A Hodge Podge of Mills Miscellany

The temperature here in steamy Florida—and across the U.S. for that matter—simply has been sweltering! I should be out finishing the task of painting the house, but it has been easier just to stay indoors, enjoy the air conditioning, and work at cleaning out the George Mills-related folders that have been squirreled in and all around this computer, I have some miscellaneous items that I want to post before we wrap things up here at Who Is George Mills?

Here they are, in no particular order:


WWII R.A.P.C. Regimental Pay Office:


First up, Part I of the April 1944 edition of the Quarterly Army List provides a snippet of information that may help us understand one aspect of the life of George Mills a bit better.

In October 1940, Mills rejoined the army and was named an officer in the Royal Army Pay Corps. I have been unable to locate information regarding where he was assigned after that. We do know that M ills had family that at one time owned much of Devon—the Aclands—but there's no reason to suspect that the army would have given much care to that in assigning him.

However, we do know that Vera Mills, George's wife, passed away at Minehead, Somerset, on 6 January 1942. Why she may have been residing at Minehead in January is unknown, but the Quarterly Army List does contain this, in a list of APC Regimental Pay Offices:

Exeter

Regimental Paymaster —
Booth, Lt.-Col. E. W., O.B.E., M.C., R.A.P.C.

Second in Command —
Coate, Maj. (war subs. 1/7/42) R. D., R.A.P.C.


It may simply be a coincidence, but the second in command at the Exeter pay office in 1944 had drawn his assignment there on 7 January 1942—the day after Vera's death.

Mills may not have been there at all, and Major Coate may have taken over as second in command at Exeter in an unrelated transaction. Still, it is a clue as to where George may have been between late 1940 and early 1942.


Manifests and Paperwork, 1913 and 1919:


We know that it is extremely likely that Vera Mills (née Beauclerk) had been abroad (in Canada or the United States) with her mother and sister during most of the First World War before returning to England and later marrying George Mills.

Found are a couple of indices recording the entrance of 19 year old Vera Louise Beauclerk into Honolulu, Hawaii, on both 26 March 1913 (arriving aboard the Marama) and again on 16 June 1913 (aboard the Chiyo Maru).



You can see the records above. [Click to enlarge any image in a new window.]


Warren Hill in 1896:


George Mills was born in Bude, Cornwall, in 1896. At the same time, across England, A. Max Wilkinson, Head Master of Warren Hill School in Meads, Eastbourne, had had a telephone installed at the school. You can see pages from that seemingly ancient 1896 directory.



George would be grown and working at Warren Hill by 1930.


We also recently located the master's residence across Beachy Head Road from the school, circa 1901. Thanks to the yeoman work (yeoperson?) of the resourceful Jennifer M., we also know who lived there during the 1911: Charles Ridley Witherall and Robert Mervyn Powys Druce, both "schoolmasters" at a "private" school. Also on the census form are Scottish sisters Mary and Janet Robb, the housekeeper and cook respectively.



This is the residence in which George Mills would have lived while he was teaching at Warren Hill, and is likely the one described in his first novel, Meredith and Co.

And, before we leave a subject that concerns A. Max Wilkinson, his Times obituary card has been located: It reads: "WILKINSON.—On Oct. 27, 1948, at Exmouth, very peacefully, A. MAX WILKINSON, sometime of Warren Hill, Eastbourne, and Wittersham, Kent, aged 92 years. Cremation, private."


Monica Cecil Grant Mills (née Wilks):


There are dual listings for the second marriage of George's half-brother, Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills, born 1887: His second wife in one place a Monica Wilson, and in another she is a Monica Wilks. The correct one is clearly Monica Wilks, and here is her birth record from 1902 at Ecclesall Bierlow:



There is also a record of her death—the only one I can find—in the London Gazette dated 17th August 1981 on page 10642. After her name, Monica Cecil Grant Mills, in a column labeled "Address, description, and date of death of Deceased," it reads: "Rivlyn Lodge, Shorefield Road, Downton, Lymington, Hampshire, Widow. 5th August 1981."



Winds Cottage, Downton, is where Monica lived with Arthur Mills until his death in 1955. I am still unsure whether or not Monica—15 years younger than Arthur—bore him children. If so, they are not among the records at ancestry.com.


Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills in China:


We have had only one image of Arthur Mills here, and the on-line caption I found with the photograph makes reference to Arthur having returned with relics from a trip to China "circa 1925," pictired, left.

We now know that trip occurred during 1928. While I cannot find a record of him arriving in England, there is a record of him steaming into Los Angeles, California, aboard the S.S. President Cleveland on 23 February 1928, having departed Hongkong [sic], China, on 30 January. He is listed a 40 year old "writer," who had obtained his visa on 26 January in Hongkong.

There are oddities: Mills lists his birthplace as "Woltexton, England," although his birth took place in Stratton, Cornwall, and he was raised in Bude.

Incredibly, is it possible that this was simply a mistake, and that the typist simply placed an "x" where Mills had wanted an "r"? Wolterton is the ancestral family home of his wife, Lady Dorothy Mills, who was estranged from her family because of her marriage to Mills. Was this simply a perverse joke on the part of Arthur, or did he think listing his birthplace as the estate of peerage—the Walpoles—would gain him some shipboard advantage?




