Messages from George Mills: His Prefaces and Dedications

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

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

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


The 1930s:


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

PREFACE

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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


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

PREFACE

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

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

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

June, 1938


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


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

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


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

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

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


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


PREFACE


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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


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


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

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


The 1950s:

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


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

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

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

------------- —Kipling


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

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

The 1950 version simply reads:

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


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


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


To
BERYL and IAN

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


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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

But there is this, in italic font:


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


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

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


The Missing Text:


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

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


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

Mr. Egerton Clarke, the Siege of the Alcázar, and the Second World War

The last time we met, we left Egerton Clarke in his home—probably at Egerton Gardens, S.W.3 [left]—with his purportedly Irish wife, Teresa, and his three children.

I could speculate on which of the babies with the last name of Clarke, and with a mother's maiden name of Kelly, born between 1926 and 1941 might have been the children of Egerton and Teresa, but there really is no way of knowing. There were a pair—a boy and a girl—born in the late 1920s in Winchester, where the Clarkes had been married in 1926, but I have no sure way to ascertain those were their children.


[Note: The names and even a photograph of the children with their parents can be found in this later entry: Rediscovering Egerton Clarke. It is also worth noting that, according to his graddaughter, Janine La Forestier, Teresa is spelled "Theresa." (08-17-11)]


We also left Egerton having enjoyed his thumbnail biographical sketch published in the Catholic Who's Who and Yearbook, 1941.

Today, let's take a look at how his poetry was received at the time of its publication during the early decades of the 20th century—and I feel so very old writing that last phrase!


In Blackfriars: Volume 13 in 1932, we find this critique of Clarke's new book, The Seven Niches: A Legend in Verse [London: C. Palmer, 1932], available for 2/6:

Mr. Egerton Clarke is a Catholic poet whose earlier volumes have won praise and popularity. In The Seven Niches he breaks new ground and offers a long poem in the form of a Catholic legend. The idea has the charm of originality and the flavour of experiment : both are justified.

He has succeeded in a difficult task. A long poem such as this will tax any poet's sincerity and prove whether he is capable of sustaining his inspiration to the end. Even the physical strain of producing a long poem defeats many a writer. It demands vision, uniformity of mood, consistent style, and balanced expression. A standard tone must be maintained, together with a definite level of inspiration. Atmosphere must be created and upheld. Facility of expression, obvious clichés, commonplace rhymes may creep into a purely narrative poem, where the story is the first thing that matters. Tennyson and Masefield [right] are examples of such almost inevitable lapses.

But The Seven Niches is more like a richly embroidered tapestry than an unadorned tale. Every detail is complete in colour and execution ; every tiny piece will bear close inspection. That is the author's triumph. He has weighed every word, re-cast every phrase. He has considered every image, every metaphor before giving his final sanction. Therefore the poem has emerged clear-cut, glistening, chaste as a masterpiece in stained glass. Because the poem was not easy to write it is not easy to read. It does not carry the reader along with easy rhyme and dancing rhythm. For its understanding there must be concentration — even a mood of spiritual sympathy, almost of devotion.


Amazing praise for a poet of any era, being compared quite favorably to the two Poet Laureates with the longest tenures in history. It is a shame that his mother, Emma Anna Clarke, did not live to hear her son compared to those greats: She had passed away in 1931 while residing in her birthplace, Bishops Stortford, Herts. A solicitor, not Egerton, was the executor of the £194 12s. she proved in probate after actually expiring in "Silverdale Sydenham," south of London.


Most of the critiques of his work that are available today focus on his last book of poems: Alacazar and Other Poems [London: Burns, Oates, & Washbourne, 1937]. Here are some samples from the critics:

From the St Gregory's Society's The Downside Review (Vol. 56) in 1938:

WITHIN the thirty pages of this booklet Mr Egerton Clarke has collected some nineteen poems, several of which have already appeared in various Catholic periodicals. Perhaps the first poem in the book — that concerned with the famous siege of the Alcazar in 1936 — is most representative of Mr Clarke's poetic insight and expression.

The subject itself affords a good touchstone of poetic talent : the the minor poet, elated by the theme, dilates on valour and seldom goes deeper than the barest surface of reality. Mr Clarke sees the event both in its contemporary setting and its ultimate causes. The result is a finely-wrought integration of an historical event and its supernatural ramifications.


Also from 1938, this from the Dublin Review:

In Alcazar Mr. Clarke has produced a volume of poems of value and interest and materially increased his reputation as a writer of poetry.

His interpretation of history in the title poem, in which the communist assault on Christendom is regarded as the final working out of the schism of Byzantium from Rome, is made convincing and the result is a piece of the school of [G. K. Chesterton's] "Lepanto". But there are finer and more individual poems. "Cistercians in the Mangold Field" has great power, and there is an apocalyptic beauty in "Munera Angelorum."


[Note: Egerton Clarke and G. K. Chesterton were, indeed, friends according to Clarke's family. (08-17-11)]


And, finally, this from the Ampleforth Abbey's The Ampleforth Journal: Volumes 43-44, in 1937:

ALCAZAR. By Egerton Clarke (Burns Oates & Washbourne) 1s.

