A Geography Lesson Courtesy of Keith's Mum

Brilliant!

Following up on my entry earlier today, the omniscient Keith's Mum has once again set me on the correct path.

The comment just arrived:

Keith's Mum thinks that the Bird's Eye view on Bing Maps would give you a better view of Warren Hill Cottage and Stelvio Cottages.


Now, I have found that it's best not to ignore Keith's mum. The suggestion above reminded me of information sent by the ever-reliable Barry McAleenan regarding the 1899 map he scanned for us:

        • Plot 81 became Stanton Prior
       • Plot 80 became Stelvio Court
       • Warren Hill site, plot 77, now [2011] includes Stelvio Cottages.


You can see the locations he mentions on the detail of the 1899 map of Eastbourne, above, left.

Having never warmed up to Bing Maps, I decided to give the suggestion a try and am certainly glad I did. Below, you can see the image Keith's mum recommended, and it's far more useful than those available at Google Maps [click any image to enlarge it in a new window].


And here you can see the view of the same location, around those Stelvio Cottages, pivoted around and from the north:


Great stuff!

It looks to me as if the building with the lighter-coloured roof is more alike to images and maps we've seen than anything else [below]. One has to consider the fact that it may be the elusive "last vestige of Warren Hill School." There is a comparison of the southern Bird's Eye View image with a crop from the 1930 black-and-white image of Warren Hill, circa 1930, showing Warren Hill's latest addition [below].


The overall appearance seems correct. The chimney seems correct. The roof seems correct. The white-cornered wall seems correct. The location seems correct.

Keith, please give the old girl my best, will you? She never fails!

And if you are wondering why I wasn't enamored with Bing Maps, here's the first thing I naturally looked up when it came out: My house. I've made all of the settings identical to the ones used to render the beautiful colour images above. You can see it as I see it, at right [clicking on it will not improve it whatsoever].

The orange push-pin indicates the exact location of my own dwelling. Lovely, eh?

Yuck. (Is that also a British expression of disgust?)

Thanks for getting me out of my own dull and poorly pixilated neighbourhood and into the real world…

It's Always Sunny on Beachy Head Road

Lately, as steamy Ocala dries out from our daily subtropical cloudbursts, I've been sifting through some older information, trying to get all my ducks in a row (Is that a British idiom as well?) and have found some items about Warren Hill School in Meads, Eastbourne, that may be of interest.

It's been over a year now since I received information researched by Michael Ockenden of the Eastbourne Local History Society, the man who located Warren Hill School for us and has provided a wealth of information over time.

However, when the location of Warren Hill was still unknown, that had been my obsession, I'm afraid to say. In my zeal to locate the site of the campus, Michael O. had provided some nuggets of information that flew past me unnoticed, well beyond what was then my narrow field of vision.

Here's the first:

One of our senior members has just e-mailed to say:-

I remember Warren Hill School as a regular opponent on our fixture lists during the 1930s. Their football field was at the top end of Carlisle Road. But I seem to recall that it was dropped from our fixtures well before 1939, so maybe it had closed by then.


I paid homage to this bit of information, along with many others, at the time (24 March 2010), but this particular recollection really failed to sink into my notoriously thick skull. (Is that a British idiom as well?) It corroborates something we eventually "discovered" later on: Warren Hill School held land at the top end of Carlisle Road.

A few days later, Michael verified it:

[In August 1931] the Times reports the registration of land (the school and its grounds) at Warren Hill, Beachy Head Road, and land (the playing field) in Carlisle Road, Eastbourne.


Sometimes one can't see the forest for the trees (Is that a British idiom as well?) in that we'd actually had that information for quite a while, and was eventually corroborated here [right]. Looking for the actual location of the building, though, seemed to be my only passion a year ago or more, and I promise that the next university degree I earn will be in History so I can manage all of this properly!


Another bit of information from last year, however, was something that has stayed on my mind constantly since then. Michael had also written during that time:

The school (which no longer stands ... apart from the former hall or gym) was situated on the left-hand side of Beachy Head Road, between Coltstocks Road and Darley Road.

Later, he added:

The low structure to the left is probably the house which still stands on the site (50 45 22 95 N and 0 15 52 90 E) - the last vestige of Warren Hill School.


The low structure to which Michael refers might have been, I had always thought as we went along, the addition we have seen numerous times at the southwest corner of Warren Hill in the black-and-white image, circa 1930 [left].

I've wondered frequently about that "last vestige" of Warren Hill, the "former hall or gym."

For some reason, though, I recently decided to drive 'virtually' down Beachy Head Road once more and do some snooping via Street View at Google Maps.

Here's an image captured along Beachy Head at a gate in the wall that presumably divides the property that was once the campus of Warren Hill School from the property upon which now sits Stanton Prior (on the corner of Beach Head and Darley Roads. That is the closest I can prowl, from Ocala, Florida, to what would have been the southwest corner of the main building of Warren Hill.


Clicking once to enlarge, I find this:


There is clearly something visible from the street [click the image to enlarge it]. You'll notice that, in the bottom right hand corner of that image, the small golden avatar that represents where I am looking is locked on a building that is in a similar spot to that low-lying addition.