In addition, Mills is the only person on the manifest's page [above]. Apparently no one else was making the trip from China to L.A.

Having always wondered if Arthur had missed george's 1925 wedding because he was in China, the answer now comes back a resounding 'no'...

Uncle Dudley and Jamaica:


Although Arthur and George's uncle, Dudley Acland Mills (Lt.-Col., Royal Engineers), is commonly associated with his eccentric activities in China, we find him here, on page 2326 of the 3 April 1906 edition of the London Gazette, being named by the King to be a member of the Legislative Council of the Island of Jamaica [below].




The Rev. Barton R. V. and Rev. Henry Mills:

I did not record in which text I found the following thumbnail sketches [below] of the lives of Barton Mills, father of George Mills, and Barton's uncle, Henry Mills, also a cleric in the Church of England. (We met Henry once before.)




Gillmore Goodland, Revisited:


In our seemingly never ending study of Gillmore Goodland and family, there was an additional weirdness that has just come to light. The 1901 census lists Gillmore, a 34 year old "civil engineer," as living on London Road at Royston, Hertfordshire—a place we recently examined in relation to the maternal family of Egerton Clarke—with his daughter, Kathleen G. Goodland, aged 5 months, a 28 year old Scottish nurse/domestic named Mary Woodhams, and his 23 year old wife, "Martha L. Goodland."

Goodland's wife was also named "Kathleen." It’s odd that the census taker managed to get her middle initial—standing for "Lillis"—correct, but somehow managed to get "Martha" in as her first name. Peculiar.


In addition, when we looked at Gillmore Goodland's children, we found Kathleen and Joan Goodland, his daughters. What we did not find was much about his son, Desmond Gillmore Goodland, who must have been born around 1910.

There is a birth record for him now, seen below, having been born in Godstone, Surrey, in the summer of 1910. That's the location recorded for his older sisters on the 1911 census.

We had thought young Desmond (he would sign his name in 1941 as "Desmond Gillmore Goodland" below, right) was in Wales, during that census, possibly with his aunt, Grace Goodland.

We now know that's incorrect. The infant in Wales recorded as "Gilmore Goodland" actually had that first name spelled correctly: Gilmore, with one "L". This child was actually Frank Gilmore Goodland, son of Gillmore's brother Ernest Talbot Goodland, who was then living in Australia, and Ernest's wife, Winifred Margaret Goodland (née Owen), who was visiting "her sister Florence Owen together with my great grandmother Selina Owen in Cardiff."

Many thanks to Winifred's descendant, John Owen, for providing the above information in his own words, as well as for helping me work out the lad's identity.

However, that begs the question: "Where was infant Desmond Gillmore Goodland—less than a year old, with his mother and father in North America for a year and his sisters in Godstone—during the taking of the 1911 census?"

It still seems odd that Gillmore and Kathleen would have sailed to America when he was a newborn—and they clearly did—presumably leaving him in England, but sequestered in a place where the infant would not make the census count.

Peculiar. But, then, there were many peculiarities in the story of Gillmore Goodland, Engineer.


Sir Leonard Daldry on Tape:


Daldry was a croquet player who competed at the time the Mills siblings were on the circuit along the south coast of England. Those with an interest (and the access, which I do not enjoy) may want to peruse a taped interview with Sir Leonard. It is entered in the text: A Guide to Manuscripts and Documents in the British Isles Related to Africa: British Isles (Excluding London) by James Douglas Pearson and Noel Matthews (London: Mansell, 1994).



The entry, seen above, reads: "1935 – 1961. Daldry, Sir Leonard Charles: Transcript of taped interview, 1970, relating to service in east Africa and Nigeria, 1935 – 1961; banking, railways, House of Representatives, Senator. (MSS Afr. s. 1576)"

My hunch is that the interview would be fascinating.


I Wish I Could Dial It and See Who Answers:

Lastly, there is something about a single, innocuous entry, tucked away in the 1951 Brighton telephone directory that holds my interest. There is no way of knowing if it is our George Mills, but it reads:

Mills G. 36 Vernon ter, Brighton 1 . . . . . . . . . Hove 36575

Is it the George Mills of our interest? For all we know, it could be a Gareth or a Guy Mills.

I'm not certain why entirely, but of all of the G. Millses I've come across in all of the telephone directories, on all of the World Wide Web, this one makes me think it could be George...


And, as always, if you have any information, speculation, or recollections of George Mills, his family, his friends, his life, or his times, please don't hesitate to contact me, and thank you very much in advance!

Gillmore Goodland: A Final Look

Last time we took a look at the world in which Gillmore Goodland found himself, circa 1913 – 1915. By 1916, even if he could hear the diamond mines or goldfields calling out to him, Kaiser Wilhelm's u-boats were soon preying on ships with little or no restriction. It simply wasn't a time to ply the dangerous waters of the world in search of a job interview, even if the bankrupt engineer had the fare for transoceanic travel.

Goodland was alone in North America, his family back in wartime England. When we last checked documentation, the wife and children were supposedly still ensconced at Hoving Shaw in Woldingham, Surrey, their home. Exactly how long they would have been able to remain there is unknown.

