently bought a house near on Benfield Way in Portslade.

George appears to have been very active at Windlesham and quite happy. Not only was he a master there, likely in "English or English subjects," he was involved in extra-curricular activities, especially in the arts of drama and music.

In fact, to say that Mills had been happy there may be understating the reality of the situation. Mills wrote three children's books based on the acquaintances and experiences he accrued at Windlesham, and was still proudly proclaiming his allegiance to the school as late as 1935.

As we know, however, by the end of the Summer Term in 1926, Mills surprisingly disappeared from the faculty list at the school, and Windlesham seems to have recorded no reason why—although they know a remarkable amount about him personally, even today. It has been speculated that Mills was one of the prep school masters at that time who were "excited about the General Strike" that occured during term.

British teachers at the time, according to the book, The General Teaching Council, by John Sayers, were more politically charged—confrontational and involved in unionization—than ever in the 1920s, and Mills could well have been involved. Still, given his family and connections, and those of his new bride, along with his newfound position as household breadwinner, I simply find it hard to believe that Mills would have been willing to chuck a plum job like the one he'd found in Portslade in favor of playing union politics. I find it more likely that the school found he'd lied about having a "B.A. Oxon" but, liking him very well, allowed him to resign rather than being dismissed.

Over the next decade or more, Mills became an itinerant teacher, and given the economic landscape of the Great Depression, he may well have been forced to find work at other positions as well to support his young bride.

Mills lists his teaching stops between 1926 and 1933 as the defunct Warren Hill School [right] in Eastbourne [actually Meads], The Craig School in Windermere, the mysterious English Preparatory School in Glion. Later, in 1938, he will add the surprisingly unknown Eaton Gate Preparatory School in London. How long Mills taught at each institution is simply unknown as these schools have been largely if not completely forgotten by their various communities.

Vera Mills, we can assume, had a mother still residing at 4 Hans-mansion, S.W., for at least the outset of this time period of one dozen years. Would she have traveled with Mills as he moved about?

It's possible George lived in the master's dormitory at Warren Hill, but perhaps not, preferring to reside in Portslade and drive to Eastbourne. From Benfield Way by automobile, he'd likely have to have driven down Old Shoreham Road east, turned south until it met the coastal highway, A259, through Seaford and between Eastbourne Downs and Beachy Head, on into The Meads. The trip would have been over 35 kilometers, one way, each morning to make the school bell and breakfast with the boys.

Given the technological advances of the time, autos were clearly hardy enough to make that journey easily in 1926. However, with a round-trip of 70 km, each day, all week, one wonders if there was such a 'commuter culture' at the time that Mills would have done it. Would Mills really have spent that much time behind the wheel of an automobile to teach?

It's natural to assume, from today's perspective he might've commuted by auto, but it simply seems to me so unlikely. Perhaps he rode the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, traveling from Brighton into Eastbourne daily on the East Coastway Line. Would that have been a better possibility? I suppose it's also possible he'd sold the house and just moved Vera over to Eastbourne, but I'm not sold on that idea either.

Either way, he was subsequently off to Windermere in Cumbria, anyway, and then to Glion, Switzerland, and one wonders for how long those positions were held, and whether or not Vera was in tow in those cases as well.

Vera's family had been certainly not one to worry about whether or not a wife accompanied a breadwinning husband at his out-of-town [or out-of-country] employment. Her grandmother, Hester Hart, as we know, gained a reputation for being "the absentee wife" of Sir Robert Hart in Peking, China, and she consequently almost evaporates from the family record.

Hester left China with two of her children, Bruce and Nollie, in 1881. Except for what were characterized as "rare and brief visits," she never returned to live with Sir Robert [right]. He faithfully corresponded with her until he left China in 1908, and there was one 17 year period during which the husband and wife never met, although Hart "provided generously for her rather luxurious style of life in England."

By 1878, Hester had "established" her children with her mother in Portadown, Ireland, to arrange for and oversee their educations, and then she began "the life of independence and travel that was to be hers over a long lifetime." Hart's London agent in Customs "reported her whereabouts from time to time, but mainly by hearsay."

Sir Robert provided Hester, then Lady Hart, "a house in a good section of London together with a handsome allowance and frequent presents. [She] entertained well and traveled widely."

Vera's mother, Evelyn Amy Hart Beauclerk, had been educated in England and Ireland and apparently came to visit Sir Robert in Peking in 1892, having been between "Aden and Colombo" in March earlier that year, traveling to China with her uncle, James Hart.

While in Peking with her father, "Evey" decided to marry the First Secretary of the British Legation, William Nelthorpe Beauclerk, a British diplomat who was assigned to China, Hungary, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia from 1890 through his death in 1908.

Her mother, Hester, did not attend the "Jerusalem style" ceremony in Peking.

