Season's Greetings!

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone from Who Is George Mills?

Featured is an illustration by the great Arthur Rackham from a 1931 edition of Clement Moore's The Night Before Christmas, published by London's G. G. Harrap, a publisher of George Mills.

Happy New Year!

Gallery 3: The Artwork of John Harris

Welcome to our third gallery art here at Who Is George Mills?

1939 brought the third book of George Mills into existence, Minor and Major, published in London by Geo. G. Harrap and Co., Ltd. It was published in the same size and in the same format as Mills's preceding book, King Willow, published by Harrap in 1938: Four full-page black line illustrations, a full-colour frontispiece, and various embellishments throughout the cover and first few pages. The format, down the the hand-lettered titles, is identical to Willow. [Click any illustration to enlarge it.]

While not strictly a sequel, some of the boys from King Willow do, in fact, appear in Minor and Major, albeit briefly.

This time around, however, the illustrator is not one of the Brocks, C. E. or H. M., but John Harris. Trying to find background information on a "John Harris" rivals what it once had been like looking for George Mills, so nothing is known of his background.


His watercolour work pales—quite literally—next to the colourful paintings of the Brocks. But watercolour is not the best Harris has to offer.





Harris's pen and ink work is of a similar character as that of H. M. Brock, at least in so far as his black line drawings have some of the flavor of an engraving.Still, Harris's talented hand is uneven. While each of the full page illustrations requires different aesthetic attributes in describing various scenes in the story, I might have surmised that two, or ever three, different draughtsmen had executed the four full-page illustrations.

Harris is more than competent, but following the Brock brothers, his work appears of lesser quality by comparison. They would be a tough act to follow, even for an above average chap like Harris.


"All right, it's only me" (Page 61)



"The headmaster threw open the door" (Page 109)



"All right, just you jolly well wait and see, Sandy" (Page 139)



"Competitors for the 440 come her at once" (Page 211)


Check in next time, when we'll take a look at Oxford University Press's 1950 reprinting of Meredith and Co. See you then!

Gallery 2: The Work of Henry Matthew Brock

Our second gallery will, of course, focus on the artist responsible for the various works featured in the second novel by George Mills.

King Willow, the sequel to 1933's Meredith and Co., was published in London in 1938 by Geo. G. Harrap and Co., Ltd.

King Willow was illustrated by the talented Henry Matthew Brock, younger brother of C. E. Brock.



This first edition of King Willow is not only complete with a full colour frontispiece and four black line interior plates, but Brock was commissioned to embellish the text, from the cloth-bound boards of its exterior to small illustrations designed around the text of the tables of contents and illustrations [click to enlarge any image].



Brock's powerful and confident line brings a real clarity to certain of the interior illustrations that belies the whimsical quality of many others. His quality of line takes on the emotion of each illustration in a way that one can almost feel his hand interpreting the scenario found in the text as he drew it. Take for example, the contrast between the idyllic napper resting above the words "Chapter I," and the stern, authoritarian feel that is almost palpable in "Go down to my study, and wait for me."



"Go down to my study, and wait for me" (Page 99)

H. M. Brock may be the younger sibling of a noted older brother, but he clearly does not play second fiddle here. Of C. E. Brock, Wikipedia states: "He and his brothers maintained a Cambridge studio filled with various curios, antiques, furniture, and a costume collection. Using these, family members would model for each other."


"Murray picked up the dressing-gown and searched it" (Page 66)



"Puffing and panting and glaring at each other" (Page 131)



"Uggles occupied a good deal of the space" (Page 191)


The third book of George Mills—Minor and Major—will be the subject of the exhibition of our third gallery of artwork. Please don't miss the opening reception. Perhaps I'll serve wine and cheese…

In Search of Eaton Gate Preparatory School, London, S.W.1

Following up on our discovery of the English Preparatory School in Glion, Switzerland—a place where our George Mills must have taught after leaving his situation at The Craig in Windermere, Cumbria, for whatever reason—we pretty much know at the very least some small amount about the places where Mills was a schoolmaster prior to his writing his first novel, Meredith and Co., which was published in 1933.

The only workplace of Mills's that we are now unsure of is the school mentioned in the dedication to the first edition of his second novel, King Willow, published in 1938 [above, left]. Here's that original dedication [pictured below, right], which Mills himself dated 'June, 1938': "TO THE HEADMASTERS, STAFF, AND BOYS OF EATON GATE PREPARATORY SCHOOL, LONDON, S.W. 1."

There's just something quite strange about that.