Let's check the 1930 map, but at the same time see where I was looking today. I've also marked three places where structures on both seem to coincide [click to enlarge slightly]:


Only one seems to have the look of something that could have been a "former hall or gym": Number 3.

However, there are some similarities between what is visible today and what would have been there in 1930, albeit very difficult to see.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of our snooping peek through the hedge via Street View set next to an image of former headmaster F. R. Ebden standing to the west of the main building and facing the southeast in relation to the structure behind him. The street view image was captured from the opposite direction, looking in from the northwest [click to enlarge].


It seems that there are definite areas of similarity, pointed out in the comparison above, and the fact that those north-side characteristics reveal a mirror-image of the southern view would be something a symmetry-minded person might have been expecting. While this low-lying structure doesn't necessarily have the appearance of a "former hall or gym," its physical characteristics seem oddly similar to the structure that may have been there, circa 1930.

This structure would be immediately behind the hedge today, and would correspond to the narrow, east-west building we see in the map far above at location Number 1.


Sometimes I feel a bit like a veritable prowler, but is broad daylight—always broad daylight—in Street View. Perhaps then, I'm more of a stalker, but my stalking target is merely history. I suppose I can't feel too guilty about skulking about outside the gate on Beachy Head Road and peeking through. After all, I'm 4,000 miles away!

In the end, it's really all I can do, sitting here on the sun porch, watching dark the clouds roiling together above in advance of our expected afternoon thunderstorm.

So is the narrow building at Number 1 the last vestige of Warren Hill School, or is it the beefier structure found at location Number 3?

Perhaps neither. Perhaps both!

I can't tell from here, but as the thunder drives our cat out of this room and under the bed, it's nice to know that, courtesy of Google, it's always sunny on Beachy Head Road!

Spending a Morning in Meads, near Warren Hill and Moira House

It was just curiosity, but a couple of months ago, I wondered where exactly some of those Warren Hill School photographs I'd recently received were taken. There was one in particular, an image of a young woman standing much closer to the camera than was a small boy in uniform [left], which piqued my curiosity for some reason. In the background, one could see a rather large edifice looming over ivy covered walls.

My hunch was that it was taken on the lawn south of the school as described in the image below. Within the red circle would have been the photographer and a woman I finally posited might be Miss Josephine Goodland, daughter of Head Master Joshua "Jim" Goodland, although I had once speculated that it could be his wife. The arrow protruding from the circle indicates the direction in which I had thought the photographer was facing, slightly north of due west. The small, blue arrow indicates the building I had guessed stood behind her.



Enter the indefatiguable Barry McAleenan!

A friend of this site, Barry wrote [my emphasis]: "The building that you surmised to be the backdrop for Goodland's wife is un-towered and now known as Stanton Prior [sic, no 'y']. The janitor/handyman told me that it used to be a school and is now 6 flats. Photos were taken; 1 attached. This mansion is on the Eastern side corner of Beachy Head road and Darley road and is therefore contiguous with the [now] developed Warren Hill site."

Barry attached the following image of Stanton Prior today:



Having demonstrated that is clearly not the building in the photograph above, he continued: "Meads has become very much more developed since the 1930's and many of the Edwardian Mansions (some used as schools) have been taken over by Brighton University for the healthcare degree courses required by the NHS. Lawns and gardens have been taken over by car parks and more buildings. The early 'boulevarded' elegance of Eastbourne was instigated by the then-Duke of Devonshire who lived in Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, which is why so many roads are named after Derbyshire villages or use his family names or titles."

While taking a virtual "drive" around Meads this week, courtesy of Google, I could easily see what he means.

"I'm assuming that the resolution of the original file for the photo is higher than your blog reproduction offers. The school is on the junction between Carlisle Road and Upper Carlisle road - so seems to be in an ambiguous address position. My 1973 Kelly's street directory allows that the property is 42/44 Carlisle road."

The school Barry mentions is the Moira House Girls' School.



"The long shot [above] is from Salisbury road over what are now the Eastbourne College [2011] playing fields, i.e. to the west of Carlisle road. I surmise that these would have been used by Warren Hill in the 1920's or 30's.

The school is on the junction between Carlisle Road and Upper Carlisle road - so seems to be in an ambiguous address position. My 1973 Kelly's street directory allows that the property is 42/44 Carlisle road."



When the two are juxtaposed [above], we can easily see that Barry's position in capturing the above image is not all at all far from the location from which the photograph was taken around 1930.

Barry added: "Moira House Girls' School is actually in Boston House on the 1930 OS map." It's difficult to read on the map scan, but Boston House on the map is located exactly where Moira House Girls' School is plotted on the satellite image.

Let's take a look at the area, both then [circa 1930] and now:



It's easy to see, especially on the well-labeled Google satellite image, where Salisbury Road is located, as well as Moira House to the north [click on any image to enlarge it]. It would seem that whatever event Warren Hill School was enjoying that day, it was clearly being held on those lawns just south of Moira House, west of Carlise Road. The image we see at the top of this page was actually taken while facing almost due north, and looking at the shadows, it was just before noon during the very late spring or early summer.