Fr Martindale once said that man is the only creature whose natural posture is on his knees. Mr Clarke shows a realisation of this truth in this little book of poems — there are only nineteen of them — for each is an expression of love through prayer that we find only too seldom in poetry of to-day. But except for this sameness of purpose we should find it hard to believe that the author of the two Christmas poems, "Munera Angelorum " and " Presents from the North " was the same as the author of the loosely-constructed and still more loosely expressed "Solitary Eye."

In the one the poet shows a delicateness of technique which is completely lacking in the other. Similarly in "Black Coat—6 p.m." and "Edgware Road", he departs from direct expression and loses his reader in sentences of enormous length; piling image on image, metaphor on metaphor, until the sense is lost. It is worth while comparing from the point of view of technique (and incidentally of poetic value) these lines from the Solitary Eye:—


…Buses and men

In dark heraldic shapes, of unreal origin

To his one frightened eye, swerve to a vast triangle

filled with designing ladybirds, then scatter

in long expanding pentagons that soon

resolve their shivering blurs to one blue, steady

and returning star, the solitary eye


With these from "The Hand," a poem written on holding the reliquary containing the hand of Blessed Margaret Clitheroe: —

Within my hand thy hand that folded with its twin in prayer...


I only wish that Google Books would provide me with more than that single line of a poem written about the fascinating story of the martyred saint [right] whose hand is kept in the chapel of the Bar Convent in York.


Other poems and articles by Clarke appeared over time in journals like Blackfriars; although the following list is in no way meant to be comprehensive, here is a sample:


• Clarke, E. (1932), REGZNAE EQUESTRIUM (for D. B. Wyndham Lewis). New Blackfriars, 13: 428

• Clarke, E. (1931), THE INHERITANCE. New Blackfriars, 12: 577

• Clarke, Egerton. "William Butler Yeats." The Dublin Magazine, April/June 1939

• Clarke, Egerton. "William Butler Yeats," Dublin Review, 204:409 (Apr- May-June 1939), 305-21. [Includes an untitled poem written in memory of Yeats.]

• Clarke, Egerton. "Gérard Hopkins, Jesuit." Dublin Review, 198 (London 1936) 127-141.


It appears that Clarke's work was well-regarded by contemporary critics in the United Kingdom, and sought after by certain periodicals. However, what I am unable to determine is whether or not it was regarded as completely mainstream, or a highly regarded Catholic niche author.

The idea of the son of a clergyman in the Church of England, and sometimes even the clerics themselves, resolving to become Catholic permeates the story of George Mills. I have heard from British citizens of today that it doesn't matter very much if a vicar might be a Roman Catholic, but I've been unable to determine if that's generally true. Clerics contacted for insight regarding the subject have not replied to those requests.

Here's an interesting point of view from the knowledgeable Jennifer M., Poet Laureate of this website:

Everything I know about the Catholic and Anglican churches in England runs from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, when converting from one to the other was a huge big deal, and you sure would hide it if you were around certain people. Maybe there was still a stigma attached to it in George’s time. Wikipedia tells me that as of 2001, only 8% of England and Wales was Catholic.

English Catholicism continued to grow throughout the first two thirds of the 20th century, when it was associated primarily with elements in the English intellectual class and the ethnic Irish population.

I wonder if it was easier to make a living as an Anglican cleric, and that’s why [George's father, the Revd Barton R. V. Mills, a Roman Catholic convert who then took several livings as a vicar, and ascended to chaplaincy at the Chapel Royal at the Savoy] did it. Or maybe it was more socially acceptable [by then]. I guess maybe a lot of people had to do things that were against their beliefs in order to survive, whether it was 1883 or 1583.


With that statistic—8% of the population—fixed in my mind, I wonder if Egerton Clarke was a renowned poet or a renowned Catholic poet. I also wonder if there was—or is—a difference.

If not as a Catholic author, but surely as an author whose religion was Roman Catholic, Clarke soon began to write children's books—another area in which he and George Mills shared something in common.

The Catholic publishing house of Burns, Oates, & Washbourne had printed Egerton's noteworthy Alcazar and Other Poems in 1937, his response to the symbolic and propaganda-oriented stand-off [below, right] between Republican and Nationalist forces at Toledo, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War.

In 1936 and in 1937, Egerton had also published children's books with that company: St Peter, the First Pope, and Our Lady of Flowers.

While Egerton did not publish in 1938 any text that I can find, he was still involved in the area of children's literature after 1937.

The evidence is found in the preface to the third children's book of George Mills, 1939's Minor and Major, which focused on boys' preparatory schools:

PREFACE

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

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

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

G.M.


Once again we find the mysterious Mr. H. E. Howell, and we've discussed the tragic circumstances under which Terence Hadow was lost during the Second World War.

Here, we consider the fact that Egerton Clarke—an old friend of Mills who had recently published children's books of his own—was offering encouragement as well as reading George's original manuscript before the book's 1939 press run.

The fact that Mills doesn't mention Clarke in either of his first two books suggests this was a reunion of sorts for the two old friends. Egerton ostensibly had been pursuing a career as a poet while becoming a father, while Mills had been striving to make teaching his vocation at a variety of public schools and having been trying to make a husband of himself, although he remained childless.

In 1939, Mills would complete the third book of his prep school 'trilogy,' but that would not be the only text he'd have published in that very year, before the looming World War: Mills also published a children's book, Saint Thomas of Canterbury, with—and you may have guessed this—Burns, Oates, & Washbourne. Saint Thomas, still found on the shelves of the British Library, remains the only text of George's that I have not seen or read.