In July 1918, as the war drew to a close, and despite there still being German u-boats presenting danger in the Atlantic, 43-year-old Edmund Stephenson, a "rubber merchant" left his wife, Mrs. Jess Stephenson, in Woldingham, Surrey, bound for New York City aboard the S.S. Saxonia. The ship arrived on 3 July 1918.

Along with Stephenson on the Saxonia [right] was Mrs. Kathleen Goodland, a 42-year-old married woman with no given occupation. Her last residence was "London, England," and her nearest relative was provided as "Bro-in-law. Mr. J. Goodland, 144 Ashley Gardens, London."

Kathleen was accompanied by Joan Lillis Goodland, born in Dublin and aged 16, Kathleen Gilmore Goodland, born in Dublin and aged 18, and young "Gillmore Goodland," born in Surrey and aged 7. Gillmore's family was on its way to him.

The bankrupt mining engineer obviously had many to thank for his potential reunion, not the least of which were a former neighbor, Stephenson, who sailed with his family as far as New York, and brother, Joshua Goodland, who probably was the family's "London" address after they lost possession of Hoving Shaw.

The Saxonia's typewritten manifest lists Stephenson's exact destination as Alden's Successors, Ltd., 290 Broadway, in New York. Alden's is listed in the 1920 edition of the Year Book of the Merchants' Association of New York as being a rubber importer whose president was T.A. Maguire.

Stephenson was traveling with more than $50 in cash, and immigration recorded in script the fact that he had traveled to Germany and Austria "prior to August 1914." Finally, it is documented that he intended to return to England.

Kathleen and her brood steamed into New York with more than $50 in pocket, but with a different destination: "1949 Hillcrest Road, Hollywood, California." The Goodlands were Hollywood-bound, and the manifest affirms their immigrant status and clearly states they did not intend to return to England.

Hollywood!

One imagines Gillmore sitting in Hollywood in 1918 [left], bathed in the delightful southern California sunshine, amid the orange groves and movie stars, waiting anxiously for his family. Once they arrived, Gillmore—who hadn't seen his wife or children since departing for the U.S. in July 1915—could make up for lost time and reacquaint himself with his family.

Perhaps he even did, although there is no certainty that he was even living at 1949 Hillcrest Road when the family arrived. In fact, he was probably not there.

According to paperwork filed by the Immigration Service at the Department of Labor's Mexican Border District, we do know that Gillmore attempted to cross into Nogales, Arizona from Mexico "on foot" on 29 August 1918. He is listed as an "assessable non-immigrant," a married "civil engineer," traveling alone at the age of 46.

His last residence is listed "Culiacan, Mexico," and the final destination of his border crossing is distinctly the same: "Culiacan, Mexico." He was carrying $200, and claimed to have been in the U.S. from 1915 through 1917.

Interestingly, his interest in entering the United States was to see his wife, "Cathaline L. Goodland" [sic] at "6258 Yucca Street" in "Los Angeles, California."

So we find the family at yet another address in less than two months. It must have been very hard on Kathleen and the children over the past several years!

Curiously, Gillmore also told Immigration that he intended to "resume residence" in the United States, despite his prior claim of a return to Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico as a final destination. Again, we find that the information that Goodland provides to officials does not always add up!

One would assume that Gillmore had been longing to see his family. There is no evidence one way or the other. We can, however, assume that his trip to Los Angeles was not prompted entirely by familial fervor. Gillmore continued to tend to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The 1 September 1918 edition of the Reading (Pennsylvania) Eagle carried the following story:

INDIANS REVOLT

FIGHT ENGAGEMENT WITH
FEDERAL GARRISON.

Nogales, Ariz., Aug. 31. — Yaqui Indians have revolted at Ortiz and Culiacan, in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. An American traveling man arrived here today by automobile from Torres and reported that 300 Indians at Ortiz on Monday fought an engagement with the federal garrison at Torres and had taken to the hills. This was officially confirmed today.

Three hundred Yaquis of another command near Culiacan also were reported to have revolted the same day and attempted to loot the city, but were driven off.


With Gillmore working among the people in those "hills," many of whom may have been Yaquis, he clearly would have had wind of the violence long before the first shots were exchanged in Culiacan. His visit to see his family may not have been based entirely on his earnest desire to see loved ones, but to get himself out of harm's way in Mexico—Once again!—as quickly as possible.

Ironically, the above article goes on to describe clashes between U.S. soldiers and Mexican constitutionalist troops under General Alvaro Obregon, in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, at the same time. The city of Nogales is separated into American and Mexican halves by the Rio Grande.

Gillmore must have made it home because we find him living in Los Angeles on 9 January 1920 during that year's U.S. census [an excerpt is seen, right]. Goodland, 47, was then residing at "6538 Bella Vista Way" in Los Angeles with wife Kathleen, 42, daughters Kathleen, 19, and Joan, 17, and son Desmond, 9. The entire family is listed as 'naturalized aliens.'

Joan and Desmond are recorded as having attended school in the previous year, but Desmond, however, is unable to read or write. The only family member with an occupation is Gillmore, who was a "consulting engineer" in the field of "mining," and was clearly listed as a 'worker.'