I "drove" around to Moira House via Google and decided to take a look back at what Miss Goodland (or whomever) would have seen while posing for that photo. Here's a look south from the street just in front of the girls' school:



She'd have been standing on the far side of the distant wall, no longer festooned with ivy, and we can see the hill upon which Warren Hill was built rising in the distance. For someone who has never been to Eastbourne to fully appreciate the undulating terrain of the area of Sussex in which we find Meads, it's instructive to consider a description by Barry: "Warren Hill would have been named after the 'side' hill to the west. My 1973 Kelly's map does not name the road across the hill, but the road is now [2011] called Warren Hill on some maps as seen on the internet. As a very crude image, imagine a splayed right hand: Beachy Head is the back of the hand and the fingers (twisted to the right) are the named side hills that surround the sea level conurbation of Eastbourne."

We can see that the festivities in the 1930 photographs would have been held after children and staff had strolled down to these level fields to the north. It's difficult for a stranger to visualize completely the landscape and its rolling qualities. This final image may give a foreign reader some idea of how uneven the landscape can be [again, click to enlarge].



Above is an image looking a bit west of due north from Beachy Head Road, captured via Google from a location just west of the original site of Warren Hill School. It provides insight as to exactly how much the intervening terrain falls away between that southern roadside location and Moira House!

Readers familiar with Eastbourne will likely find this entry a complete bore: An examination of what would be either obvious to them, or easily ascertainable during a brisk walk or short drive. The fact that I can virtually visit it all with such clarity while sitting here in the sunroom [which my wife, a Brit-com aficionado, has now dubbed the 'con-serve-a-tree'] at the back of my house in Ocala, Florida, however, still amazes me at times.

Much appreciation goes out to my 'guide,' Barry McAleenan, though, for doing the legwork and providing me the details that made possible my trips to Meads this week. Thanks to Barry, we now know that, in addition to lawns to the south of the site of the school, Warren Hill had access to, and used, fields to the north of its campus as well. It would be interesting to discover what else we might learn from other images captured on that morning in Meads, should additional photographs exist.

And, perhaps someday, I'll visit the land of my ancestors and tour England myself, on my own. Until then, I offer thanks to Google and everyone else who has made it possible for me to spend the last year and more in England--sort of!

Found: George Mills at Grey Friars!

What was my most exciting Christmas present? Well, I got lots of great stuff—books, CDs, shirts, wine—but I think the one thing that had me most excited was simply delivered to me near Christmas. It actually wasn't a Christmas present at all!

I had left upon my holiday travels and, while checking my work e-mail from a hotel in western Kentucky, I stumbled upon this very Spartan message, copied here in its entirety: "I have info about George Mills."

After replying, I received the following, wonderful e-mail from Michael Downes, author of the book Oundle's War and master of the blog Budleigh & Brewster United - celebrating sisterhood!

Hi Sam

I contacted a lawyer friend of mine who lives in Budleigh Salterton, in the road where George Mills used to live. He tells me that when he moved to Budleigh Salterton in 1972, George Mills had just died, leaving two sisters living in the house, Grey Friars. The good news is that the house is still there, and has not been demolished to make way for a condo. My lawyer friend tells me that the three Mills were all related to the Mills of Glyn Mills Bank. He will speak to the present owner of Grey Friars to see if he knows anything about George Mills.

I have attached a document which I found on the internet about a Mills of the Glyn Mills Bank; lots of names for you to follow up there.

We have a lot of snow here at present. When it clears I will take a photo of Grey Friars and will also visit the town cemetery to see if I can spot George Mills' grave.

Budleigh Salterton has a literary festival, and one of the documents produced by our local museum for that event was a list of authors formerly living in the town. George Mills (along with many others) was not on the list, and I have added to it over the years with other names. So George Mills is quite a find for us.

If you click on the BudleighBrewster link... you will see that I have an interest in life across the pond.

Best wishes

Michael

And this, also in the text, must be an excerpt of an e-mail from Michael's friend:

When we moved to Pagets in 1972 George Mills had just died leaving two sisters living at Grey Friars, which is... directly at the (dead!) end of Westfield Road [pictured, right]. The three Mills were all related to the Mills of Glyn Mills Bank. But what became of that I am not sure. I did not know that George Mills was a children’s author but it is entirely possible. Interestingly there was another children’s author who lived in Westfield Road – he was the author of a series of the “I Spy” books, but at present the name escapes me! I cannot remember whether the Taylors bought Greyfriars from the Mills Family Executor or whether there was another owner(s) in between.


It's odd that messages that so frequently refer to someone's passing would have me so excited, but they do!

I knew George Mills and his sisters, Agnes and Violet, lived in Grey Friars (then apparently written as two words) from several sources, one of which was the Kelly's Directory of Budleigh Salterton for 1939, which contained the interesting residence address: "Spence, Miss, Grey Friars, Westfield Rd ." After finding that, I'd searched on Google Maps and virtually drove the length of Westfield Road, but couldn't determine which house was Grey Friars. The Royal Mail didn't respond to requests for help, and the only additional proof I had that Miss Spence's 1939 home [circled below, left] had also been the residence of George Mills was a letter written to The London Times by Mills, published on Wednesday, 8 April 1959, signed:

Yours faithfully,
GEORGE MILLS.
Grey Friars, Budleigh Salterton, Devonshire.

