The 'Who Is George Mills?' Mailbag, January 2011

Here at whoisgeorgemills.com, we haven't dug into the old mail bag recently, so let's take a look at what's been going on way down in the mail room where all comments messages are handled by my crack staff!


• Here's something from Richard, who left a comment on the post "Finding Parkfield...": Just been trying to find location of Wick & Parkfield School which I attended from 1961 to 1963. It was indeed the building which is now Downlands Park Nursing Home. It was run by Bill and Pat Halstead. The main cricket pitch was on the sloping field near the miniature railway track - we had to go round there to collect missing cricket balls.

- Richard Miller

Thanks for the first-hand experience and additional details about Parkfield [above, left], Richard. It's always greatly appreciated!


• Leading Lady Dororthy Mills aficionado, Jim Harris, left a new comment on the recent post "Steyning Mansions Hotel, Eastern Terrace, Brighton...": Wonderful detective work. I can picture Lady Mills staying at Steyning Mansions Hotel. So, no record of the hotel after 1958?

By the way, are you watching Downton Abbey on Masterpiece (PBS)? It takes place in 1912 and is about an Earl who only had three daughters and must leave his estate to a distant cousin. The middle daughter reminds me of Lady Mills.

Wouldn't the story of Lady Dorothy Mills make a great Masterpiece series?

For our friends across the pond who may not be aware, Masterpiece Theatre is televised here on Sunday evenings. Also for those far-off friends, the last two Sunday evenings have featured the American football playoffs as well! While I'm a lover of lavish BBC productions, I'm also fond of watching sweaty 300-pound titans engaged in high-speed collisions and sundry mayhem on a frozen field called a gridiron, live, in High Definition!

I've recorded the Downton Abbey series to watch later, and it's of particular interest to me as Downton is the locale of Winds Cottage where the brother of our George Mills, author Arthur Mills, and his second wife, Monica, spent the last years of his life gardening, golfing, and writing the occasional crime novel.

And, by the way, I do think the life of Lady Dorothy [pictured, left] would make a fabulous Masterpiece!


• My dear friend Jennifer in Philadelphia weighs in with this great addition to our investigation:

Give me a burial location and I’ll request a photo.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=64660799

Jen is the smartest person I know when it comes to fathoming deeply into genealogies. She's set up this webpage to help find the location of the burial site of George Mills [see the screenshot, right], and I really appreciate it.

Who knows? We may even end up with more photos of George posted there!


• Finally, Mary left a comment on the post "Sidebar: Considering the Life of Sir Robert Hart a...": I can tell you a bit more about Sir Robert Hart, Evelyn's father, and his family. I am preparing a book for the Hong Kong University Press on him and his relationship with my own ancestors.

Evelyn "Evey" Hart later married and became Evelyn Beauclerk, mother of the wife of George Mills, Vera Louise Beauclerk Mills.

She also wrote: "I am just doing something on Evie. Do you know how many children she had, when she died, and from which are you descended?"

I'm no relation to the Harts or Beauclerks, but I did let Mary know the following:

From what I've gathered, Evelyn Amy Hart was born 31 December 1869 in Beijing and died 10 June 1933 in Kensington, London. Her children were Vera Louise Beauclerk (21 December 1893 - 5 January 1942) and Hilda de Vere Beauclerk (21 January 1895 - 16 September 1964).

Hilda married Miles Malcolm Atchison from Ganges, British Columbia, Canada, of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service on 21 June 1933 [11 days after Evey's death] and eventually moved to Canada where Hilda passed away in 1964. They had two children, Elizabeth Anne (b. 22 March 1936), and Hilda Etain (b. 9 October 1937).

During WW II, Hilda and Miles were held in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. Hilda worked in the camp's kitchens and did much to help her fellow prisoners, but lost a finger in doing so. Apparently she was admired by everyone there for her bravery.

On 23 April 1925, Vera married George Ramsay Acland Mills (b. 1 Oct 1896; d. 1972), only son of Revd. Barton Reginald Vaughan Mills, Vicar of Bude Haven, Cornwall, 1891-1901 and Assistant Chaplain of Royal Chapel of the Savoy 1901-08 (by his second wife Elizabeth Edith "Edie" Ramsay, only daughter of Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, CB). They had no children.