After her honeymoon, the soon pregnant Evelyn was in England in early in 1893 when her father posted a letter to his London agent, Campbell, on 18 February to cover the cost of a new maid for "Evey." Where Beauclerk was or why he could not cover the cost is unknown. She would soon return to China, however.

Vera was born on 5 September 1893, and Evelyn left China the very next day! "Evey" would soon return to Peking, as her younger sister, Hilda, would be born there in 1895.

By 1896, however, Beauclerk was assigned to the legation in Hungary, and I find it hard to believe that with an endowed mother in London and a rich father in Peking, that "Evey" would be raising her two infant girls in Hungary. This is especially true since the duties he would encounter in his new eastern European locale were characterized as a "hard card to play—against Russia and France politically, and against Germany (von Brandt) economically."

Evelyn, who had family and economic roots in both the United Kingdom and Peking, may indeed have followed Beauclerk, twenty years her senior, from Asia, to Europe, and on to South America. From her earliest life, though, Evelyn would not have seen a her own father and mother together as husband and wife very often, if at all.

And it's quite likely newlywed Vera Mills had never seen that either. It's hard to imagine Vera sitting alone in Bowness-on-Windermere in distant Cumbria, waiting for Mills to come home from a hard day up at The Craig, especially after she had led a relatively cosmopolitan lifestyle—one that certainly was not in any way limited in its opportunities to socialize and travel.

I can imagine her seeing George in Glion once or twice, but not finding herself by any means chained to an English prep school there. It simply doesn't seem to have been something the women in her family would have ever considered!

In my mind, there's no way Vera was following George around the United Kingdom and Europe, simply in his tow. Her own mother was clearly quite established in a nice part of Kensington in 1925, and her monied grandmother, Hester, wouldn't pass on until 1928 in Bournemouth, Hampshire, at the age of 80. Vera clearly had places to stay and people to spend time with while George pursued his career in the preparatory education of boys!

By 1933, however, the sands had begun to shift.

In that year, George Mills published his first book, Meredith and Co.: The Story of a Modern Preparatory School, with the Oxford University Press. Aspects of it indicate that he'd been back in London for a while.

In the book's preface, Mills thanks a close friend, Mr. H. E. Howell, who has been associated with All Saints Church Margaret Street, just to the northeast of Hans-mansions, past Hyde Park Corner and Grosvenor Square, as well as mentioning a headmaster from a school in Brackley.

He's also had a difficult, perhaps even bitter, time editing the book under the eye of a Mr. E. M. Henshaw, whose name disappears from later editions of the book. It's unkown if Henshaw was employed by the O. U. P., but Mills obviously was obliged to pay attention to his "devastating, but most useful, criticisms"—criticisms he may not have found in a softer editor outside of the hard core of British publishing in London.

George's parents were probably still in Onslow Gardens, at least until the passing of George's father, Barton, in 1932. Mills's brother and sister-in-law, Arthur and Lady Dorothy Mills, also lived just south of there on Ebury Street, at least through their divorce in 1933.

Yes, there certainly were a lot of reasons for Mills to have finally returned to this area by the early 1930s!

There's no reason to think, then, that Vera is not with George at this time, 1933, no matter where she may have been during his nomadic years just before. The questions are: Did they have a place of their own in 1933? Were they living with George's parents in Onslow Gardens? Or might they have been residing with Vera's family? One wonders where George was actually sitting as he was writing the manuscript for Meredith and Co.!

1933 brings us to another interesting piece of paperwork as well: A manifest from a ship called the Dempo from the Royal Rotterdam Lloyd Line that steamed into the harbor in Southampton, England, on 10 April 1933. Aboard were Vera's mother, Evelyn Amy Beauclerk, and sister, Hilda de Vere Beauclerk, ages 64 and 38 respectively, sailing in from Surabaya, Indonesia, on an itinerary that had included stops in Singapore, Belawan, Colombo, Tanger, Port Said, Marseilles, Gibraltar, and Lisbon.

The address of both Mrs. Beauclerk and Hilda is listed on that document as "45 Knightsbridge Court, London SW. 1." That address today would seem to be in the vicinity of Harrod's, premier hotels, fine shopping and dining, the Kuwaiti Embassy, and an awful lot of expensive-looking automobiles. Might it have been a pretty nice area back then as well?

Yes, perhaps I can imagine Vera shopping out on Knightsbridge in April 1933 while George pecks at his typewriter near a window in his mother-in-law's fine home, awaiting the arrival of both "Evey" and Hilda from their voyage to the Far East.

Hilda would very soon marry Canadian Miles Malcolm Acheson [who puzzlingly was not aboard the Dempo, at least not as a passenger, but was employed then by Chinese Maritime Customs] on 21 June 1933, just over two months after their arrival in Southampton. Had she arrived home for just in time for her own wedding, which was held in Canterbury, Kent?