Among their neighbours we find a variety of occupations—teacher, veterinarian, doctor, dentist, cafeteria proprietor, tire wholesaler, carpenter, bank manager, and automobile salesman. Most interestingly, however, some are employed in the "moving pictures" industry.

"Hollywood" neighbours included actor Rex Cherryman, actor/director Charles W. Dorian and and actress Hazel P. Dorian, Australian-born actress Dorothy Cumming, assistant director Vaughan A. Paul and his step-son, moving picture laboratory technician Elwood E. Bredell, and moving picture photographer John Lyman.

Cherryman, who would pass away in 1928 at the age of 34, was in five films, including Camille, which starred Rudolf Valentino. Dorian was assistant director on such Greta Garbo films as Flesh and the Devil, Grand Hotel, Romance [Dorian is pictured, left, seated on the set with Garbo, wearing glasses], and Queen Christina. Dorothy Cumming's notable works were silent epics Snow White (1916), Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings (1927), and The Wind (1928). "Woody" Bredell would become a cinematographer, working such films as The Adventures of Don Juan, The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Inspector General, and the film version of Ernest Hemingway's The Killers.

We can presume there was still difficulty for Gillmore Goodland abroad, even at this time. While a compendium of the Fellows of the Royal Geographic Society dated 1921 includes Joshua Goodland reachable at his Ashley Gardens address in London, the listing for Gillmore still contains no contact address at all. Gillmore simply did not want to be found.

Amid items pertaining to ARIZONA in Volume 113 of the Engineering and Mining Journal the American Institute of Mining Engineers, we find this one: "A suit has been instituted here by the Amalgamated Copper Mines Co. against Gillmore Goodland, former superintendent of the property for return of tools valued at $5,000 and of $750 company funds. The corporation has settled its claim against the interests that are preparing to build a check dam on its property, for protection of flood of lands near the western edge of Phoenix."

Was bad luck still hawking Gillmore Goodland? Was it just fiscal irresponsibility? Was he actually a fellow who couldn't be trusted? Or was he, after an era of great success circa 1896 – 1912, continually finding himself amid war, politics, and violence, always in the wrong place at the wrong time?

No matter, the courts were now after Goodland in his new country, the United States, and Amalgamated Copper had some high power attorneys—it was then owned by the Rockefellers after an earlier takeover. In the 1920s, metals mining was taking off and the company was expanding from copper into "manganese, zinc, aluminum, uranium, and silver," according to the website filepie.us. It was a bad time to have a falling-out with the corporation (which is now owned by British Petroleum under the name Anaconda Copper Mining Company).

In 1928, Gillmore's son, Desmond, graduated from high school at Loyola University of Los Angeles, and his El Padre yearbook notes he played the lead in the senior play, ironically entitled "Stop Thief."

By the 5 April 1930, Gillmore and Kathleen Goodland are recorded as "lodgers" in the home of Peter and Katherine Jensen at 6565 Fountain Avenue in Los Angeles. Jensen was a Danish immigrant and his wife, born in Wisconsin, was the daughter of immigrants from the Irish Free State—a natural connection for Kathleen, born in Labasheeda, Ireland, to have made.

An actor, Jonathan Logan, lived down the block, and next door resided "motion picture directors" Jacob Pretz (a German immigrant) and his son-in-law Carl Beringer of Czechoslovakia. Beringer's work as an assistant director later included the films In Cold Blood, The Misfits, Paint Your Wagon, Elmer Gantry, and Electra Glide in Blue.

At that time, Desmond, 20, was boarding across town at the home of the late Rex Cherryman at 326 North Kings Road [left], 'rooming' with Esther L. Cherryman and her 4½ year-old son, Rexford. He is listed as a "Laboratory MAN" at an "oil & gasoline refinery," and also shares the home with another English-born boarder, 26-year-old Joan Bowden, a clothing saleswoman.

Daughters Joan and Kathleen, unfortunately, had disappeared into history by then.

We do know that on 29 April 1938, Ernest and Winifred Margaret Goodland, 58 and 53 years old respectively, steamed out of Sydney, Australia, on the S.S. Mariposa. The ship arrived in Los Angeles, Californis, on 16 May. It is the only recorded visit of family members to the U.S., presumably to visit Ernest's eldest brother, Gillmore, and Co.

There is no record of a return voyage, but Ernest later passed away in South Melbourne, Australia, at the age of 67, in 1945.

Desmond, born 26 April 1910, became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. on 21 April 1941 [right], on the eve of America's entry into WWII. At the time he was 30 and living at 1737 Fort Stockton Street in San Diego, California.

He is recorded as having married both "Anna Biah" and "Anna Glamuniza" in Los Angeles on 28 February 1984 at the age of 73. According to Social Security records, Desmond Gillmore Goodland soon passed away on 7 August 1985 while living in the Palmdale section of Los Angeles at the age of 75.

His mother, Kathleen Lillis Goodland, became a naturalized citizen on 14 January 1946 at the age of 69 [below, left]. Her address at the time was 4312 Witherby Street in San Diego. She was born on 15 January 1876 and passed away on 24 July 1960 (the exact date of my younger brother's birth) while residing in San Diego.