Vera passed away in Exmoor in 1942 while her husband, George, was serving as a 46-year-old 2nd lieutenant in the Royal Pay Corps. He'd returned to the service in 1940 after serving as an infantry corporal in WW I. George resigned his commission in 1943 due to ill-health. He had been a boys' preparatory schoolmaster in both England and Switzerland from the late 1920s through the mid 1930s and was the author of four books: the children's novels Meredith and Co. (1933), King Willow (1938), and Minor and Major (1939), and the children's religious biography Saint Thomas of Canterbury (1939).

Vera was also the sister-in-law of adventure and crime novelist Arthur Hobart Mills (George's half-brother) and Arthur's wife, Lady Dorothy Mills (née Walpole), a novelist, explorer, and renowned travel writer.


I thought that it would be worth including the above profile after discussing Vera's 1942 passing just yesterday.

Well, that about empties the old George Mills mail sack. Thank you to everyone who's made my work a bit [and sometimes a great deal] easier. Please accept my warmest appreciation, and do keep reading!

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.]

Sidebar: Considering the Life of Sir Robert Hart and Family

Right now, let's take a breather in the midst of our look at the life of Vera Louise Beauclerk, wife of George Mills. Considering her family of origin's past may help us interpret how she may have reacted to some of the events she'll be facing in her married life with George, as we'll learn next time. Today, though, we'll look at the marriages of both her grandfather and her mother.

As was mentioned yesterday, Vera was the granddaughter of Sir Robert Hart of Ireland [pictured left, in 1866], the Inspector-General of Foreign Customs in Peking, who was born on 20 February 1835. Oddly, quite the opposite of how most of my Mills-related research has gone, gaining information about the life of Robert "Robin" Hart has revealed a proliferation of anecdotes and quirks, instead of the relative dearth of personal details that typically remain after the death of someone who lived so long ago. For example, even his favorite poets, songs, books, and even his tailor are still known!

Hart, already ensconced for 12 years as a key figure in the Chinese legation by the mid-1860s, returned to the United Kingdom in 1866, leaving Hong Kong on Tuesday, 27 March, at 8 am on the steamship Camboge. The passage took 42 days, and he finally arrived at Dover on 5 May 1866, in Dublin the next day, then traveled on to his family's home in Lisburn.

Here is the scene on 25 May in nearby Portadown, Ireland, as Hart was introduced to his future bride, Hester Jane Bredon, as told in the book Hart of Lisburn by Stanley Bell [I have made some corrections of obvious typographical errors]:

In the course of the afternoon [Mrs. Bredon's] beautiful and attractive young daughter Hester Jane (Hessie) was introduced to him. Hester entertained him by playing on her piano. It is said that she was as skilled a pianist as she was attractive. Robert either had or suddenly acquired a great interest in music and her mother invited him back some time before he left again for China. He liked her music, but most of all he had in the course of a few hours met his ideal girl. Writing in his diary later, he describes her as being intelligent, wide-awake, lively, and able to hold her own against most people.

Robert was not one for wasting time, and so the very next day, Tuesday the 5th June, he had tea again with the Bredons. As he made his way up the long lane to Ballintaggart House, he must have said a few prayers for God's help and guidance. Afterwards whilst Hessie was playing the piano in the drawing room he asked, "Could you find it in your heart to come to China with me?" Those were the exact words Robert wrote in his diary that night. She stopped playing immediately and, although she was only eighteen years old, she agreed right away. How could she refuse? When he was only 10 days old his aunt predicted that she would marry him. Seriously, it was quite a decision to take, involving not only leaving her mother, marrying a man of 31 (and her only 18) whom she had only met for a few hours the previous day, but leaving her home and going to a strange country which she had only heard about 24 hours ago. What a decision!

Pressure to return to China caused their original wedding date to be brought forward: Robert Hart and Hester Jane Bredon were married on the 22nd August 1866 at the Parish Church of St. Thomas, near O'Connell Street in Dublin. Their honeymoon was spent amongst the romantic lakes of Killarney and having rides up and down the lanes of the byways and highways of County Kerry by jaunting car. It was a great time they had, isolated from all the problems of China, and one which they were to remember for the rest of their lives.