If someone should mention to me it was simply coincidental that Egerton Clarke had helped Mills with the writing and editing of his manuscript for Minor and Major in the same year that Mills also had published St Thomas of Canterbury at the Egerton's Catholic publishing house, that it was all completely unrelated, I would have to disagree.

Perhaps the 1938 release of George's King Willow, the sequel to 1933's Meredith and Co., had come to the attention of Clarke, reuniting the two men after marriage and careers had separated the two old army and Oxford mates. Or perhaps they simply bumped into each other at the theatre or in a coffee shop that year. For whatever reason, they had reconnected.


The year 1938 followed Egerton's publication of his poem "Alcazar," a work that was clearly an intense experience for both the reader and the poet. The siege [left] involving the army of fascist Generalissimo Francisco Franco at Toledo, and the suffering of the innocents involved, foretold the painful story of the Second World War, a global conflict fueled, at least in its European Theatre of Operations, by the tenets of fascism during which the world's suffering was immense.

War was declared by Britain in 1939, the year George Mills published his last published writing, save for the odd letter to the editor of The Times thereafter.

Egerton Clarke, as far as one can tell, had already published his final literary works in 1937.

Neither man would write creatively again.

We know that on 11 October 1940, Mills re-entered the military as part of the Royal Army Pay Corps—where he had once been ceremoniously disposed of as a 'useless' fatigue man—and as a 2nd lieutenant at that.

What became of poet Egerton Clarke during the hostilities, though? Once again, we must look to the reference books. In the text Catholic Authors: Contemporary Biographical Sketches (1948) by Matthew Hoehn, we find this relatively complete entry:


Egerton Clarke 1899-1944.

From 1933 to 1939, Egerton Clarke was children's Librarian of Messrs. Burns Oates and Washbourne, the Catholic publishers. In 1939 he was art editor of the publishing firm of Hutchinson's.

Egerton Clarke was born in 1899, the son of the Reverend Percy Carmichael Clarke, an Anglican Chaplain living at Dinard, Brittany. He was educated at St. Edmund's School, Canterbury and at Keble College, Oxford. When 23 years of age (1922) he was received into the Church. During World War I he served with the 5th Devon Regiment from 1917 to 1918. In 1926 he married Teresa Kelly of Dublin. Two sons and one daughter were born from the marriage. The author of many books of poems, he was a vice-president of the Catholic Poetry Society. Up until his death in October, 1944 he was secretary of St. Hugh's Society for Catholic boys of the professional classes. He is the author of: The Death of Glass and Other Poems (1923); The Ear-ring (1923); The Popular Kerry Blue Terrier (1927); The Death of England and Other Poems (1930); The Seven Niches: a Legend in Verse (1932), and Alcazar (1937). He was also a contributor to periodicals.


Egerton Arthur Crossman Clarke passed away on 20 October 1944. We don't know the cause of Egerton's death, but it is interesting to note that there were Nazi rocket attacks on England during that time, specifically these dates:

Oct. 3, (20.00 hours) A4 rocket fired, impacted in Denton, the impact was about 10 minutes later (longer than normal) creating much damage.

Oct. 03, (23.00 hours) A4 rocket fired, impacted Wanstead (Leytonstone)

Oct. 09, (10.42 hours) A4 rocket fired, impacted at Brooke.


If he had been injured in the collateral damage of those explosions, he could have been in the hospital for a while before he succumbed to his wounds.

It also is entirely possible, however, that, given his lifelong weakness of heart, the organ simply failed Egerton at last, causing his death at the tender age of 45 years.


[Note: No! Clarke actually died of tuberculosis after an experimental procedure according to Janine. She adds: "When my grandfather was ill, they did an experimental treatment on him - deliberately collapsing his lung(s)? - the treatment failed. Clearly." (08-17-11)]


Perhaps Clarke would have published additional poetry and children's books after the war. We'll never know.

But we do know that George Mills never published another book.

The time frame form 1939 through 1945 was a period during which Mills—like many others in the UK and across the globe—lost a great many people who were dear to him, not the least of which would have been his wife, his mother, and Egerton Clarke.

You may recall the London Gazette, dated 2 November 1943, ran the following item:

Lt. and Paymr. G. R. A. Mills (150796) relinquishes his commn. on account of ill health, 3 Nov. 1943, and is granted the hon. rank of Lt.


This bout with "ill health" pre-dates the death of Egerton Clarke the following year, but it suggests that George already was struggling to survive the war, even though it seems improbable that Mills, then 47 years of age, was near any actual combat.

The condition of his health did not preclude George from engaging in a public tiff with a retired Major General in the letter column of The Times in April of 1944 while Mills was using the rocket-damaged Naval and Military Club [right], Piccadilly, as his mailing address.

After the death of Egerton Clarke in late 1944, and his mother in late 1945, Mills went quiet until he wrote a whimsical remembrance of his father's to The Times in April of 1959.

These letters to the editor—written almost exactly 15 years apart—are believed to be the last words that George would publish.


In 1944, George Mills lost a friend and contact in the publishing industry. Still, he had published works with the Oxford University Press and Geo. G. Harrap and Co. without any assistance from Egerton Clarke of which we're aware.