Gillmore Goodland, once a top British mining engineer, had left us on 16 May 1945 at the age of 74 while living in San Diego. He never became a citizen of the U.S. One can only assume that, at the end, he was still dreaming of making one last, big mining score across the border in Mexico. His brother Ernest, as we saw, died in Australia that same year.

He'd outlived his younger brother, Joshua, who passed away in 1939 back in England, and brother Theodore, who had passed in 1932.

Gillmore's early life, travels, and adventures clearly had a huge impact on Joshua, who spent a good deal of time traveling the world as well.

While Gillmore clearly had trouble remaining with an employer throughout his life, Joshua would have similar difficulty sticking with a career.

We've seen how Joshua began his early adulthood as an assistant teacher in his father's elementary school in Exmouth, moved to Wales and became an architect, and soon after relocated to Cambridge to study law for some 8 years. Following his studies, he became a successful barrister and legal adviser in London through the First World War, during which he had bestowed upon him an M.B.E.

The same restlessness that seemed to drive his older brother, Gillmore, was found in Joshua. He wouldn't remain a barrister much past his listing in the 1921 Royal Geographic Society document mentioned above.

And it is in the next segment of Joshua Goodland's circuitous career path that he will meet—and inspire—George Mills!

Gillmore Goodland: A Fourth Look

After returning to England on 30 November 1912, the transoceanic travels of Mr. & Mrs. Gillmore Goodland, Esq., were put on hold. Ekaterinberg, Siberia, was on Gillmore's metaphorical plate [it was recorded as an address of his in a 1913 listing of the Fellows of the London Zoological Society; the Reptile House is seen, left], so he still may not have been spending much quality time at home with the wife and kids.

Would his wife, Kathleen, have accompanied him into Russia during his time there? Possibly. I'm not sure if spending time in Ekaterinberg would have been as big an attraction as, say, a winter in subtropical Mexico, an autumn in Jamaica, or a stay at an opulent hotel in New York or Boston at any time of the year. Czar Nicholas II and his deposed royal family, however, were at Ipatiev House [below, right] in Ekaterinberg (in which they were executed), so the city must have had something going for it besides the borscht. Still, I'm not sure what appeal six months in isolated Batopilas just before the Pancho Villa era would have had, either.

By 1914, the couple's children would have been older: Kathleen, 14; Joan; 13; and young Desmond (Gillmore) 3-going-on-4. Mother Kathleen would have been about 37, and Gillmore himself 43. They were settled in Surrey at Hovingshaw, Woldingham, an upscale suburb in Surrey, just a short rail commute from Victoria in London. Still over a decade from the Great Depression, life presumably would have been fine for the affluent Goodlands. Would they—could they—finally settle down from a life of international travel and spend time with those children?

In the Gazettes, however, there arose a word with which Gillmore had begun to familiarize himself back in 1905: Bankruptcy.

On 17 August 1914, the Edinburgh Gazette featured the following item:

"RECEIVING ORDERS. Gillmore Goodland, late of Hoving Shaw, Woldingham, Surrey, but whose present residence and place of business the petitioning creditors are unable to ascertain."

The date of filing petitions against Goodland was 6 February 1914, and by the date above, Gillmore was nowhere to be found. (If I were a wagering man, I think the smart money would have been on Wales.)

Gillmore Goodland, of course, had a highly regarded barrister on his side—his brother, Joshua, recently out of Cambridge with a Master's Degree in Law that may largely have been paid for by Gillmore. Joshua Goodland's practice, situated on King's Bench Walk near the Temple was adjacent to those of many of London's most renowned legal minds.

Given Gillmore's sudden disappearance, how much Joshua could have done for him was apparently along the lines of: Not much.

Gillmore was likely compensated with stock in Batopilas Mining, Smelting and Refining Co., Ltd., at least in part, for services rendered as a mining consultant. If a bankruptcy of the corporation had occurred, would I have been wrong to believe that his stock would have been worthless, precipitating a personal financial collapse?

Yes, I would have. That was clearly not the case. My original assumption of the downfall of the company was completely incorrect.

An item from a 1915 edition of the Standard Corporation Service (Daily Revised) read:

"BATOPILAS MINING CO.: Operations in Mexico to Be Resumed.—On Aug. 28 1914, Secretary [Edgar W.A.] Jorgensen announced that the company's staff of Americans had left El Paso en route to the mines at Batopilas, Mexico [pictured, right], in charge of John R. Harbottle, who was appointed General Manager. More active operations will now be carried on, although the business has been operated on a small scale under two of its most trusted Mexican employees since the former American staff left the mines in September, 1913, on receipt of President [Woodrow] Wilson's warning for all Americans to leave the country."

Not only had the parent Batopilas corporation not bankrupted, it hadn't even fully shut down operations during that violent time!