After returning to Peking, the Harts had their first child on New Year's Eve, 1868. The event was marked by the following mesaage, sent via a special telegram from the Chinese Post Office, regarding the birth of Vera Beauclerk's future mother, Evelyn Amy Hart: "TO HENRY HART LISBURN IRELAND , GIRL BORN DEC. 31 ST. MOTHER STRONG, CHILD HEALTHY, ALL WELL, HAPPY NEW YEAR."

The story continues:

It was not until the 9th April that arrangements were made by Hessie to have Godmothers for the baby. Mrs. Lowder and Mrs. Burdon (wife of the minister who baptised the baby) were duly appointed. Then the I.G. [Hart] drew up a short list of four names for the baby. His wife was to choose one of the names for the baby. The names on the short list were Evelyn Amy, Evelyn Rose, Florence Isobel, and Gertrude Elaine. On Sunday, 11th April, the baby was christened in church by the Rev. John S. Burdon. The name given to the little lady was Evelyn Amy. She was known to the family as "Evey." Writing to his London agent, Campbell on 27th May 1869, "Mrs. Hart and the baby are quite well; the little one thrives well, and is great company for the mother." And again on the 1st September 1871, "Evey has had whooping-cough, but is now all right again. She's a demure little body, and her Chinese—why it's wonderful! I have worked hard for years, and yet nature, without any effort, has filled her little head with words, and given her little tongue a pliancy, that are miles and miles beyond my aim. But, poor child, her English is of the narrowest dimensions."

Edgar Bruce Hart was born in China on 8 July 1874 [Sir Robert's puzzling comment on the birth of his second child and first son: "Thank God it is all over. I'd as soon have had a girl."]. Lastly, Hart's third child, Mabel Milburne Hart [called "Nollie"] was born in November 1879.

Sir Robert actually had spent much of 1878 abroad in Paris, Ireland, and Germany, and had wintered in Brighton into February of 1879. He departed England in March, traveling with his pregnant wife and his two children, arriving in Shanghai on 5 May 1879. He would not leave China again for some 30 years.

Finally, we take a look at one last excerpt from Bell's 1985 book on Hart:

As the children grew bigger and needed schooling, it was decided for their benefit that Hessie would go back to Europe with them. For nearly 17 years Robert was separated from his wife for this purpose and their only means of communication was by letters, which were written regularly each week, usually on Sunday.

His failing health, and the death on 3 December 1907 of James D. Campbell, his London agent and long-time confidant, convinced him to finally retire. Hart finally placed his position in Peking into the hands of Francis Aglen on 20 April 1908.

In April 1908, Sir Robert left China, technically on leave; he would not officially retire until 1910. The aging Hart sailed alone aboard the the R. P. D. Yorck of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Line, leaving Yokahama and stopping at ports in Yokohama, Singapore, Kobe, Shanghai, Colombo, Hong Kong, Penang, Port Said, Genoa, Naples, Gibraltar, and Algier, before steaming into Southampton, England, on 11 June 1908.

Presumably, Hart knew he would be seeing England and leaving China for the last time.

Now Vera Louise Beauclerk's mother, Evelyn "Evey" Hart, had been raised and educated in Europe in the 1880s, seemingly under the watchful eye of an older cousin, Juliet Bredon. Having been schooled in both Bournemouth and Dublin, she lived half a world away from her father as he worked in Peking. Such an arrangement was not bound to encourage a great deal of familial closeness, especially since Evelyn's mother, Hessie, is obviously neither with her nor with Sir Robert.

Sir Robert, as noted, arrived in England in the summer of 1908. That elder daughter, "Evey" Hart, now Mrs. Evelyn Beauclerk, age 38, had sailed into Southampton a year before. She arrived on the Atrato of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, docking on 13 August 1907 following an itinerary that included Colon, Savanilla, Jamaica, Cartagena, Demerara, Trinidad, Barbados, Antigua, and Grenada. She had obviously been traveling from South America.