We know that Mills spent the summer of 1956 teaching at the Ladycross Catholic Boys' Preparatory School in Seaford, which doesn't seem a place to which he'd have been able to commute daily from Budleigh Salterton. He must have been boarded there, possibly at the school itself.

It's also possible, I suppose, that he stayed with his brother, Arthur, for the summer, but George's commute from Downton would've been roughly 160 miles a day, round trip. That seems extremely unlikely, even in those days of cheaper gasoline. You can see the distances on the map, below right, with Budleigh sporting a purple pin, Seaford gold, and Arthur's home in Downton the red letter "A."

Did Mills teach anywhere else after moving to Budleigh Salterton? It's possible. Had he not written books in the 1930s, we wouldn't know where he'd worked during that era—and even knowing, finding out information about Warren Hill School in Eastbourne, The Craig School in Windermere, and the English Preparatory School in Glion, Switzerland has been difficult. And, as we know, it's been extremely difficult to be completely definitive about the school he referred to in his original dedication to King Willow (1939) as the Eaton Gate Preparatory School in London.

Even with the above schools named, we've only been able to surmise what subjects he might have taught or the lengths of time during which he was employed. Even more mysterious is why he moved so often from school to school between 1925 and 1940.

In 1940, Mills's career took a different path for a few years. He became a 2nd lieutenant paymaster in the Royal Pay Corps during WW II, but resigned his commission due to ill health during 1943, and amost disappeared from the public record.

The Pay Corps was something he'd thought about a great deal, and he must have considered himself quite knowledgeable about its operations as we also have a letter to The Times written by him in April 1944 [below, left] in which he critiques the way soldiers are paid. It's signed:

I am Sir, your obedient servant,
GEORGE MILLS, late paymaster, Royal Army Pay Corps,
Naval and Military Club, 94, Piccadilly, W.1.

Despite his ill health, George was apparently able to drag himself down to the club and use it as his mailing address—unless he was residing there. Either way, his mind was sharp enough to have read a letter about military pay in a previous edition of The Times and very pointedly take issue with it.

Mills discusses the streamlining of office procedures and the difficulty of ascertaining exact pay grades for various members of the military.

Perhaps we should be wondering if thinking that Mills found work in Budleigh Salterton as a schoolmaster is errant, and if we should consider the possibility that he found work in an office doing bookkeeping or accounting, based on his experience in the service.

Except for the summer of 1956 that Mills spent in Seaford with the classmates of young Barry McAleenan, we don't have a shred of proof that Mills taught a single day after, say, 1939-1940. In 1956, Mills would have been 59 years old, just about to turn 60.

His books were coming back into print in new editions [below, right] for a new generation of readers. He must have been called upon to discuss his experiences as a teacher in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and the children and places that'd been the inspirations for his novels.

Even if Mills had worked as, say, a bookkeeper in Budleigh Salterton, he may have retired by age 59 and perhaps sought one more taste of those earlier days, before the Second World War, when he was a bright, funny, popular schoolmaster with a young wife and a bright future as an author of noteworthy children's books that were unique in their ability to capture the quirky and amusing parlance of the prep school boys of that time.

Perhaps Mills even considered writing more books as he saw his stories begin to populate the shelves of booksellers once more—something he hadn't seen since before the war.

He never did write professionally again—as a far as we know. Did he ever author another story or text under a pen name? There's no reason to think so, but no proof that he didn't.

I believe that someone out there must know all of this: The Story of George Mills. And that's why it's so exciting to have been contacted by Michael Downes!

There'll be more here from Michael very soon, but let me close by saying, once again, that if you know anything about the life, career, or family of George Mills, please let me know. And thank you very much in advance!

Finding Parkfield...

Lately, I've been catching up on many things that I've been working on. Today I'd like to share some information someone else has been working on—and I really appreciate it!

The following is an exchange of information from friend of the website Barry McAleenan and Liz Graydon, the webmaster of the interesting site Cuckfield Compendium. It was Barry who determined that, although George Mills wrote in the dedication to his 1939 book Minor and Major that he had attended a school called Parkfield in Haywards Heath, the school was likely in nearby Cuckfield. You can read the dedication above, left.

Here's the exchange that Barry began back in May…

On 27/05/2010 11:04, Barry McAleenan wrote:

Dear Liz

I'm trying to find out about the above school in the years 1900 to 1914. All I have established is that its address was: Cuckfield Road, Haywards Heath.

It could have been anywhere between Hurstpierpoint and Cuckfield proper. One of the masters retired to Purcells. I hope he was musical! Can you help?

Kind regards

Barry Mc

Liz Graydon wrote:

There was this mention on Friends Reunited:

Wick and Parkfield Preparatory School
Cuckfield Rd, Haywards Heath, Sussex

The school closed in the Summer of 1974. Created from the merger of two preparatory schools, hence the unusual name, it had existed for around 70 years.
Try googling Parkfield Prep School, there are a few mentions. Cuckfield Road is really bewteen Cuckfield and Staplefield, or so Google maps tells me.

Liz

On 03/07/2010 00:30, Barry McAleenan wrote:

Dear Liz

Many thanks for your industry. I only wish that there were more webmasters of your calibre.