Here's what a website called sparknotes.com had to say about President Woodrow Wilson of the United States and 1913's Mexican crisis:

"In 1913, Mexico fell into a bloody revolution when Mexican general Victoriano Huerta overthrew the nation's government and declared himself its military dictator. Wilson immediately denounced Huerta, declaring that the United States could not and should not recognize violent dictators who seized government in pursuit of their own agendas. The President attempted to initiate peaceful negotiations between Huerta and the usurped government, but both sides refused to submit to his proposal. Unsure how to proceed, Wilson permitted Huerta's enemies, the Constitutionalists, to purchase military equipment and arms in the U.S. in order to stage a counterrevolution.

When the dictator's army seized a small group of American sailors on shore leave in Mexico, Wilson demanded an apology. He also demanded that Huerta publicly salute the American flag in Mexico, which Huerta naturally refused to do. Wilson responded with force: in April 1914, he sent American Marines to take and occupy Veracruz, Mexico's primary seaport. Veracruz was taken, but eighteen Americans were killed in the battle. Not wanting to commit the U.S. to war, Wilson also requested the ABC powers–Argentina, Brazil, and Chile–to mediate the dispute. With their arbitration, the conflict was eventually resolved. Huerta fled the country, and a new government was established in 1915 under the leadership of Constitutionalist President Venustiano Carranza."

The Batopilas Mining, Smelting and Refing Co., Ltd., had been registered on 3 August 1909 and its London offices, and Gillmore Goodland's personal office as a free lance consulting engineer, were one and the same: 17, Gracechurch Street, London, E.C. Goodland was a Board Member, meaning he owned at least 100 shares of stock.

According to the 1912 edition of The Mexican Yearbook, as of 19 December 1911, the parent company, Batopilas Mining Co. of New York, had shown a profit of £3834 that year, and had £36,051 in cash at bankers, and £2443 in outstanding debts. Estimated operating expenses were £9000 a year, so it seems that the company should have been able to weather the storm of about a year operating on a skeleton crew from September 1913 to August 1914.

In 1912, Goodland is also listed as the Batopilas Mining Company's official "General Manager," according to that year's The Manual of Statistics: Stock Exchange Hand-book, Volume 34. His address in that text is given as "Batopilas, Mex." The rest of the board has New York adresses.

In Moody's Analyses of Earnings, Part 2 (1916), under an entry for the American-owned Batopilas Mining Company, it reads: "On March 10, 1914, the Batopilas Mining, Smelting and Refining Co., Ltd., of London, England (a company incorporated under the English Companies Act of 1908, with an authorized capital of £300,000 and controlled by the Batopilas Mining Co.) was dissolved [by liquidation]."

The same entry also lists the company's surplus (in Mexican currency) after each of the years ending 31 December: $160,093 in 1912, $120,137 in 1913, and $21,112 in 1914. Apparently, liquidation of the London part of the firm was seen as necessary, despite the surpluses, given the circumstances. It's doubtful that Gillmore agreed.

I'm no accountant, but the article delineates the assets and liabilities of the company in each of those three years as well, and in each one (1912 – 1914) both numbers are identical to the penny. Is that likley, or just smart bookkeeping?

I am also unsure if or how how any stock dividends may have been paid by the London Batopilas company, but Batopilas of New York City [pictured, left], as of 1916, had not paid investors a dividend since 1907—before the creation of the London company.

Now, am I correct in assuming that a liquidation of the London Batopilas company would not necessarily have made Gillmore Goodland unfit to be kept on as General Manager? I assume he could easily have been retained.

But would I be wrong in thinking that, when Batopilas of New York decided it needed a new General Manager after the initial phase of the Mexican Revolution in 1914, it may have been that Gillmore was not looked kindly upon due to his personal bankruptcy, his disappearance to avoid creditors, and the fact that he already had been jailed once in Batopilas because of a conflict with a local white collar employee?

Or could it be that, since Mexico was in a period of civil unrest and Civil War, Goodland had resigned as General Manager?

No matter, he was not named the new G.M., and he was apparently in serious trouble.

Via the Gazettes, we know creditors didn't know his whereabouts, and a 1915 issue of a journal called the Bulletin of the American Institute of Mining Engineers published a brief item trying to locate him as well: "Gillmore Goodland. There is held at this office considerable mail matter addressed to Mr. Goodland from London, England, and we would be pleased to get in touch with him and ascertain what to do with this mail."

To where had Goodland disappeared, and who went with him?

I suppose at the time—and perhaps even today—it might be wise to put an ocean or two between one's creditors and oneself, and that's exactly what Gillmore did.

On 17 July 1915, Goodland sailed out of Liverpool on the S.S. Philadelphia [left] and into New York on 25 July. On that manifest, his address is listed as "Hovingshaw, Woldingham," with his wife, "Mrs. K. Goodland" still in residence.

Interestingly, Gillmore's final destination is listed as "New York, N.Y.," specifically the "Hotel Belmont, 42nd Street, New York." Bankruptcy proceedings apparently did nothing to change Gillmore's tastes. He eschewed other destinations on the manifest such as the Richmond Hotel and the Hotel St. James.

What’s particularly interesting here is Gillmore's claim that his last visit to the United States had been in "1913." There is simply no record of him entering the United States during that year. Again, is this just a minor error, or has Goodland established a pattern of providing a variety of different information on immigration forms when entering the U.S.?

