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!

A First Look at Gillmore Goodland, the Younger

Joshua Goodland was an important figure in the life of George Mills, schoolmaster, author, paymaster, and gentleman. One big question we've run into as we've examined the life of Joshua is how he managed to pay for a Cambridge education from 1900 through 1908, a time during which members of his family were either unemployed, at sea as sailors, or working as governess of the children of a farmer. Joshua's mother, as far as we know, was living in London at Gresham House during that period of years, following the death of her husband, Joshua's father, Gillmore Goodland.

One family member we have not examined has been Gillmore Goodland, eldest son of Gillmore and Frances Mary Goodland of Exmouth, Devon [pictured above, left].

Records show that the junior Gillmore was born there in Withycombe Raleigh on 15 January 1871. As we know, his father was a local schoolmaster who would soon become a "certificated" elementary school teacher, most likely at Withycombe School.

That's a puzzling birth date, however. There was a U.K. census recorded on 2 April 1871, but the younger Gillmore fails to appear on it. We find his parents at home that day with a 16-year-old servant, Mary Hankin, but 10-week-old infant Gillmore was apparently not there. Quite unusual.

According to records, the elder Gillmore and Frances Mary Butland were married sometime in the first quarter of 1871 (Jan-Feb-Mar), seemingly calling into question young Gillmore's legitimacy. Why, though, he wouldn't have been with his mother (or anywhere else) on 2 April is puzzling.

The junior Gillmore appears on the 1881 census form with his parents and siblings as a 9-year-old, leading me to believe that he actually was born in 1872, which would legitimatize him fully. He is listed in that census as a "scholar," presumably at his father's school.

In 1891, we find him (with some difficulty I might add) boarding with a Miss Elizabeth Hams at 32 Kilcraig Street [right] in Roath, Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales, working as an "engineer's assistant (civil)." Another resident, Elizabeth's cousin Anthony Howell, is listed as being a "contractor," and Gillmore might have been assistant to him.

Within two years of that census, in 1893, the senior Gillmore would pass away and younger brother Joshua also would take up residence in Roath, almost immediately, as an assistant/apprentice to noted Welsh architect G. E. Halladay. Joshua would stay with Halladay at least until passing his architectural examination in 1898.

Brother Gillmore, however, would soon leave and go abroad.

In 1895, Gillmore and an Australian legislator and sportsman named Frank Cole Madden published a text called The Ormuz Optic, a 54-page illustrated text on the ocean-going steamship R.M.S. Ormuz's voyage across the Indian Ocean and Red and Mediterranean Seas that year. The acknowledged editors of the book, it was "published" aboard, Vol. 1 in the Indian Ocean, midway between Christmas Island and Diego Garcia (Lat 7.44 S., Long 90.24 E), Vol. 2 near Bab-el-Mandeb south of the Red Sea (Lat. 13.00 N., Long. 44.00 E), and Vol. 3 in the Mediterranean, midway between Malta and Benghazi, Libya (Lat. 36.26 N., Long 19.26 E).

The three 'volume' text was then published that same year in Bristol, England, by H. R. Clarke.

This text about the R.M.S. Ormuz [left] records the first of Gillmore Goodland's travels, likely from Australia/New Zealand to England, which we can find. Presumably the trip had something to do with his occupation in "engineering." We don't know how Goodland arrived down under, or where his final destination was.

In 1896, a "G. Goodland" steamed into Sydney, New South Wales, aboard the S.S. Alameda, having sailed out of San Francisco, California. He had booked a cabin, not steerage.

Later that same year, Goodland was elected an associate member of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers during their General Meeting at the Mining School at Wigan on 14 July 1896. Goodland's entry reads: "Mr. Gillmore Goodland, Ravenswood, Queensland, Australia," but something was obviously of interest to Goodland in western North America.

Goodland was obviously abroad again by 1898: He becomes a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and his address is listed as "1, Army and Navy-mansions, S.W." These fashionable quarters for bachelors and couples were located on Victoria Street and in 1906 cost £70 - £100 per annum. By 1899, 1, Army and Navy-mansions, S.W., had been taken over by American Marvin Dana, editor, writer, poet, linguist, musician, raconteur, and enthusiastic lover of all sports, as well as being a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, for use "when he is in town."

Goodland wasn't in town all that much, as we'll see.