For your shoebox: I have since accessed the Historical Directories website and found this entry:

Kelly's 1915 for Haywards Heath, page 444: Commercial section [Private, similar] Bent, Ernest Lionel, boys' preparatory school, Parkfield, Brighton Road.

I suppose it's possible that the name of the original house may have moved with the school.

With kind regards

Barry Mc

Date: Sat, 03 Jul 2010 09:59:38 +0100
From: Liz

That's interesting, thanks.

When I was googling I kept getting references to George Mills who was both a teacher and a writer. He was at Parkfield http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mills_%28writer%29 http://www.whoisgeorgemills.com/2010/05/haywards-heath-brighton-line-teddy-boys.html

Friends Reunited also show there being a Wick and Parkfield school in Isaacs Lane, Haywards Heath, but does not indicate whether it is a prep school or not.I expect the West Sussex County Records Office (Chichester) will have records of schools in the area too.

I may be repeating what you have already been able to do. The attached is the 1901 census [right] for Earnest [Ernest] Lionel Bent, schoolmaster at Butlers Green, [:] Parkfield. Butlers Green is on the outskirts of Haywards Heath in the Isaacs Lane area. He was born in Essex.

Attached is the 1891 Census for the likely the same person. (aged 10 years younger and born Essex, same occupation - mathematics) The attached 1881 shows him with his parents as does the 1871.

Wishing you well with your searching

Liz

[NOTE: Liz had attached copies of the 1871, 1881, 1891, and 1901 census forms for Ernest L. Bent. The 1901 U. K. Census form is the one that would be closest in proximity to the time George Mills would have attended the school, which he would have sometime between approximately 1903 and 1909. This 1901 form shows the school being at Parkfield and names several schollmasters, some of whom probably taught young George Mills. Click to enlarge and read it.]

Date: Saturday, July 03, 2010 6:40 AM
From: Barry McAleenan [barrymc@dittonsroad.orangehome.co.uk]

Dear Sam

This is what Liz Graydon has just sent me. Butlers Green is now part of Haywards Heath - pretty much to the right of the T into the 2028 on the old map (which I now date to circa 1925 - since reference was found to the partitioning of Ireland). The 2028 is also known as Isaacs Lane, but the actual junction has been moved. I read the census as Ernest Bent. Parkfield would have been in Butlers Green, which included the top end of Isaacs Lane. [This may have been known as 'the Brighton Road' since it would have been a 'route', if nothing else - but that's only a guess.]

Kind regards

Barry

As always, thank you very much, Barry!

Taking a quick "virtual drive" down Isaac's Lane, I didn't find much: Mostly trees. One thing I did know was that, in looking for the addresses of my own relatives near Manchester, the homes have either been there, or they've been paved over in favor of apartments, subdivisions, or office parks. The fact that I didn't see any of those along Isaac's Lane led me to believe that the school hadn't been "developed" [read: demolished] into another structure or structures.

At one point, I stopped, spun around, and peered up a drive into a place called "Downlands Park [pictured, right]," which was marked with a medical red cross on Google Maps. It certainly evidenced the characteristic size, shape, and multiple chimneys that we've seen on Victorian school buildings like Warren Hill School in Meads and The Craig in Winderere.

Some quick research came up with the fact that the building was Downlands Park Nursing Home, run by an international organizaton called Bupa. I flipped through their on-line PDF brochure for the place and it looks beautiful, missing only Tom, Diane, Jane, and Harvey from Waiting for God—in fact, I think I did see Jane! [For a look around the home and its grounds, click HERE.]

Anyway, I contacted Bupa, who put me intouch with Lorraine Lane, the administrator at Downlands Park, who wrote:

Dear Mr Williams,

Thank you for your enquiry into the history of Downlands Park and yes it was indeed a preparatory school in the early 20th century. I will try to find out some more details for you and contact you as soon as I find out.

Kind regards

Lorraine Lane

Administrator Bupa Care Homes

Downlands Park Nursing Home, Isaacs Lane, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 4BQ

It's anyone's guess how long that might take, even if she remembers to do it. Still, it was awfully nice of her to reply so quickly. Thanks, Lorraine!

After letting him know of Ms. Lane's reply above, I received the following message from Barry:

Thursday, July 22, 2010 11:28 AM

Dear Sam

I've finally found Parkfield for you. You will find it just south of the crease [on the attached scan (map, shown)] where the west-going A272 from Haywards Heath junctions with the south-going A273 (Isaacs Lane). In passing, my house is shown on the North East boundary of the large school [Warden Park] in Cuckfield. Purcells is close by, but the mapping resolution of these houses is not good. The school boundaries were straightened out in 1960 or so. This doubled the size of the properties' back gardens. Before this, the land had been a golf course on top of a hill.

Kind regards

Barry

Brilliant! The location of Parkfield on Isaac's Lane near Butler's Green Road is exact location of Downlands Park! [Note: Parkfield is to the far left on the pictured map, showing its proximity to Haywards Heath.]

One more metaphorical piece can be put in my puzzle of the life of George Mills. Parkfield [interior pictured, right] , where Mills had spent time as a boy, has been found.