Unfortunately her mother, Evelyn Beauclerk, never attended the affair, having passed away on 10 June 1933, exactly two months after their arrival!

Given the 1928 passing of Vera's grandmother, Hester, the 1932 death of George's father, Barton, with his sister-in-law, Lady Dorothy, still recovering from a horrific car 1929 accident, with his brother Arthur's divorce dragging from 1932 into 1933, which had followed on the heels of the death of Lady Dorothy's own father in New Zealand in 1931, it certainly had to have been a difficult five years for the families of George and Vera, particularly with George seemingly having apparently suffered concurrent employment woes and the world having been embroiled in a Great Depression!

1935, however, found George casually visiting Steyning, and singing the praises of Windlesham House School, while mentioning he'd authored a book based on Windlesham and Warren Hill back in 1933. Was Vera along? Perhaps not. Either way, he was apparently in good spirits that day!

1938 saw George publishing a sequel to Meredith and Co. called King Willow, this time with G. G. Harrap & Co. In the book's dedication, dated June 1938, he mentions that "Eaton Gate Preparatory School" in "London, S.W. 1," where he presumably had been teaching sometime between 1933 and that year. Eaton Gate is in Belgravia, just a stone's toss from "Cadogen Gardens" [where George's sisters will be living by 1935] and presumably less than a half-mile south of where Evelyn Beauclerk had lived at Hans-mansions in 1925, and in Knightsbridge in 1933.

Unfortunately, the school using that particular name has been forgotten completely, although there is another prep school at Eaton Gate today.

In 1939, George published two more books, Minor and Major [the third in his trilogy of tomes based at least partly on beloved characters from his fictional Leadham House School] and St. Thomas of Canterbury, which was published in Burns, Oates & Co.'s "Shilling Series" of children's books.

Surprisingly, at least for me, 1939 also found Mills abandoning any career he might have had as an author and returning to the military as a commissioned officer and paymaster at the outset of Britain's entry into the Second World War on 3 September 1939. Mills, 44, was commissioned on 11 October of the same year and given the rank of Lieutenant.

Not bad for a fellow who, some twenty years before, had checked out of the army after the First World war holding the rank of Lance Corporal!

I had assumed Mills had been assigned to a Royal Army Pay Corps in London or Sussex, but I now believe that I was wrong. I think he must have been assigned to the RAPC in Taunton [right].

His grandfather, Arthur Mills, had been an M.P. from Taunton from 1852-1853 and 1857-1865. The family of George's grandmother, Lady Agnes Lucy Acland Mills, owned a great deal of land in northern Devon and into Somerset. His great-grandfather, Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, had been a lord and power broker over an area of land that ranged from the rocky coast of Cornwall, through Devon, past Exmoor, and on into Taunton throughout the late 19th century.

The Holnicote Estate in Exmoor has been owned and managed by the National Trust since 1944, but it had been a home of the Acland family, along with Killerton in Devon. I'm not suggesting that Mills lived there while he worked for the RAPC, but I suspect he at the very least may have lived nearby.

The death certificate of Vera Louise Mills was filed in Exmoor, Somerset, on 5 January 1942. Holnicote House is a good ways from Taunton, but the Aclands would have had plenty of land around there [pictured is a 1890s cottage in part of the estate called Selworthy Green]. Perhaps George rented one of the estate's 170-some cottages from the Aclands. Perhaps, with a war on and George in the service, he was even given a place to stay with Vera free of charge. Could it even be that Vera stayed on as a guest of the estate itself with George at the barracks? One could easily imagine a cosmopolitan girl like Vera making herself quite at home in such surroundings!

Perhaps, though, George Mills simply had been randomly assigned to Taunton. After all, there wouldn't have been too many places around southern England where he could have landed and you couldn't have made a case that he'd have had some kin nearby, or in a locale that had had something to do with his family's history. Still, he didn't end up in Manchester, Leicester, or York with virtually no connections. He landed in Taunton.

The circumstances of Vera's death are unknown to me. Just 48, she seems to have been so very young to have died. Still, I don't know what caused her passing. Illness? An accident? It's hard to say, just as it's hard to say exactly what effect it might have had on George.

Mills, a man who was known for his humorous stories and for "making people laugh, a lot," presumably had a good relationship with his wife. He obviously had been working well at his desk in the Pay Corps, having been promoted to 2nd Lieutenant in April of 1942.

Yet, on 3 November 1943, Mills relinquished his commission on account of "ill health" and was given the honorary rank of Lieutenant.

Is it a coincidence that Mills took so sick within two years of Vera's death that his health drove him from the armed forces during the middle of a global conflict during which Great Britain literally had its hands full?

Perhaps. But one actually might tend think that George—not coming from a nuclear family in which husbands and wives lived separate lives, and by 1942 finally having the chance to spend quality time together with Vera while he was gainfully and steadily employed—took her death very hard.

[To read Part 1, click HERE.]