And could the fact that he had not actually been to Batopilas in a couple of years and was not what Americans would call a "hands on" manager?

Perhaps it was the rich mining areas of Mexico calling him to him once more, revolution or no; perhaps it was simply to escape creditors; nevertheless, Goodland was heading to the luxurious Hotel Belmont again.

This time he was alone.

Despite Goodland's ability to stay at the posh Belmont after his voyage, it seems probable that his family would have been unable to stay at Hovingshaw in Woldingham in perpetuity if this 1915 trip bore no fruit. What would happen next?

Gillmore, a "civil engineer" according to the manifest of the Philadelphia, was again in comfortable surroundings, perhaps ones in which he could repair the damage done to his life and career. Perhaps he was on his way to the New York offices of Batopilas Mining Company to make a plea for a job, or even to delineate exactly how he could help them turn even more of a profit in the future, now that the corporation found its surplus diminishing.

Could he manage it? He had clearly missed the annual board meeting held the third Tuesday of each April in the offices at 45 Broadway in New York City. He'd have to hope for good luck.

So would the rest of the world…

Gillmore Goodland: A Third Look

When we last left Joshua Goodland's brother, Gillmore, he was stepping off the steam ship Campania in the harbour of Fishguard in Wales in the company of his wife, Kathleen, in July 1911. They had departed the previous October, soon after the birth of their first son, Gillmore (Desmond), leaving the infant in Wales, where Goodland's younger sister, Grace, lived. The Goodlands' daughters, Kathleen and Joan, had likely been at boarding school since their parents' departure in 1910.

Had the Goodlands meant to stay in Batopilas, Chihuahua, Mexico, so long—missing the holidays with their children and possibly their son's first steps and first spoken word? There is no sure documentation of their intent, but we do know this about their lengthy stay, from this item entitled "The Mexican Penal Code" from Volume 34 of the journal Mining and Engineering World in 1911:

"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, on the charge of libel, or what the Mexican law calls injurias, brought by an ex-bookkeeper of the Batopilas Mining Company, whom he had discharged. The Batopilas Mining Company, a New York corporation, capitalized at $9000000, in order to obtain working capital for its mining operations, formed in London in the year 1909, with the aid of Mr. Goodland's connections, an English company, called the Batopilas Mining, Smelting and Refining Company, capitalized at £300000."

Scoping out some photos of Batopilas today [upper left], I hesitate to think of what it might have been like spending time in a Mexican jail back in 1911 when the town wasn't as urbane and sophisticated.

On the other hand, when silver actually was flowing from the mines back then, as well as cyanide, and it might actually have been more cosmopolitan to gringos with large bankrolls.

Given that we know Gillmore was a giant of a man, likely towering over the local oficials de policía as he was led away to jail on the charge of injurias, it must have been quite a scene. Throw in Goodland's Irish wife, probably not in a great mood over her husband's arrest and incarceration, and the scene would have had all the makings of a classic farce—if the two Goodlands weren't so very far from home, as well as from any real city.

Presumably whatever problems existed among Goodland, the Batopilas Mining, Smelting and Refining Co., Ltd., and his unnamed bookkeeper were smoothed over, allowing the Goodlands free reign to return to England that summer. Or is it possible that Gillmore was found guilty and did an unexpected month or two in jail?

Young Desmond (Gillmore) Goodland was just about a year old when his parents returned from Mexico in early July. Having been away for most of his tiny life, did he even remember his father and mother?

Daughters Kathleen and Joan would have been 11 and 10 respectively upon their parents' return to Great Britain. One can only speculate on what treasures and tales the girls' parents must have brought home!

The family was back together once again—at least until 1912.

On 10 January 1912, Gillmore and Kathleen sailed out of Liverpool once again, bound for New York on the S.S. Olympia [above, right]. They steamed into the Big Apple on 18 January.

Still a "consulting engr.," Gillmore still stood 6' 2" tall, but his wife had grown seven inches since 1910, supposedly standing a robust 5' 9". Both had fair hair and blue eyes, and were bound for their destination: The posh Hotel Belmont [left] in New York City.

Gillmore's new organization, Batopilas Mining, Smelting and Refining Co., Ltd., held annual meetings every April in New York City. This January arrival would seem to predate that event by quite a bit.

Strangely, however, I can find no record of either of the couple returning to England via steamship. (However a Mr. & Mrs. George Goodland did sail into Liverpool on 17 February.)

Anyway, the trail goes cold until 11 September 1912, when 40-year-old "mining engineer" Gillmore Goodland and his wife, Kathleen, once more set sail for the United States from London aboard the S.S. Minnehaha.

This time they were bound, not for New Yrok City, but the lavish Hotel Touraine [seen in 1910, below, right] in Boston.

This time they claim never to have been to the United States before, and Kathleen's place of birth is recorded as "London," while his is listed as "Woldingham." Perhaps, as a couple of veteran sea travelers, they were just having a bit of innocent sport at the expense of the clerks at the desks. Still, it seems odd.