Well, another mystery solved, and quite satisfactorily I might add. Parkfield School had certainly seemed cloaked so completely in the metaphorical mists of time that I was afraid it had been essentially lost. It's nice to have found it, putting one more piece into the puzzle that is the life of George Mills.

It also heartens me that we may eventually gain information about and insight into the existence of two more schools that figure into the life and professional résumé of Mills: Eaton Gate Preparatory School in London, S.W.1, and the English Preparatory School at Glion, Switzerland, both of which existed at least in the era of the 1920s and/or 1930s.

I can't adequately express my appreciation to Barry Mc for help in gaining leads and insights into research that otherwise would have been beyond me. Thanks once again, Barry—and Liz and Lorraine—very much!

"I never knew what real happiness was until I got married. And by then it was too late" -- Max Kauffman

With so many entries of late revolving around subjects of war and the military, let's divert ourselves and attend a wedding!

The London Times of 9 June 1916 proclaimed, in a column called 'Forthcoming Marriages' that "A marriage has been arranged, and will take place on Thursday, the 22nd inst., at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, at 12:45, between Capt. Arthur Hobart Mills, D.C.L.I, elder son of Rev. Barton R. V. Mills, 38, Onslow-gardens, and the late Lady Catherine Mills, and nephew of the Earl of Buckinghamshire, and Lady Dorothy Walpole, only daughter of the Earl of Orford. No invitations will be issued, but friends are very welcome at the church. Lady Dorothy is staying at 13, Grosvenor-place."

The Earl of Orford, Robert Walpole, was a widower at this time and had no heir to the Earldom. He and his daughter, Dorothy Rachel Melissa Walpole, have traveled the world fishing and adventuring in exotic locales.

In her autobiography, A Different Drummer: Chapters in Autobiography [Duckworth: 1930], Lady Dorothy Mills writes of the years before her engagement:

Halfway through my teens, the inevitability of me had become apparent, life changed. "Tom-boyish-ness" was discouraged, and it was subtly instilled in me that I had a part to play in the world. Slowly the beauty of my heritage began to dawn on me, the pride of prospective possession, and with grew also the realization that I was but a cog in a great machine, the juggernaut of Family Tradition. My looks and my accomplishments were dealt with, I was in general tidied up, and at eighteen I "came out." For awhile the world seemed to be mine to play with. I adored it all, the frocks, the parties, the dancing, the flirtations, the young men who sweated under the collar when they proposed and whom I had no intention of marrying, though I knew that some day I would have to make a "good match," a prospect that I classed alongside a visit to the dentist.

Lady Dorothy's father thought he had made a "good match" in 1888, marrying Louise Melissa Corbin, daughter of multi-millionaire American magnate D. C. Corbin [right] of Spokane, Washington, in Paris. Louise, 21, was 12 years younger than Walpole and would soon become mistress of the Mannington and Wollerton estates, both of which were desperately in need of repair. Her father was 56, and the Earl would have expected Louise to easily outlive the elder Corbin, anticipating a tidy inheritance.

Louise, however, died in 1900, leaving Walpole with only a daughter, Lady Dorothy, after a son, Horatio Corbin Walpole, born in 1891, died on 20 May 1893. According to historylink.org, during Louise's life, D. C. Corbin "visited Lord and Lady Orford at their country estates and townhouse in London, where he gave his daughter a box at the opera, among other things." However, they also reveal that "Lord Orford’s diary makes it clear that, during his marriage, little money had been forthcoming from his rich American father-in-law."

Supporting multiple estates [Mannington Hall is pictured, left], a townhouse in London, a hunting lodge in Devon, and frequently traveling around the world in search of fishing thrills, the Earl of Orford was naturally cash-starved. As it turned out, the only beneficiary of D. C. Corbin's 1918 death in his family was Lady Dorothy, and Corbin had an iron-clad stipulation that she could not claim her inheritance until after the death of her father, the Earl. It seems that Corbin was making certain that the spendthrift Earl was not going to get any of his money, ever!

So, when one reads of a "good match" in Lady Dorothy's autobiography, one can be sure that it means a match that came with money that could be channeled the Earl's way.

Her bitterness over that very real situation becomes far more clear in the next section, almost ten years after her "coming out" into society. Lady Dorothy continues:

Then in due course I fell in love, with a young man possessing most of the world's assets except money. But that "Except" had a capital "E." It was the one unforgivable sin, and was visited with everything old-fashioned and unpleasant that nothing but the Inquisition or an old-fashioned family could have devised. Marriage or disinheritance, that was the choice that lay before me, complicated by the advent of the Great War.

Wouldn't the choice have been 'marriage or inheritance'? Anyway, it's easy to see that the Walpoles were apparently less than thrilled with her choice: The nephew of the Earl of Buckinghamshire, true, but in reality a mere captain in the infantry.

Did captains in the infantry—a segment of the military where men have frequently been disposable pawns in a war—make far less than captains in other areas of the Army? If Mills had been a Royal Engineer, cavalry, or artillery, I feel certain he could have made enough to support himself and wife. As we already know, however, Mills was seemingly unable, even as a captain, to make enough money to support a wife at home during the First World War.