It seems as if the global conflict that changed the world so profoundly may have played a part in silencing George Mills, at least as author, even though he had other windmills at which he needed to tilt before his own passing in 1972.


That's a story for another day, though. Next time, we'll look at the poetry of Egerton Clarke—primarily his early work, circa 1920—from the vantage point of today.

Don't miss it!

Fr. John Basil Lee Jellicoe, Part 2

When I was a boy, my parents used to drag my brother and me on family holidays to camp in a caravan at various scenic locales in the eastern portion of the United States. Almost invariably, my father would strike up a conversation with some fellow around a campfire and inform him we were from Pennsylvania.

That chap, no matter where he himself was from, would typically say something to my father along the lines of, "Oh! Pennsylvania! Do you know our friends, the Smiths?"

After politely assuring him that the Smiths (or whomever) that we knew were very unlikely the same Smiths that he knew, Dad would still grumble later about the fact that a couple of million people lived in The Keystone State, and about people's stupidity in general.



* * * * *

Sometimes I wonder if my father wouldn't have a good long rant about me and what I'm doing here, in essence asking the entire U.K., "Say, do you happen to know a bloke named Mills?"

I mean, sure, George Mills was an officer's reserve military paymaster (in WWII) and went to Oxford (Christ Church) and was concerned about the Anglican Church and Roman Catholicism. And Father J. B. L. Jelliocoe was an officer's reserve paymaster in the military (in WWI; perhaps this is where Mills got the "reserve officer" idea) and went to Oxford (Magdalen College) and was concerned about the church as well. And A. B. H. Bishop went to Oxford (Jesus College) at the same time as those two, and was Head of Magdalen College School at Brackley during the same period Jellicoe was head of the Magdalen College Mission in Camden. Oh, and Bishop was raised in Cornwall, where George Mills was born, but raised quite near George's Acland family ancestral home at Killerton in Devon.

And it likely is just a coincidence that Mills and Bishop left Oxford and each became involved in independent preparatory schools. And that Mills was writing books about those preparatory schools at the same time that Bishop was advancing his career in the schools. And it's likely just a coincidence that George's father was a social reformer in London, based in Kensington, during the 1920s and early 1930s, while Jellicoe was a London social reformer in nearby St Pancras during that same era.

Small world, isn't it?

So it's probably just a colossal coincidence that, when the young but worn-out Jellicoe passed away in 1935, his memorial service was attended by a gentleman named "Mr. H. E. Howell," a chap bearing the same moniker as a gentleman who, as an old friend of the author, had helped George Mills by reading the manuscript for his first novel, Meredith and Co.: The Story of a Modern Preparatory School, in 1933.

This Howell attended the service as the representative of All Saints Margaret Street, a Victorian Anglo-Catholic High Church that rests almost midway between the Kensington address of the Mills and the St. Pancras parish to the northeast, where Jellicoe had worked so diligently on behalf of the poor.



* * * * *

So much of what we've discussed above may all simply be coincidental. Let's look at some hard-copy evidence.

Here's is how the London Times documented Jellicoe's death on 26 August 1935:


THE REV. J. B. L. JELLICOE

SLUM CLEARANCE IN ST. PANCRAS

The Rev. John Basil Lee Jellicoe died on Saturday in a nursing home of pneumonia in his thirty-seventh year. He will be remembered for his remarkable work as the chairman and organizer of the St. Pancras House Improvement Society, Limited, which has demonstrated that the improvement of slum areas by private enterprise is a sound financial proposition. The elder son of the Rev. T. H. L. Jellicoe, of Sullington Warren, Pulborough, Jellicoe took his degree from Magdalen College, Oxford, and after preparation at St. Stephen's House was appointed in 1922 head of the Magdalen College Mission and curate of St. Mary's, Somers Town. He resolved that he would not rest till his people had homes fit to live in, and the rehousing schemes started by his society have already provided many excellent flats with gardens, trees, ponds, swings for the children, and other amenities. Although the rents charged are not more than what the tenants paid for the old slums, the loan stock receives 2 per cent. and the ordinary shares 3 per cent. In 1929 Messrs. Whitbread entrusted the control of the rebuilt public house in Stibbington Street to Father Jellicoe. It was licensed to sell beer but not spirits, and was provided with a roof garden, a restaurant, and various games. When it was proposed to form a college for publicans, to be conducted by Church of England clergymen, Father Jellicoe said it was hoped "to attract young men of the best type who would regard the office of publican as a great and honourable profession. They should regard it also as a magnificent opportunity of social service by providing decent and happy recreation for their fellow-men." The progress of the society was steady, with the support of the Prince of Wales, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the late Minister of Health (Sir Hilton Young, now Lord Kennet), and others, and more blocks of flats were opened. But, as a letter in The Times last June showed, the society still needs at least £150,000 in loan stock and Ordinary shares to rebuild three verminous and overcrowded sites in Somers Town already in its possession. Last year Father Jellicoe moved to St. Martin-in-the-Fields as curate.


In that obituary we find that by 1935 Jellicoe had moved his career locale even closer to Kensington (and George Mills, who was probably teaching at Eaton Gate in Belgravia), taking over as the incumbent at St. Martin-in-the-Fields at Trafalgar Square. By the way, 1922 was the year that Mills ended his pursuit of an Oxon degree.