A myriad of searches through the internet, library databases, and periodical literature haven't turned up so much a crumb of evidence that such a school ever existed.

The obvious thought is that "Eaton Gate Preparatory School" must have been what the current Eaton House School in Belgravia had been called back in the period from 1933-1937, the period between the publication of his first and second novels.

Awaiting research assistance from the school itself, I have checked the archives of the London Times for more about T. S. Morton—a man [pictured, right] who could have employed George Mills during the mid 1930s if, indeed, Eaton House School was Eaton Gate Prep. (And, by the way, it is "T.S." Morton, not "J" Morton as Eaton House Schools' website erroneously claims.)

Here's Morton's obituary from the Tuesday, 23 January 1962 edition of the Times:

Mr. T. S. MORTON

Mr. T. S. Morton, a well-known figure in the preparatory school world of a generation ago, and founder and first headmaster of the school which became Eaton House School, Eaton Gate, died in a St. Albans nursing home on Sunday in his ninety-fifth year.

Thomas Sale Morton, born in 1867, the elder son of a Hampstead physician, Dr. John Morton, was a descendant of the Scottish antiquarian John Leyden and of W. J. Thomas, founder of Notes and Queries, and thus inherited a tradition of scholarly pursuits. From Charterhouse he went as a classical scholar to Clare College, Cambridge, and in 1888 joined Dr. Williams's staff at Summer Fields, Oxford. It was in the days when the great public schools demanded a thorough grounding in the classics from their young entrants, and the Summer Fields' products regularly carried off a range of scholarships and places at Eton, Winchester, and Westminster. Morton was a skilful Latinist and some of his translations have been used in schools for years as text-books, and he had the gift of interesting small boys in the Greek and Roman worlds.

With the encouragement of Mrs. Maurice Macmillan, mother of the Prime Minister, he planned in 1897 a day preparatory school in Cliveden Place, and soon began to draw large numbers of boys from Belgravia. He used to say that of all the boys he taught he thought "young Harold Macmillan" was the brightest. But he had considerable respect for the classical discipline which emerged in other pupils such as Ronald Knox, Lord Wavell, and in later years Anthony Asquith. He remembered doing private coaching at 10 Downing Street during the First World War with Mrs. Asquith on hands and knees coaxing a reluctant fire to save master and pupil from freezing. He would usually be invited to stay to luncheon and on one occasion was asked to stay in order to keep the conversation going with Lord Kitchener. His devotion to teaching and dislike of administration made him dispose of his highly successful school, and in the later part of his career he was a member of the staff at The Hall, Hampstead. His tall, spare figure was always noticeable at meetings of the Classical Association, and while he bemoaned the decline of the classics in English education he did not resist the conclusion that there were other interests demanding the studied attention of young English gentlemen. He was unmarried.


As we know from the brief history of the institution at the school's own website: "By January 1937, some 50 boys were enrolled, forcing the school to move to 3 Eaton Gate."

That would have been about the time the faculty of the school boasted a published author, George Mills, if it's indeed the same place.

Now, it doesn't say that the school moved to Eaton Gate [left, circe 1965] from Cliveden Place in January of 1937, just that the old school had swollen with about 50 boys by then. How long it would have taken to find a larger place nearby, notify parents, wait for it to open up, close the deal, and actually make the move is open to speculation—especially in light of the fact that there were no fax machines or photocopiers and the there was a global depression going on. Mills, however, wrote King Willow's preface in June of 1938 and actually called the school by an incorrect name.

Is it possible that they were still in the process of moving to the new location and hadn't finalized the name of the school yet?

Harold Macmillan attended the school on Sloane Square known as "Mr. Gladstone's Day School" at the turn of the 20th century. By 1937, "Mr. Gladstone," who was called by Macmillan "an admirable teacher, both of Latin and Greek," may have been long gone from the institution, but if an aging Morton was still in charge at that time, he had an Oxford connection that Mills would likely have used to ingratiate himself.

There are no records about when Morton left Eaton House to take a faculty position at The Hall School in Hampstead, but that school was purchased by a Robin T. Gladstone ["Mr. Gladstone" again?] in 1919 and expanded from 60 students to 270 during the 1920s. That kind of increase in student population would have required a huge influx of faculty, and perhaps Morton was the sort of "star" educator [he'd taught young Macmillan, Knox, Asquith, and a young Laurence Olivier] who could draw wealthy parents [and their wallets] to that expanding school.

If that were so, Morton wouldn't have been around when Mills taught at Eaton House around 1937.