More from Lady Dorothy as her plans progressed:

In 1916 I got married after a three years' family warfare; warfare that one might say ended in a draw, in that on the one hand I had done what I intended, on the other that I was cast into utter darkness, to become the Outlier I have ever since remained. I had no trousseau, we had no prospects and no money, scarcely enough even to pay for the wedding celebrations. For though everyone advised a registry office, I decided on a church wedding, and a fashionable one too, that should be, if needs must, my last defiance to a sceptical world. I was the first London bride to wear a gold wedding dress, and incidentally, that bit of gold brocade was to be the last evening frock, except of my own making, that I was to know for several years, until finally it was turned economically into a sofa cushion!

I had never arranged a wedding before and had no one to help me, and I learnt then that arranging a fashionable wedding is harder work than running an African safari. I was so tired when the moment came to walk up the aisle of the church that the flowers and the people and the strains of sweet music seemed to whirl about me in a mist. But the wedding was well worth the trouble it gave me, and the money it cost that we hadn't got, for it proved that even an Outlier has friends and wellwishers angelic in their kindness and goodwill.

One thing we can probably assume is that there was no help forthcoming from the Mills family. Arthur's mother, Lady Catherine, had passed away during the previous century when Arthur was just two years old. Rev. Barton R. V. Mills, Arthur's father, had been married to Edith Ramsay since 1894, over 20 years, and had three children with her. They lived close to Edith's mother and father in Kensington, and the family must have been, after 22 years, very Ramsay-centric.

Include the fact that Barton and Edith, realizing they had their own daughters, Agnes and Violet, aged 21 and 14 in 1916, were likely anticipating the expense of two weddings of their own in the very near future. Given that, the idea of springing for an additional wedding, and that for a Lady of the Earldom of Orford, whose own landed family was against an alignment with their son, Arthur, made the prospects of much help from the Mills quite small.

Still, although it subtracted any of Arthur's savings and put the fledgling couple in debt, Lady Dorothy had her grand wedding. Lady Dorothy, according to the Times, "wore a short dress of white and gold chiffon brocade, the bridal veil falling from a wreath of gold leaves, and carried a bouquet of white orchids."

The bride was given away by Sir Mortimer Margesson, Arthur's uncle, who had married his Arthur's mother's sister, Isabella Augusta. The Times also carried an abridged roster of what were termed "invited guests": "The Earl and Countess of Buckinghamshire, the Earl and Countess of Dundonald, the Earl and Countess of Kimberly, the Countess of Roden, Viscountess Campden, Lady Albinia Donaldson, Lady Vere Hughes, Mr. and Lady Isabel Margesson, Lord and Lady Hollenden, Lord and Lady Mostyn, Lady Lawrence and Miss Lawrence, Lady Maxwell, Catherine Lady Decles, Sir Thomas Acland, Sir Edward and Lady Stracey, Sir George and Lady Cooper, Lady Dixon Hurtland, and Colonel and Mrs. Horace Walpole."

Invitations, it seems, had been delivered to some quests after all. It is odd among London wedding pieces of the era not to have named the bride's attendants. After all, Lady Dorothy herself had been listed in the Times as a bridesmaid at a good many weddings earlier in the decade. Was the rift with her family something that caused the Times to reduce coverage of the affair? Or was the dearth of coverage of these nuptials orchestrated by Lady Dorothy herself—a woman who knew exactly what she wanted out of this wedding, far beyond merely acquiring a husband.

In closing, the article on the wedding adds: "Captain Arthur Acland, of the bridegroom's regiment, was the best man." Not only was Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills nine year older than his half-brother, George Mills, and hence they were probably not close, but it's likely that George, having enlisted in the Army Reserves on 15 January 1916, was already at the Rifle Depot by 22 June, not at St. Paul's [pictured, right]. An Acland family relative and fellow soldier stood up for Arthur instead.

Having now read quite a few early 20th century wedding pieces in the London Times, I can't say there have been many—if any—in which the living parents and siblings of a bride or groom, being in attendance, were not mentioned. Is it possible that Rev. Mills, his wife, Edith, and Arthur's step-sisters Agnes and Violet, were either uninvited or chose not to attend? Or was this short article manipulated to be a shot across the proverbial bow of the Walpole family, showing them clearly that Arthur and Dorothy's angelic "friends and wellwishers" were still extremely gentrified, despite her "disinheritance."

Let's take a few more moments to peek into the life of our newlyweds, now setting sail on the seas of marital bliss, already in debt:

That first year of marriage was my first taste of the economic problem. I had no knowledge of house-keeping in any shape or form, I knew nothing of petty household and personal economies and makeshifts, I had never before learnt to do my own hair without a maid, or how to mend holes in my stockings, and my first attempt to lace up my own boots gave me a headache and intense desire to cry. In fact, never had there been such a useless young creature, till necessity turned me into a very fair Jack-of-all-trades.

Forgive me my inclination to just smack this 27-year-old who'd never done her own hair or laced her own boots right upside the head!