Details of Jellicoe's funeral were published in the Times on 29th August 1935 [my emphases]:



THE REV. J. B. L. JELLICOE

The funeral of the Rev. Basil Jellicoe took place at Chailey Parish Church {right]yesterday. The service was conducted by the Bishop of Dover, assisted by the Rev. H. J. Boyd and the Rev. H. H. Matravers. The choir boys of St. Mary's of the Angels Song School, under the Rev. Desmond Morse-Boycott, took part in the service. The principal mourners included:–
Mrs. Jellicoe (mother), Lieutenant-Commander C. J. L. Jellicoe (brother), Mrs. I. L. Murray (aunt), the Rev. John and Mrs. Murray, Mr. Felix St. H. Jellicoe, Mr. St. Alban Jellicoe, Miss Jellicoe, Mrs. Jellicoe and the Rev. Arthur H. Boyd and the Rev. Halbert J. Boyd (uncles).

Among others present were:-
Mrs. Madge Waller (representing the Under 40 Club), Mr. Eric Beetham and Mr. R. D. Just (representing the Fellowship of St. Christopher). the Rev. N. Scott, Miss E. Terry, Mr. R. L. Atkinson, Mr. L. Day and Mr. Ian B. Hamilton (representing St. Pancras House Improvement Society), the Rev. J. C. Nankivell (representing the Isle of Dogs Housing Society), the Rev. N. G. Powell (representing Canon Carr, St. Michael's Housing Society, Penzance), Mr. Donald G. Pelly (Strichard Housing Society).

The Rev. C. P. Shaw (representing the Church Union Housing Association), the Rev. Percy Maryon-Wilson and the Rev. Lorimer Reece (representing the Magdalene College Mission), the Rev. H. W. Grepe, the Rev. W. T. Norburn, the Rev. Hampden Thompson, Canon H. L. Pass (representing the Dean and Chapter of Chichester Cathedral), the Rev. C. W. Handford, the Rev. A. R. H. Faithfull, the Rev. C. E. B. Neate, the Rev. F. G. Fincham, the Rev. Montague Cox, the Rev. Donald V. Beckingham, the Rev. W. A. C. Ullathorne, the Rev. B. Thackeray, the Rev. E. I. Frost, the Rev. C. P. Orr, the Rev. C. G. Earmaker, Mr. and Mrs. R. C. Blencowe, Mr. and Mrs. I. Blencowe, Miss Blencowe, Mrs. Morse-Boycott.

Mrs. Maryon-Wilson, Miss Bartlett Blake, Elsie Lady Shiffner, Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Boyd, Lieutenant-Commander and Mrs. E. B. Martino, Mr. Alan L. Todd, M.P., Miss Margerson, Mr. and the Hon. Mrs. Maryan-Wilson, Mrs. Hampden Thompson, Mr. and Mrs. Basil Henriques, Lady Kenderdine, and Mrs. Reginald M. Mason.

A memorial service was held at St. Mary the Virgin, Somers Town [left], yesterday for the Rev. John Basil Lee Jellicoe. The Rev. Percy Maryon-Wilson officiated, assisted by the Rev. H. L. O. Rees and the Rev. T. M. Parker.

Among those present were:-
Mrs. D. G. Morris, Mr. Halliday McCartney, Miss Critchley, Mr. S. Rundle, Mr. and Mrs. John Gillard, Mr. W. H. Sheppard, the Rev. Langtry Williams (New York). the Rev. Eric Bailey (All Saints', Margaret Street). The Rev. T. A. S. Marsden, Mr. P. Henniker Heaton, Mr. A. J. Stewart, Miss Hunt, Mrs. Kightley, Mrs. M. White, Mr. John F. Dell, Mr. L. Myers, Mr. and Mrs. Toop, Miss E. Miller, Miss S. G. Saunders, Mr. Charles Low, Miss E. M. Evans, Miss Oaker.

Miss F. A. Day, Mrs. M. P. Leonard, Mr. W. L. Cooke, Miss Packer, the Rev. L. Jones, the Rev. J. W. E. Hooton, Mrs. A. Clark (St. Mary's Schools). Mrs. Ayrton, Mrs. Davidge, the Rev. Adam Fox (representing Magdalen College).

Miss Collet, Sister E. Armstrong, Miss De Rougemont, the Rev. Nigel Scott (representing St. Pancras House Improvement Society), Councillor F. Howson (former Mayor of St. Pancras), Mr. E. Ormnan, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. W, Bell, Miss Crowe, Miss Gedge, Miss E. Ayr, Miss E. Perry, the Rev. Norman Haigh, Mrs Henley Chater.
The Rev. J. A. Gorton, Brother Kenneth (B.S.F.A.), Mr. H. E. Howell (All Saints', Margaret Street), Sister Gent, the Rev. M. Le Marrino, Father Biggart (representing the Community of the Resurrection), Mrs. W. Sharp, Father Ferguson, the Rev. C. D. Horsley, the Rev. A. Swift, Mrs. E. A. Taylor, Miss Horsley.

Miss Edith Neville (chairman of the St. Pancras House Improvement Society) was unable to be present owing to absence abroad, and Lady Warren was unable to be present owing to serious illness.