One thing that we do know for sure: Mills wrote the dedication to 1933's Meredith and Co. with explicit "affection" for the boys and staffs of the schools at which he'd taught before 1933. By 1937, his dedication in King Willow to "Eaton Gate Preparatory School" is noteworthy for its complete absence of affection. It's precise—"London, S.W.1"—without any personal touch of warmth or fondness. The overall location of the school was the area in which Mills had been raised [right] , and in which he had always had a great deal of family, and one could assume many of the children at the school [which was never a boarding school until it moved to Haynes Hill, Twyford, Berks in 1939, and then only for the duration of the war] were local kids whose familes he might have known well. In this case, a lack of fondness doesn't seem to fit.

Is it possible that Mills left Eaton House School on less than good terms? Is the misnaming of the school something he did intentionally? It seems peculiar, especially in light of the dedication's brevity, that he had simply miswritten the name accidentally and never noticed his error. Such carelessness could be reflective of something else troubling Mills as he sat to write that dedication. Could it have been true that, in his case, one could not 'go home again'?

Of course, perhaps a typesetter at G. G. Harrap & Co., the publishing house, had bollixed up the dedication, skipping from "Eaton House" in the school's name, onward to "Eaton Gate" in the school's address without ever noticing.

But it is really interesting to note that when Meredith and Co. was re-released in the 1950s, the warm dedication to Windlesham House School, Warren Hill School, The Craig, and Captain Wm E. Mocatta's English Preparatory School in Glion remained intact.

The subsequent edition of King Willow, published by Spring Books in the 1950s, contained a completely different dedication—one in which no Eaton House or Eaton Gate School was ever mentioned at all. Since Eaton House was still operating in the late 1950s when King Willow was reprinted, it may have been no accident that a bitter Mills decided not to publicize the institution anymore, changing to a far more timely and heartfelt dedication to a "Beryl and Ian" [left].

It seems obvious that, with no other school in Eaton Gate at the time, Mills must have been a schoolmaster at Eaton House. What we aren't as sure of is whether or not he left bad blood between himself and the institution.

As usual, if you can shed some light on any of this—George Mills, Eaton House School, Mr. Gladstone's Day School, T.S. Morton, or Eaton Gate Preparatory School—please don't hesitate to let me know!

Minor and Major and 2nd Lieutenant Terence Hadow

Back from my holiday visiting family in Michigan, what did I find waiting for me but the first edition of Minor and Major by George Mills that I'd ordered a month ago! Here are the details of my shipment from Chesterfield, U.K.:

Sales Order No.: 69490803

Bookseller: J.A'S BOOKS

Estimated Delivery Date: August 9, 2010

Author: George MILLS

Title: MINOR TO MAJOR

Bookseller Book No.: 013655

Book Description: THIS BOOK IS IN GOOD+ CONDITION IT DOES HAVE SOME WEAR AND TEAR BUT A MUCH LOVED BOOK.

Date Processed: June 7, 2010

Approximate Shipping Speed: 14 - 45 business days

Well "GOOD+" is somewhat of an exaggeration in this case: The book has a broken binding. For my purposes, however, it's a delight!

This 1939 first edition published by G. G. Harrap & Co. matches perfectly the format of their 1938 first edition of King Willow. The cover art, color, and typeface are meant to mirror King Willow's appearance and the line illustrations of H. M. Brock. The illustrator here, though, is John Harris. Harris is a stylized draftsman whose layouts, compositions, and craftsmanship are laudable, but whose figures lack the breath of life that previous illustrators C. E. and H. M. Brock imbued in the characters created by Mills.

As I'd suspected, there is more to be found in this edition than in the circa 1959 reprinting by Spring Books that was published in Czechoslovakia. The first edition contains a preface written by George Mills in 1939 that is not found in the subsequent impression. It reads, with my emphasis on names:

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.

It may not seem like much, but short of the discovery of an unexpected trove of letters authored by George Mills, this snippet of writing is a welcome new insight into the man as a person.

An interesting acquaintance of Mills is schoolboy Terence Hadow, who was born in Kensington, London, in 1921. Hadow would have been approximately 12 years old at the publication of Meredith & Co. in 1933, about 17 upon the publication of King Willow, and around 18 when this undated preface was composed in 1939. Presumably, Hadow was a friend of the family, living in Kensington near the Mills. He may even have been taught by Mills at the mysterious "Eaton Gate Preparatory School" in London between 1933 and 1938.

We know that Mills, who would soon become an Army paymaster after the publication of Minor and Major, must have been rocked during the war by the death of his wife Vera in 1942. Tragedy seems to have touched Mills again, and quite soon, a year later.