She continues:

The war was to take its toll of us, and my husband of a year who had already been severely wounded in France, went out to serve in the Palestine campaign. Those were grim months of privation, of financial worry, of work and grinding anxiety in a world where nothing seemed stable, where the future did not bear dwelling on. Again my general uselessness in all vital things became apparent to me. Other young women were doing heroic things at home and in France; my purely decorative upbringing and my various accomplishments had taught me little that could be useful under the existing conditions. I worked at the East End of London [pictured, left and right] until my health gave out, I hammered ineffectually at a typewriter, I served in a war shop. I was of little use, I am afraid, but I learnt a good deal. And in the evenings, when the bulletins were more reassuring, I mingled with the unhappy, hectic crowd, that in dancing and noise tried to kill an ever-present gnawing anxiety. Much has been said about those war parties, but I learnt then that often they were the ultimate buffer against despair, a safety valve from recklessness and suicide.

One wonders how much of that last sentence actually is autobiographical, despite the fact that I believe it must have been intended to be written as a description of the parties and their effects on others, not as anything personal. If one reads the rest of the book, it's obvious that the former is Lady Dorothy's 'style.' Still, I think in the gravity of that last sentence, something personal, indeed, leaked from her. Is it possible that she was already regretting, if not her indebtedness regarding the cost of her wedding, then even having married Arthur at all, the marriage costing her a lifestyle that she simply couldn't afford to replace.

Lady Dorothy is soon out at night after working all day, attending parties that she later wrote about, and that she admitted gained her "temporarily the reputation of a dope-addict." She's doing her own hair, lacing her own boots, and house-keeping, all while Arthur is away in Palestine, leaving the poor thing to fend for herself. "Privation," though, seems too strong word in this case.

A charitable sort, Lady Dorothy, while she was still a Walpole, had donated a few quid now and then to The Times Fund, organized on behalf of the British Red Cross and the Order of St. John. Less than a year after her wedding, according to the 21 April 1917 edition of the Times, Dorothy was still able to come up with £4 for the Fund. Oddly, though, it is recorded in The Times as having been given, quite exactly, by "Lady Dorothy Walpole, Naples (Further contribution)." All of her previous giving also had included the tag line "further contribution." What's interesting here isn't that she was still charitable while in the midst of her "economic problem," or that she actually had £4 to send—"The City Land Syndicate, Ltd." only came up with the sum of £3 3s., for example.

No, what's interesting to me is the word "Naples." A quick check of Google Maps reveals that there is no "Naples" in England, and one would assume if it was Naples, Florida, the name of the American state would have been added. It seems to me that, in a newspaper from a European country like England, Naples means Naples… Napoli… in Italy, on shores of the beautiful Tyrrhenian Sea [left].

This couldn't have been Lady Dorothy Nevill (née Walpole), who had passed away back in 1913. This has to be our "Lady Dorothy," mailing in her latest contribution from her "economic problem" that she was obviously suffering there on the Italian coast. [Naples was attacked later during WWI, by zeppelin in August 1917. I find it odd that this wasn't mentioned by Lady Dorothy anywhere in her memoirs—either having experienced it, or having departed in time and just missing it!]

We read above that Lady D. "worked at the East End of London until [her] health gave out." Later, she "hammered ineffectually at a typewriter, [and] served in a war shop." What we don't know is what she did in the intervening time between her ill-health and the war shop. Where, exactly, had she been banging those typewriter keys, and when?

I do understand that physicians at the time often prescribed rest and a foreign clime for their patients, but I was under the impression that it was prescribed mainly to those who could afford it, not those suffering from "financial worry" and "privation." One wonders, could it have been Barton and Edith Mills who came up with the money for a rejuvenating trip to the Mediterranean for their new daughter-in-law? Arthur's uncle, Sidney Carr Hobart-Hampden-Mercer-Henderson, 7th Earl of Buckinghamshire? Sir Mortimer? Colonel and Mrs. Horace Walpole, the only Walpole wedding invitees?

One suspects that it may have been none of the above. The cynic in me whispers that the "economic problems" and "privations" have been exaggerated, if not actually fabricated, to make Lady Dorothy's life—circa October 1930, the publication date of A Different Drummer—more remarkable, and perhaps more saleable: "Poor little rich girl overcomes the odds and makes good on her own…" After all, there was this book, and hopefully many others, still to sell! A dose of the Gothic novel—a disinherited girl, East End dangers, ill-health, a handsome soldier, riches to rags to riches—couldn't hurt sales, eh?

One could suspect that Dororthy [pictured, right], feeling unhealthy, and following 'doctor's orders,' recuperated in the sun and sea breezes of Naples, not at her flat in London as she implies. And one could suspect that she paid for it out of her own [and/or Arthur's] pocket.

Again, much of this makes me feel as if A Different Drummer is far less an autobiography and more of the publishing version of a legendary singer coming out with yet another new "greatest hits" album, with some songs now recorded live on tour, along with a couple of previously unreleased tracks. James Taylor has made a decade of doing just that. Regarding Lady Dorothy's self-told story, there's not much new there. It really does seem a case of repackaging the old and calling it new, except for adding the thread of a 'backstory' that makes the saga of Lady Dorothy far more melodramatic.

The events of the wedding… The partial guest list… What the bride wore… The identity of the best man…

These things we know pretty much as facts [according to the Times]. Much of the rest is open to speculation—even the events recorded in Lady Dorothy's anything-but-revealing autobiography.

Have you any speculation, information, or ideas? Have you noticed an important detail I've overlooked?

Please let me know—and thanks!

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.