His name is on the manifest of the S.S. Brittanic traveling from New York City and arriving in Liverpool on 11 November 1898. Goodland, described as an "engineer," was 31 years old and unmarried at the time. His name is found non-alphabetically amid others [right] of some interest: J. L. Deraismes, a 34-year-old married foreign "capitalist," Andrew Houston, a 26-year-old single English "merchant," G.L. Stephenson, a 46-year-old married English "engineer," Lyndon H. Stevens, a 55-year-old married foreign "merchant," and Charles C. Dickinson, a 27-year-old single English "banker."

That cadre of gentlemen, some traveling without their spouses, may simply have queued up together because some had been engaged in conversation. On the other hand, when you put merchants, a banker, a venture capitalist, and a couple of engineers together, my hunch is that someone is thinking of investing in a mine.

In fact, earlier that year, in September 1898, Gillmore Goodland was listed among new members of the American Institute of Mining Engineers that had been elected at their meeting in San Francisco, California.

A year later, Gillmore sailed from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Liverpool aboard the Rhynland [below, left]. This time, however, the 32-year-old Goodland was not alone: He was traveling with his new wife, Kathleen, 23, of County Clare, Ireland on what was likely a honeymoon of sorts.

Interestingly, Gillmore listed his occupation on the manifest as "none." Goodland, as we shall see, was usually thinking about business first, especially at this point in his life, and it may have been a 'working' honeymoon.

According to the Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, vol. 32, in 1902, we find his address changed to "109 Victoria Street, Westminster, London, SW, England." Today, that upscale section of London near Buckingham Gate might be largely unrecognizable to him.

Goodland had taken on that new wife and moved freely around the world. We already have seen that Gillmore is listed in the 1912 London telephone directory, described as a "consulting engineer" with an office at 17 Gracechurch St.

During that span of time, however, we can also track him sailing on the R.M.S. Torquah (out of Forcados, Nigeria) after a stay in Sekondi on the Gold Coast of Africa, bound for Liverpool. His date of arrival in England was 8 February 1906. Had Gillmore simply sailed in to see his brother, Theodore, then a sailor, on his way home from a South Seas adventure? Or did he perhaps take the new railroad (built in the Gold Coast and Sekondi in 1903) from another part of Africa to catch up with his younger brother?

Gillmore soon became a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London. That was in 1909, and his addresses then were listed [below, right] as "17, Gracechurch-street, E.C.," "Hovingshaw, Woldingham, Surrey," and most interestingly "Ekaterineberg, Siberia."

Also in 1909, according to the American Chemical Society's journal Chemical Abstracts (Vol. 4, Part 3), Goodland published an article, "Kilierin," about the "recovery of the metallic contents of ores and the like by means of a woven fabric having a smooth back and a blanket-like face, and with ridges on said face" in Lavasheeda, County Clare, Ireland.

County Clare is the birthplace of Goodland's wife, Kathleen, although it is unclear whether he met her while tending to mining there, or was made aware of the local mines in her homeland after his marriage.

Also in 1909, the 25 December issue of Mining and Scientific Press, in an article entitled "Special Correspondence: Mexico," reported that a new company had been formed in England, with capital amounting to £300,000, to take over 1600 acres of titled mining property in Batopilas, Mexico, and "lease existing mines, mills, and haciendas." The area produces both silver and cyanide. The term of the contract between the old American-owned Batopilas Mining Co. and the new Baltopilas Mining, Smelting, and Refining Co., Ltd., of Great Britain was for 25 years.

The article adds: "Gillmore Goodland, an English mining engineer, has been making examinations and reports on the properties [a view from one silver mine is seen, left]."

Then, in 1911, this snippet appeared in Vol. 34 of a journal called Mining and Engineering World: "Gillmore Goodland of 17 Gracechurch St., London, a well-known English mining engineer, with extensive experience in South Africa, Australia and other parts of the world, was imprisoned on February 15 in a Mexican jail." It appears Goodland had his ups and his downs in Mexico!

With experience in South Africa, it becomes more likely that Gillmore dropped in on Theo in Sekondi because he was 'in the neighborhood,' and may have traveled there either by ship or train. There is no record of Gillmore entering the Gold Coast, today's Ghana, in 1906.