I did not transcribe the above myself (my thanks to Chailey 1914-1918), so I do not know how accurate any of it is. For example, there's a fair chance that "Miss Margerson" may be "Miss Margesson," daughter of Mr. M. and Lady Isabel Margesson, a couple that attended the wedding of George Mills and Vera Louise Beauclerk in 1925. In addition, not only did they attend the wedding of George's brother, Captain Arthur F. H. Mills, to Lady Dorothy Walpole, but Mr. Margerson gave the bride away (as she was not on speaking terms with her family because of the couple's union that day).

As a frequent transcriber of the predominant font of that era's London Times (and with the crow's-footed bifocal squint to prove it), an "ss" as in Margesson can appear to resemble a "rs" as you can see in the name "margesson" in the fine print of this item [right] from the Times regarding the Mills-Walpole nuptials.

Nonetheless, there's no reason to think that the Mr. H. E. Howell mentioned there is part of any transcription error.



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Anyway, again dispensing with what may be simple coincidence and looking more at facts, the contemporary "Jellicoe Community" of today still allows students from Oxford to volunteer and work in the community to meet the needs of the local people, just as it did back in the days of Camden's Magdalen College Mission.

Even before the days of Jellicoe's stewardship, students volunteered. From the 1916 text In Slums and Society: Reminiscences of Old Friends by James Granville Adderley, we read an instructive description of the Magdalen College Mission: "I shall never forget my initiation to that 'open house,' where burglars and undergraduates fed and played and slept under one roof."

That was written during a time just before Jellicoe, Bishop, and Mills all attended various constituent colleges at the University of Oxford, from which the mission drew those compassionate undergraduates.

Moving forward in time, into the 1920s and 1930s when Fr. Jellicoe became established at the Mission, we read this from a website entitled The Jellicoe Blog describing the sometimes theatrical nature of the legendary reformer: "Jellicoe had been born into privilege and used his many connections to assemble a powerful alliance for change - enlisting the support of the Prince of Wales, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Housing Minister in his St Pancras House Improvement Society. He understood the importance of dramatic flourish – erecting vast papier-mâché effigies of the rats and bugs that infested the slums, and ceremonially torching them as the first slums were demolished. And he used the ‘new media’ of his age: making an early film of the conditions in which his parishioners lived, and making a mobile cinema in a trailer, so that those who lived in prosperity up and down the land could see what life in the slums was really like. After each showing he told them: 'Now you know what life is like. You have no excuse for inaction.'"

Back to (almost) unbridled speculation…

We know George Mills attended Harrow School at The Grove, the school's house strong in drama and the arts, and that Mills worked in with children at Windlesham House School in Portslade in performances, dramatic productions, and even musicals. Again, would it be a stretch to consider that perhaps working with the ever-present and attention-starved (as well as quite often actually starved) children of the slums that followed Jellicoe around could have been what helped nudge Mills along towards becoming a schoolmaster after departing Oxford?

Still, London and its environs comprised populous and bustling metropolis that was the crossroads of England and the rest of the U.K., if not the entire Empire, upon which the sun never set.

What were the actual chances that all of these men knew each other well? What were the chances that all of these circumstantial occurrences were anything other than sheer coincidence?
We've no evidence these men ever met while attending Oxford, or that any save Jellicoe ever worked at the Mission. There's no evidence that the Howell at the 1935 funeral service is the Howell thanked in the 1933 preface of Meredith and Co. And, although their names rest alongside each other's for eternity in that preface, we have no proof that Howell and Bishop ever met, even though they both knew George Mills. And, finally, George's father, Revd Barton R. V. Mills was a much older man than Basil Jellicoe, and although they both crusaded for social reform, each man in his own way, they may have run in completely different circles and may never have so much as met.

There also is no solid reason to think that it's noteworthy that Jellicoe, born in 1899 and son of a cleric, was raised in Chailey, Sussex, just 15 miles or so north of—of course!—Seaford, East Sussex, a coastal town that simply won't stop cropping up coincidentally in the story of George Mills. But if you do think 15 miles is simply too far away from Seaford to connect it with Mills, let's discuss the fact that Chailey sits just four miles or so east of the location of Parkfield School in Haywards Heath, where George, born in 1896 and son of a cleric, attended classes.

What we do know is that, in some way—even loosely—these men somehow are linked to George Mills, circa 1933, perhaps if only in a way similar to the logic behind Six [or, depending on whether or not the teller understands the concept, Seven] Degrees to Kevin Bacon [right]. Exactly how they were linked is the mystery, one we may never solve.



* * * * *

It has been over a year since my first messages to All Saints Margaret Street, Magdalen College School, and the Old Brackleians were sent. No replies with research assistance have been forthcoming so far, and may not ever be.

We may never know more than we now do about these men who seem so tantalizingly close to each other—personally, historically, and even spiritually. Perhaps this is all a series of overblown coincidences, neatly if not randomly arranged on an undreamed-of internet some 80 to 90 years later, and even if it is true these men did know each other, that in itself doesn't make any one man's behavior at the time in any way causal in regard to any aspect of another's life.

But I find it hard to believe that such strong-willed, talented, and outgoing men wouldn't have influenced each other in many ways, directly and indirectly.