Back on 5 September 1892, Evelyn had married William Nelthorpe Beauclerk, a relative of the Duke of St. Albans. Sir Robert was apparently not thrilled by the twenty-year difference in their ages, the groom having been married before and born on 7 April 1849. He, however, didn't approve of any of his children's marriages and once wrote to Campbell in London: "I expected great things from my children and spared no money to procure them educational advantage; it has all been wasted..."

Beauclerk had served as the secretary to the British legation at Peking from 1890 to 1896, where he presumably met and courted Evelyn in 1892, after she'd returned from her education in Europe. Vera was born of that union in 1893, and her sister, Hilda, in 1895.

According to the 1906 edition of Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes, Beauclerk then became consul-general in Hungary from 1896 through 1898. In 1898, he was named resident Minister and consul-general in Lima in the Republic of Peru, while serving as Minister to Ecuador in Quito as well. In 1903, he added Bolivia to his responsibilities.

I can think of no other reason for Evelyn to have been traveling alone from the West Indies to Southampton in 1907 than that she'd recently visited her husband in South America for the last time—Beauclerk died in Lima, Peru, on 5 March 1908 at 58—and then traveled on to England to see relatives. Did she know of her father's impending retirement, or did her presence in England play some role in Sir Robert's decision to retire in that year? Is it even possible that her girls, Vera and Hilda, were there in school, much as she herself had been years before?

Either way, it served to create a reunion in England among some of the family, although it may or may not have included Vera or her sister, Hilda. Sir Robert died of pneumonia at 10 pm on the 20th September 1911 in his home in Great Marlow in "Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire." He was buried nearby in the graveyard of the church of Bisham opposite the River Thames.

Hester Hart later passed away in Bournemouth, Hampshire in 1928. Bournemouth had been one site of Evelyn Amy's early education, before her school closed and "Evey" was moved to Bray, near Dublin. Amazingly, Hester disappears into the proverbial woodwork of Sir Robert Hart's life, and little is really ever known about her. Even Wikipedia's entry on Sir Robert fails to mention her name.

I've been unable to find much about Hester Hart, who apparently did not go about much even during the times she was actually in China, and became known as Hart's "absentee wife." Her absence likely prompted Hart's romantic involvement with a Chinese concubine, Ayaou. Hester, however, appears on no incoming U.K. manifests that I can find, and was somehow presumably already in England when Sir Robert arrived there in 1908.

Vera Louise Beauclerk was born and probably raised in China. Was she educated abroad, perhaps in England or Europe, as was her mother, Evelyn? Right now, there's nothing solid that would lead us to believe that: We only know for sure that Vera could read and write.

One thing we do know, however, is that among Vera's grandparents [Robert and Hessie Hart] and her parents [William and Evey Beauclerk], an absentee marriage was by far the rule, rather than the exception. In her family of origin, wives and husbands were certainly rarely close geographically, no matter how "close" they may once have been otherwise.

Would this proclivity within her family for husbands and wives to live separately because of a husband's occupational commitments carry into Vera's own marriage with George Mills?

That's something we'll consider next time as we return to taking a closer look at the life of Vera Louise Beauclerk as Mrs. George Mills!

Tracking the Life and Travels of Vera Louise Beauclerk Mills, Part 1

What an exciting World Cup match yesterday! The U.S. and England put on quite a show, and despite U.S. expert predictions of a hard-fought American 2-1 win and British prognostications of an easy 3-1 win, no one hit the nail on the head. In the States with our less-than-complete understanding of all of this, it's said that a tie is like kissing your sister. That's why we're still adjusting to games without clear-cut winners and losers on a global stage.

Speaking of the global stage, one character in our story of George Mills who could claim to be an international entity would be his wife, Vera Louise Beauclerk. Let's turn back the clock a bit…

As we know, Sir Robert Hart [pictured, right], 1st Baronet, G.C.M.G., [20 February 1835 – 20 September 1911], was a British consular official in China, who served from 1863-1911 as the second Inspector General of China's Imperial Maritime Custom Service (IMCS). After his retirement, Hart became Pro-Chancellor of Queen’s University.