Here are details from the U.K. Army Roll of Honour, 1939-1945:

Name: Terence Hadow
Given Initials: T M S
Rank: Lieutenant
Death Date: 18 March 1943
Number: 172204
Birth Place: London W
Residence: Down
Branch at Enlistment: Infantry
Theater of War: Burma
Regiment at Death: Royal Welch Fusiliers
Branch at Death: Infantry

The 28 February 1941 issue of the London Gazette lists Terence Michael Scott Hadow (172204) as having been promoted from a cadet in the 142nd O.C.T.U. to a 2nd lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers on 15 February 1941.

Hadow was obviously close to Mills, although how close is open to speculation. Still, his death following relatively closely on the heels of Vera's had to affect Mills in some way—remember, the London Gazette would quite soon also publish a notice that Mills relinquished his commission due to "ill-health" on 3 November 1943.

Hadow was laid to rest at the Rangoon Memorial in the Taukkyan War Cemetery, the largest of the three war cemeteries in Burma. The following is recorded on-line at the website Britain at War:

HADOW, Lieutenant, TERENCE MICHAEL SCOTT, 172204. 1st Bn. Royal Welch Fusiliers. 18th March 1943. Age 21. Son of Patrick Hadow, and of Monica E. Hadow, of Kensington, London. Face 9.

At the memorial, inscribed on a frieze in the rotunda that is surrounded by the graves of over 6,000 men, an inscription reads:

1939 - 1945
HERE ARE RECORDED THE NAMES OF TWENTY-SEVEN THOUSAND
SOLDIERS OF MANY RACES UNITED IN SERVICE TO THE BRITISH CROWN
WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN BURMA AND ASSAM BUT TO WHOM THE
FORTUNE OF WAR DENIED THE CUSTOMARY RITES ACCORDED
TO THEIR COMRADES IN DEATH

Also engraved on the rotunda in English, Burmese, Hindi, Urdu, and Gurmukhi is the additional inscription:

THEY DIED FOR ALL FREE MEN

We don't know for sure how the loss of Terence Hadow, just 21 years of age at the time of his death in Burma, affected Mills. We do know that Mills was ailing after the death, and that he never again wrote a book.

Did the Second World War and its consequences cost George Mills some of himself, a part that he could never really recover?

As always, additional information, ideas, and informed speculation are most welcome!

A First Edition of King Willow Arrives with Some Surprises

It's a beautiful morning here in the horse country of north central Florida. The sunlight is slanting through the buds on the oaks [the tiny, almond-shaped oak leaves here look far different from the large, splayed leaves of my youth in Pennsylvania, and from what I've seen of oaks in the U.K.] and the birds all seem to calling for their mates.

My mate, Janet, is out getting her hair styled, but were she here, I'd still be thanking here for my new gift: A first edition copy of King Willow, again signed by the author, that arrived yesterday evening. I'd had my eye on it, but thought it was too much money. I was stunned when I opened the package from Canterbury, Kent, and pulled out this well-worn, even slightly beat-up edition. I simply adore it!

Yesterday I wondered aloud about the missing years in my time line of George Mills, and was contemplating writing an entry about his grandfather, Arthur Mills. In lieu of new information about Mills himself, I thought providing some context into which I could situate the life of George would be a logical next step. There are a number of people who would have known G.M. and who would have undoubtedly influenced him, even if they had no influence over him directly.

Thumbing through this not-so-gently-used copy of King Willow, it immediately struck me what a beautiful book this must have been in its day, sort of the same feeling I get when I see, for example, Elizabeth Taylor on the cover of a gossip tabloid at the supermarket. Published by George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., the often browned, stained, and worn pages of this book must have been gorgeous in their day. The paper is still wonderfully stiff and still has a "tooth," or texture, that makes it a pleasure to touch. The author's inscription reads: "To Barbara and Raymond Dones—with best wishes—George Mills July 1938," and is written in what appears to be fountain pen ink that's a rich sepia.

[Note (26 Apr 2010): When my wife ordered the text, there had been a note on the internet saying: SIGNED presentation copy by the author to the front free end paper 'To Barbara and Raywood, With best wishes George Mills, July 1938.' I'll admit: What do I know about British penmanship, circa 1938? Nothing! But if I'd read it myself, I'd have assumed it was Raymond. I didn't change it, though, and put on the web just as the bookseller indicated. I am now assured that it does indeed say Raymond, and many thanks to Barry McAleenan for the chirographic advice!]