In a way, all of this seems suspiciously as if a nearby camper asked my father if he knew the "Smiths" from Pennsylvania, and the more the fellow described them, the more it became apparent that they—out of millions—actually had been our neighbours…


* * * * *

Fr. Jellicoe inspired a stage musical [left] that recently played at the Shaw Theatre on Euston Road in London, and his memory is held fast by the communities he helped, as well as a more figurative, charitable community that still works in his memory.

I'll close with these words from Fr. Rob Wickham, rector of Hackney:

Jellicoe was angry. He saw 5 children to a bed, he saw children with breathing difficulties, and he saw the effect that mass unemployment can have in a community. He saw loan sharks at work, and he saw people every night affected by fleas, bed bugs, rats and cockroaches. “How can I preach Jesus when people live in such filth? The devil is the Lord of Somers Town," came his cry.

This vision of a new Jerusalem led him to use a local workforce to charge the same rents after the rebuilding as before, and to keep a community strong through its nurseries, rent clubs, furniture clubs and even a pub – a place where clergy and churchwardens might go after evensong!

This vision holds dear today. It is a vision which undergirds the principles of the Jellicoe Communities and Community organizing. Local people doing something – galvanizing their efforts to make a difference in the communities in which they live and where they service.



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For more information about the Jellicoe Community today, see http://www.theology-centre.org/jellicoe-community.

Fr. John Basil Lee Jellicoe, Part 1

Today, we'll take a look at a short thread we've been following, trying to get some closure on the preface to the 1933 book Meredith and Co. by George Mills. There are a few other loose ends to pursue besides this, and I think my work here at Who Is George Mills? will be just about complete.

As we know, the preface referred to two men, as having been helpful and encouraging during his production of the manuscript for the text: Mr A. Bishop, the "Head Master of Magdalen College School, Brackley," and Mr. H.E. Howell, an "old friend."

H. E. Howell remains unidentified, a mysterious man of some influence on George Mills, but unknown to us today.

Last time we found out that Bishop was Arthur Henry Burdick Bishop, not only once Head Master of Magdalen in Brackley, but longtime, successful Head at Warwick School. Many thanks to Mr. G. N. Frykman, archivist at Warwick for his wealth of information on Bishop and the school of his era (1936-1962), as well as for his effort to get someone at Magdalen College School to contact me.

Magdalen College School, or should I say schools, has an interesting history. There are apparently three: Oxford, Brackley, and Lincolnshire, although it appears the name of the last is the Skegness Grammar School. That name, interestingly, was taken in 1933 upon its relocation from Wainfleet.

The Oxford school, originally located in Magdalen College, since has moved across the Magdalen Bridge and expanded.

The institution of our interest here, though, is Brackley, and according to Wikipedia, the college still owns the site in South Horthamptonshire, and has a presence on the governing board.

This historical presence ties the school to the famed Magdalen College, Oxford, and it is there that our investigation leads us. First let's look at an historical figure with close ties to Magdalen College as well.

During the 1920s, a fiery reformer named Fr. Basil Jellicoe [right] took the stage. Born on 5 February 1899 in Chailey, Sussex. Jellicoe is noted in a 1917 Chailey parish magazine as having been "Univ OTC, Oxford." Subsequent issues note that Jellicoe served with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during 1918 and is described as an 'assistant paymaster,' a designation that ended in July 1919, when Jellicoe was presumably disembarked from his service after the end of hostilities in the First World War.

The 2004 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says this about Jellicoe:

Jellicoe, (John) Basil Lee (1899-1935), housing reformer and Church of England clergyman, was born on 5 February 1899 at Chailey, Sussex, the elder son of Thomas Harry Lee Jellicoe, rector of Chailey, and his wife, Bethia Theodora, youngest daughter of Sir John Boyd, of Maxpoffle, Roxburgh, lord provost of Edinburgh from 1888 to 1891. His father was a cousin of J. R. Jellicoe, first Earl Jellicoe.

A few months before the end of the First World War he left Oxford to join the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and served for a short time in the Mediterranean.


On the website Chailey 1914-1918, Paul Nixon gives his opinion regarding that entry:

This rather spare and stuffy review does not appear to do justice to the man. In the 1920s he campaigned successfully to replace the Somers Town slums in Camden, north London with decent housing and was a colossus in the neighbourhood as well as a firm favourite with the residents. He founded what later became the St Pancras Housing and Humanist Association and helped set up similar groups throughout England. He worked tirelessly for the benefit of poorer communities and must have been sorely missed when he died at the young age of 36.


Father Luke Miller, President of the Haileybury Society, wrote this of Jellicoe:

Just after the First World War Jellicoe had come down from Magdalene Oxford, been ordained and appointed as the Magdalene College Missioner, responsible for a Christian Mission to the area round S. Pancras station in London supported and funded by members of his college. It was an area of slums: dark alleys, stinking tenements, jumbles of dwellings with no sanitation, no light and providing hardly any shelter.

Seeing the terrible housing conditions Father Jellicoe insisted that the spiritual duty of the church for the souls of her children must extend to a physical duty to their wellbeing and specifically to their housing.

Jellicoe cajoled the owners; raised the funds; demanded support; lobbied politicians; worked to change opinion, employed the press – Gaumont films made a news reel that was sent round the country and the world – and generally made himself a nuisance to anyone and everyone to get things done. It was fabulously successful. Things were done and the whole area was transformed.