Hart's first daughter, Evelyn "Evey" Amy Hart [b. 1869 in China; d. 10 June 1933], married William Nelthorpe Beauclerk [born 7 April 1849] on 5 September 1892 in Peking, China. Beauclerk, twenty years her senior, was of the lineage of the Duke of St. Albans, and eventual consul to Peru, where he died in Lima on 5 March 1908.

They had spent enough time on the same continent to have had two children, Vera Louise Beauclerk, born on 21 September 1893, and Hilda de Vere Beauclerk on 21 January 1895. The girls were also born in China, Vera apparently in the Chefoo British Consulate in Chefoo, Shan-Tung. There is a record on ancestry.com, however, that lists Vera's birthplace as "Wafangdian, Fu Xian, Liaoning, China."

Vera sailed out of Sydney, Australia, on 10 March 1913 on the S.S. Marama with her mother and sister, Hilda. She is listed as being 19 years old at the time, and the family is listed as "tourists" traveling to a final destination in London, England. Other details of that ship's manifest [pictured in excerpts below, left] assure us that each family member could both read and write, that each one was in possession of at least $50 at the time, and that Evelyn had visited the U.S. once for 3 months and had toured "all over," while the 1913 landing in Honolulu was the first visit to the United States for both daughters. The trio is listed as being in "good" mental and physical health, as not being "polygamists" or "anarchists," and are all listed as having been born in Peking, China.

The manifest states that, as citizens of England, they are going "home," and describes the physical appearance of each: Mrs. Beauclerk and Vera Louise both being 5 foot 6 inches tall, with brown hair, blue eyes, and a "dark" complexion. Hilda is also 5' 6", but with "straw" hair [straw-colored? strawberry blonde?], green eyes, and a "fair" complexion.

They arrived in Honolulu on 21 March.

In that year of 1913, Mrs. Beauclerk would have been traveling as a widow with her teen-aged girls.

The next shipping manifest on which we find the ladies listed is dated over six years later [right]. The trio embarked from New York and arrived in London on the 'Saxonia' on 5 May 1919. Although there is less on this manifest, there is still information to be gleaned.

The ladies, now aged 50, 25, and 27 [although the girls' ages are reversed, and Vera is actually only 26], list their address as both "Honk Kong-Shangai Bank." and "9 Grace Street London E C." Their occupations are given as "None."

They list their "Country of Intended Future Permanent Residence" as "England." Very interestingly, however, they list their "Country of Last Permanent Residence" as having been the "USA"—that being defined on the manifest as: "By Permanent Residence is to be understood residence for a year or more."

Thus, we find the Beauclerk women entering the United States via Honolulu in 1913 and departing via New York in 1919 for London. In between, the only thing we can be sure of is that they spent "a year or more" as "permanent residents" in the USA immediately before their departure for England. There is no record of them leaving or re-entering the United States between 1913 and 1919.

Wikipedia describes the state of Atlantic shipping during that time, at the onset of the First World War: "Many of the large liners were laid up over the autumn/winter of 1914-1915, in part due to falling demand for passenger travel across the Atlantic, and in part to protect them from damage due to mines or other dangers. Among the most recognizable of these liners, some were eventually used as troop transports, while others became hospital ships."

Did the Beauclerks initially stay in the U.S. either for fear of crossing the Atlantic to England, or because they had difficulty making arrangements due to declining departures? Were they simply the self-described "tourists" of the Marama's manifest, or did Mrs. Beauclerk have family and/or friends with whom they could connect and stay? After all, she had once traveled "all over" the U.S. for months without her daughters, and that may not have been alone. Is it also possible there were relatives in Canada?

Wikipedia continues: "By early 1915 a new threat began to materialize: submarines. At first they were used by the Germans only to attack naval vessels, and they achieved only occasional – but sometimes spectacular – successes. Then the U-boats began to attack merchant vessels at times, although almost always in accordance with the old cruiser rules. Desperate to gain an advantage on the Atlantic, the German Government decided to step up their submarine campaign. On 4 February 1915 Germany declared the seas around the British Isles a war zone: from 18 February Allied ships in the area would be sunk without warning."