It's illustrated by H. M. [Henry Matthew] Brock, brother of the legendary C.E. Brock and a fine illustrator, graphic designer, and painter in his own right as just a glance it the work throughout this edition will ascertain. He's fully credited as the illustrator immediately below the name of George Mills on the title page, and as well as a full-colour frontispiece and 4 full-page plates, he did several other decorative illustrations, and example of which is seen to the left.

What truly surprised me, however, were not only the difference in quality between this edition of King Willow and the other edition, circa 1958 or so, but the dedication and preface. In this earlier edition, Mills has given me a location for himself and his wife in the time that elapsed between 1938 and the publication of Meredith and Co. back in 1933!

Right now, I'll focus on the dedication to the 1958-ish edition that was the first book by Mills I'd ever seen: "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."
Now, I'd been working on finding a young Ian and Beryl, likely in Great Britain, just before the publication of this book in 1938. Needless to say, I wasn't having much luck. The dedication seemed wistfully hopeful, coming from what I assumed was a 40-ish man who'd seemingly been married to Vera Mills for 10 or 12 years at that point, depending on the actual, unspecified date of Beryl and Ian's nuptials. It made me smile.

In those assumptions, it turns out, I must have been entirely mistaken!

Here's the dedication to the first edition of King Willow, which Mills himself dates in the book's preface as June, 1938: "TO THE HEADMASTERS, STAFF, AND BOYS OF EATON GATE PREPARATORY SCHOOL, LONDON, S.W. 1."

Not only does that provide us with a location for Mills and Vera during the span of time between the 1933 publication of Meredith and Co. and its stand-alone 1938 sequel, King Willow, it also puts a completely different spin on the dedication in that late-1950s edition. Beryl and Ian, it seems, were not married near the end of the worldwide Great Depression; they were likely born at that time. Their ship, Matrimony, likely set sail just after the Korean Conflict in the middle of the 20th century, not in the years leading up to the Second World War.

The subtext of the later dedication changes now as well. The latter version is now written by a childless, 60-ish man, over 15 years a widower, watching two youngsters embarking on a journey together that he'd set out on with Vera over a quarter of a century earlier. There are no children of theirs have become the light of his life as he charts his own course, alone, into his own last harbor.

Of course, I labor under the assumption that George Mills never remarried and remained childless. If he did, all of the above is completelt in error, and yet another spin is put on his metaphorical bon voyage to Ian and Beryl.

Another bit of information implied by the late-1950s dedication would be that, seemingly for the first time, Mills has not dedicated a book to a school. My inference is that, by the time of the Fanfare and Viscount Series' Czechoslovakian reprints of his three best-loved stories, Mills has retired. I've not seen a copy of every edition of his three prep school books, nor have I ever seen a copy of his children's book St. Thomas of Canterbury. I'll speculate, however, that when Meredith and Co. was published in 1957 by Andrew Dakers Ltd. with exactly the same preface and dedication found in the 1950 edition [each just relocated within the text], it hadn't occurred to Mills at that point that he could rewrite them—or at least he'd felt no need to until the wedding of Beryl and Ian.

Still, although the two different dedications imply much still to be considered and researched, Mills has definitely pinned himself down to London, S.W. 1, for at least some portion of the time between 1933 and 1938, and without any other school named in this dedication, it suggests that perhaps Mills had finally found a position as a schoolmaster that lasted for a while.

Eaton Gate Preparatory School becomes the next focus of our investigation, although I hope to still learn much more about G.M. from Windlesham and Eastbourne.

As always, please let me know if you have any thoughts, suggestions, or information!

King Willow Arrives!

Besides finding information about this mysterious George Mills, I want to read all of his books. For a start, I've already received:

King Willow; Spring Books, London; printed in Czechoslovakia, Undated. [Illustrated by Tom Thursby]

I ordered it from Paperbackbookshop.co.uk Ltd., in Gloucestershire on 6 February, 2010, but it was shipped a prior from a P.O. box at the Brussels Airport in Belgium/Belgique/Belgie. My wife, Janet, ordered it for me, so I don’t actually know what it cost. It arrived on 25 February. The dust jacket lists it as a title in Spring Books' "Fanfare Series" for youths. It’s 256 pages and contains no copyright date.

This doesn’t appear to be a copy of either of the two editions of King Willow available on the shelves of the British Library. Those editions are:

King Willow, etc.; G. G. Harrap & Co.: London, 1938.

King Willow (New edition); Oxford University Press: London, 1951.

If anyone out there has any idea of the publication date of my undated 'Spring Books' edition, about the seemingly-defunct publisher [Spring Books], about Mills himself, or about the illustrator [Thursby], I certainly would appreciate the information!