His work spread beyond to confines of his own parish. He was called on to develop his new concept of Housing Associations in the Isle of Dogs in London and in other cities in the nation. His idea spread round the world, and he is the father of social housing.

Father Jellicoe was not a social reformer. He was a Gospel preacher. Once he described the beginning of the work with the housing. “We wanted money for these building schemes” he said, “So whom do you suppose we went to? Well we went first to a poor paralyzed woman who hadn’t a penny, who couldn’t use anything but her lips, but who knew how to pray. That was the beginning of everything.”

It was costly what he did. It was costly to others who had to give up their preconceptions and their prejudices and be carried along by him in his enthusiasm for the gospel. But it was also costly for him. Twice he had breakdowns under the pressure of the work. He drew strength from his daily offering of the Body and Blood of Jesus at the altar in his church; he organized a prayer guild to sustain the mission in prayer, and he drew on the power of the scriptures in his spiritual warfare. But it cost him nonetheless.

Someone who knew him well wrote of him, “I can see him now, pacing round and round the room, a soul on fire within a rather faded cassock, his eyes ablaze with what I can only call a fury of faith for the fighting of ancient wrongs, his heart aglow with affection for all sorts and conditions of men and with visions for their greater good. I wondered how long it would take for so keen a flame to burn out.”

Basil Jellicoe died, burnt out and exhausted, aged just 36.


At a Service of Thanksgiving celebrating the renewal of St. Martin-in-the-Fields 0n 28 April 2008, the Archbishop of Canterbury mentioned Jellicoe: "In the days when St Martin's was gloriously beginning to reinvent itself in the second and third decades of the last century, a very great Anglo-Catholic priest, Father Basil Jellicoe, at that time the incumbent at St Paul's Convent Garden, was challenged by some of his more narrow-minded High Church friends about why he would come to celebrate and preach in a parish church like this where the blessed sacrament was not reserved. Father Jellicoe said he had no problem at all in coming to preach in a church part of which was reserved for the service of Christ in the form of his poor."


I will not pretend to have any real knowledge of the High Church, Low Church, Anglo-Catholicism, or of the relationship between the Anglican Church and Roman Catholicism.

Although we have not established fully a relationship between Jellicoe and George Mills, regular readers will find a few items already begin jump out from the above. More coincidences involving George Mills? His life seems at times to have been not much more than a series of interesting coincidences!

While it is no more a coincidence that Mills and Jellicoe served in WWI than it would be for any of the other countless men and women who served, it is interesting to note that both Mills and Jellicoe served in the pay corps during the conflict.

Interestingly, despite being a pay corps wash-out as a fatigue man in the Great War, Mills righted the ship of his military career by later himself becoming a member of the reserve of officers [how, exactly, is unknown] and serving as a lieutenant paymaster during the Second World War.

After the First World War, we know Mills attended Oxford, the location of Magdalen College, where Jellicoe received undeniable financial help via the "Magdalen College Mission," as we can see from the image at right.

In addition, Revd Barton R. V. Mills, an Anglican cleric converted to Roman Catholicism and the father of George Mills, is noted for having "founded the Association for Improving the Status of the Unbeneficed Clergy, and was [honourable] secretary of the Society for the Protection of Women and Children" during his life, as described in his obituary in the Times of London. These charitable works occupied the time of the senior Mills from the 1920s through his passing in 1932.

In fact, as early as 1884, when Barton Mills was beginning his career as a cleric, he was found "sitting on the Battersea Committee as an active member, according to a 15 December [1884] report by The Council of the Society for Organising Charitable Relief and Repressing Mendicity," and during the First World War, he had served as an "Acting Chaplain to the Forces."

The Rev. Mills had spent his life doing good works, and in a time when the young Jellicoe—a man with so much passion and vision—couldn't have helped but capture the notice and perhaps fancy of the elder cleric, George's father.


Lastly, we also know that much of George's life was concerned with religion. His father obviously had strong but ambivalent feelings about the exact nature of his own spirituality, converting to Roman Catholicism during the period in his life in which he also began serving as a vicar in the Anglican Church, and Barton later an assistant chaplain in the Chapel Royal at the Savoy.

The tribute paid by the Archbishop of Canterbury above to Fr. Jellicoe seems to apply to the Rev. Mills as well: "[He would have] had no problem at all in coming to preach in [any] church part of which was reserved for the service of Christ in the form of his poor."

Despite current skepticism by the Savoy itself, it's clear that the Rev. Mills had converted to Roman Catholicism (as did many of the men he saw as role models of his youth, like Rev. R. S. Hawker, who converted on his deathbed). By 1956, we find George Mills teaching at Ladycross School [left], a Catholic preparatory school in Seaford, Sussex, and having his own memorial service held at Catholic Church of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles in Budleigh Salterton in 1972.


Jellicoe saw a blurred line between an exact daily practice of Christianity and its more important function of providing a necessary service to humankind. He was a charitable reformer in the same city at the same time George's own father was. Both Mills and Jellicoe had ties to Oxford in the 1920s. And just before that time, Jellicoe, like Mills, recently had served under the Colours in the pay corps, of all things!

These still could be coincidences, but we'll try to tie them together even a bit more tightly (and weave in Bishop and Howell) next time—stay tuned!