Now, according to historical abstracts from the British Department of Employment and Productivity (1981), the average engineer/surveyor made about £334 a year at the turn of the 20th century. That translates into about £20,000 today, which probably would pay the bills, but wouldn't necessarily allow one to keep a London office on Gracechurch, a residence called Hovingshaw in Surrey, and an address in eastern Russia. Goodland certainly was an atypical mining engineer/consultant.

Times change, but Woldingham is still just 30 minutes by train from Victoria and was recently named the 2nd most expensive suburb in Britain in 2007, with 17.1% of its real estate sales worth over £1,000,000.

Summing it up, we know that Gillmore Goodland, consulting engineer in the mining industry, was "well-known" with "extensive experience" in such far-flung locales as England, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, Mexico, and Siberia—at the very least. He'd traveled abroad, rubbing elbows with merchants, bankers, and capitalists, and his detailed reports guided major corporations and their investors.

From a humble career beginning in the early 1890s, while boarding at the home of a music teacher in Roath, Cardiff, we've seen Goodland seemingly reach the apex of his profession, traveling the world on behalf of industrialists, speculators, and financiers.

In Gillmore Goodland, we seem to have found a very possible backer of his widowed mother's care and his younger brother Joshua's advanced education.

In fact, although Joshua was training as an architect in Cardiff for at least some of the time that Gillmore was there as an "assistant engineer," it's easy to believe that the elder Gillmore soon believed that young Joshua may soon have been of far more use to him as a barrister than an architect. It's not difficult in the least for me to suppose that a legal representative whose education he'd bankrolled—and who was a blood relative to boot—would have been an invaluable asset to a "consulting" engineer who was likely working under contract for high-rollers with their own incredibly reliable attorneys under retainer.

Couple that with the fact that Gillmore, by 1900 a world traveler himself, might have actually encouraged his brother Joshua to take holidays abroad and become a 'man of the world' as well. Those urbane and worldly qualities Joshua could have been expected to develop while at Cambridge and abroad would certainly add to the nouveau riche brothers' gravitas in board rooms among fellows reeking of "old money."

It all adds up.

There's only one possible fly in my proverbial ointment here. From the London Gazette of 31 October 1905:

"In the High Court of Justice.—In Bankruptcy.

2752 of 1905

In the Matter of a Bankruptcy Notice, dated the 18th day of October, 1905.

To GILLMORE GOODLAND, late of 1 Army and Navy-mansions, Westminster, in the county of London, engineer.

TAKE notice that a bankruptcy notice has been issued against you in this Court at the at the instance of Portable Gaslight Limited, in Liquidation, by Finlay Cook Auld, the Liquidator, of 62, King William-street in the city of London, and the court has ordered that the publication of this notice in the London Gazette and the Daily Telegraph newspaper, shall be deemed to be service of the bankruptcy notice upon you. The Bankruptcy Notice can be inspected by you on application at this court—Dated 25th day of October 1905.

J.E. LINKLATER, Registrar. "

Gillmore Goodland was sued by Portable Gaslight, Ltd., for bankruptcy in 1905, amid all of the travel above.

Could it have been a "paperwork" sort of bankruptcy filing, with documents filed and a newspaper notice purchased merely to spur the Goodlands' payment, with no furniture being carted away or padlocks put on front doors? Was it simply a matter of Gillmore having been abroad and somehow the bills due Portable Gaslight became mightily overdue?

I can't rightly say. I do know that it appears that Gillmore Goodland ran in a very smart set and appears to have earned a very nice income for his international services in the first decade of the 20th century, this single bankruptcy notice notwithstanding.

In Gillmore, we have our most likely candidate for lending assistance to a widowed mother and scholarly brother. And, don't forget, his sister Grace ended up following him to Cardiff as well, and Gillmore appears to have left an infant son in her care in 1911. His brothers Ernest and Kenny sailed in Gillmore's wake to Australia in 1907 and lived there for the rest of their lives. Gillmore also traveled to Sekondi at least once during the time his brother, Theodore, would have been a simple "able seaman" in the South Seas and around Sekondi [right] on Dark Continent.

Despite a penchant for hobnobbing with the rich in his capacity as a consulting engineer, family does seem to have mattered to him.

It just wouldn't be right to leave Gillmore in 1912, representing his new company in Batopilas, Mexico, and not follow up on what was an interesting life. We'll pursue that soon, as well as finishing our examination of the life of Joshua Goodland, mentor to George Mills—a task it seems we started ages ago!

Stay tuned…

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!