The same Wikipedia entry goes on to say: "At the end of 1917 Allied shipping losses stood at over 6 million GRT for the year overall… [but] by 1918, U-boat losses had reached unacceptable levels, and the morale of their crews had drastically deteriorated; by the autumn it became clear that the Central Powers could not win the war. The Allies insisted that an essential precondition of any armistice was that Germany surrender all her submarines, and on 24 October 1918 all German U-boats were ordered to cease offensive operations and return to their home ports."

By the end of 1918, one can assume that the waters of the North Atlantic were again safe to travel, and the Beauclerks continued their long-delayed journey to London—a journey that could conceivably have taken them six years to complete!

Specifically regarding the Saxonia, here's information from the Cunard Line, via www.nestorsbridge.com/maghera/saxonia-1.html: "The outbreak of World War I, in July 1914, forced a change in the [passenger] ship's role. After returning to Liverpool the Saxonia sailed to the Thames to be used as a POW accommodation ship. It soon returned to the company's service and, between May 1915 and October 1916, made several voyages from Liverpool to New York. It was not until 1917 that the Saxonia was again requisitioned by the government, this time to carry troops and cargo between Liverpool and New York. After the war ended the ship was employed transporting American troops from France home to New York. This task was completed by April 1919 and the Saxonia was free to return to commercial service."

The Beauclerks were on board the Saxonia during that first post-WWI trip from New York to Plymouth and London. Why they chose not to sail on passenger cruises between May 1915 and October 1916 is open to conjecture, but it seems likely that while fear may have played into the decision to stay in the U.S., they must also have been in a comfortable situation somewhere over here and were willing to wait for an end to the hostilities.

The Beauclerks would have arrived at 9 Grace Street in London [pictured, left] soon after leaving the Saxonia on 5 May 1919. George Ramsay Acland Mills arrives at Christ Church with his father, Rev. Barton Mills, on 19 October 1919, so the future bride and groom are finally both in London! By 19 October, George was 23 and Vera was 27 years of age.

By the time of the nuptials of Miss V. L. Beauclerk and Mr. G. R. A. Mills on 23 April 1925, Mrs. Beauclerk is residing at "4, Hans-mansion, S.W." according to The Times. While entering that "Hans-mansion" address into Google Maps only turns up a location near Datça, Turkey, I can find a "Hans" area very close to the Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, where George and Vera were wed and the hotel where their reception was held. It's also a stone's throw from "Cadogen Gardens, S.W." where we found George's sisters, Agnes and Violet Mills, living with an unknown "Barbara Mills" in 1938.

In fact, the Mills' homes in both Cranley [Cranleigh] and Onslow Gardens were less than a mile to the southwest of the area of the wedding, making Kensington the hotbed of Mills family activity between the wars in the early 20th century.

Anyway, George Mills spent time at Christ Church [below, left] from October 1919 through May 1921. On the 21st of May that year, Mills entered Oxford. How long he stayed at Oxford is unknown because he neither takes his final examinations nor a degree.

By 1925, however, he is employed as an Oxford graduate at Windlesham House School, then in Portslade, and begins teaching in "Lent 1925." I'm not exactly sure when that term began, but in 1925, Ash Wednesday fell on February 25.

Two months later, Mills was married. I think it's safe to assume from the size of his wedding and location of the reception, it had been planned for some time. Is it safe to say he proposed marriage to Vera and asked for her hand in 1923 or early 1924?

How and when George met Vera is unknown. Their families obviously lived within the same London district, and perhaps they all attended Holy Trinity there in Brompton. By the early 1920's, though, George's brother, Arthur, and sister-in-law, Lady Dorothy Mills, are gaining notoriety as novelists, so perhaps George was invited to functions in exclusive literary circles where he became acquainted with Vera.

No matter how they met, the couple set sail in matrimony in 1925, after Vera, born in China, had probably spent years in the United States.

Next time we'll take a look at Vera's life after her marriage and, unfortunately, her early death. Until then, however, I'd like to extend many thanks to Alan Ramsay and his work on ancestry.com for linking the Beauclerks to the Saxonia's manifest—and for opening up a new line of research for me!

[To read Part 2 right now, click HERE.]