Just one month later, on 17 October 1912, the couple once again steamed into New York City aboard the S.S. Almirante, having sailed from Kingston, Jamaica, on 12 October. In the line at Immigration, the Goodlands—who are listed as "Touring"—were in a queue with a British Salvation Army family called Maidment, traveling to Canada, a Jamaican merchant named Egbert S. Baird, and Cyril Abraham, a Jamaican mine superintendent.

Perhaps it's just a coincidence that they were "touring" with a mine superintendent who was heading to New York on "Business of short duration." And perhaps it's just a coincidence that, even today, mining rests alongside tourism as Jamaica's "leading earners of foreign exchange," according to Wikipedia. Not only does Jamaica produce alumina, but it is the world's fifth leading exporter of bauxite [St. Ann, Jamaica, mining area seen below, left].

Need I remind you that it seems Gillmore rarely traveled to locales that he couldn't also mine? I don't believe very much in coincidences.

This time, Gillmore provides his correct birthplace—Exmouth, England—and Kathleen finally makes us aware of the village in which she was born: Labasheeda, located at the estuary of the River Shannon.

After a month there, the Gillmores sailed out of New York and into Liverpool aboard the R.M.S. Baltic of the White Star Line [below, right], arriving on 30 November.

At this point, from 5 November 1910 through 30 November 1912—just over two calendar years, it isn't possible for the couple to have spent more than 12 months at the very most (and it was likely less) in England with their young children. And if the Goodlands did, indeed, attend the April 1912 board meeting of Baltopilas in New York City, they couldn't have spent more than 9 total months with the kids during those busy years.

Daughters Kathleen and Joan, now 12 and 11, had probably spent most of their time in boarding school in Surrey. It's also possible that, during holidays, they were charged to their Uncle Joshua and his family, who were living in London by then, or even to their nearby governess Aunt Margaret. We simply can't account for young Desmond (Gillmore) Goodland, who would have been 28 months old in late November 1912, and would have seen his parents precious little during that short lifetime. Was he still being raised by his Aunt Grace in Glamorganshire? Or was he now being cared for by kin nearer to Surrey?

Can we say at this point that the nuclear family of Gillmore Goodland probably was not particularly "close" during much of this time—either emotionally or geographically?

As far as we know, no one traveled overseas for the following few years—not until 1915. But during that span of time, an event would occur that would leave this nuclear family divided, and would spread the brothers and sisters of Joshua Goodland even further around the world.

Stay tuned…

Gillmore Goodland: A Second Look

We've already taken one look at the early life of Gillmore Goodland, brother of Joshua Goodland of our interest here. We've found that the ambitious young Gillmore was working [or attempting to work] for companies that mined gold and silver. Now, I know there were also copper and cyanide on the table in Mexico, at the very least, but is it wrong to suspect he may have had a consulting 'hand,' no matter how temporarily, in the mining of diamonds in South Africa?

Looking at the 1913 list of Fellows of the Zoological Society of London, we find Goodland's interests extend not just west and south, but eastward as well. We find he gives "Ekaterineberg, Siberia," [left, in 1910] as one of his addresses.

We recently looked at how construction of a railway influenced the development of gold mining in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), and how Goodland soon found himself in that steamy locale.

Similarly, in Ekaterinberg, we find a railway system beginning in the mid-19th century in Russia that concluded with an Ekaterinberg – Chelyabinsk line in 1897 that "allowed Ekaterinberg to join the general railway network of the country." The value of the commercial interests in Ekaterinberg was estimated at 25 millions of rubles per year with the advent of rail transport and its position as a geographically intermediate city between Europe and Asia.

As early as 1807, Ekaterinberg had become the mining center of Russia. Of the city's history, the website ekaterinberg-ural.com writes: "Ekaterinburg of Russia took the leading position in cast iron and copper production, guns and cannon-balls casting, cold steel manufacture, and other spheres. In addition, metallurgical and metal mining plants of the Ural and Siberia had their Headquarters in Ekaterinburg. The Headquarters had different names in different periods of time. It was called Siberian Supreme Mining Command, Ober-Bergamt, Ural Mining Administration. It comprised several structures: mining courts, mining police, central mining drugstore and the city’s garrison submitted to the chief of the mining plants of the Ural Mountains."

Between 1807 and the revolution in 1917, the population had grown from 10,000 to almost 72,000 inhabitants.

Still, in June 1909, when Gillmore became a member of the Zoological Society, he wasn't traveling in the Siberian summer, a time when one might think it would be best to visit the mines.

No, on 13 June 1909, Gillmore was crossing the Rio Grande into sultry El Paso, Texas, from Mexico, presumably traveling from the mining area of Batopilas in the mountains near the Pacific.

Goodland, 37, stood at the end of a line of Mexicans, just ahead of a German lawyer named Herman Gans. Gillmore was listed as a "mining eng." in "transit," his last permanent residence having been Chihuahua, Mexico. His destination was "New Quay, England," and his wife "Catherine Goodland" (actually "Kathleen").

Paperwork filed with the Immigration Service at the Mexican Border District on behalf of the Department of Commerce and Labor give some details of the appearance of Gillmore Goodland, a man quite a bit different from his diminutive, 5 foot 9 inch brother Joshua.

Gillmore stood 6'3" tall (although other manifests record him as merely 6'2"), with light brown hair (although on some manifests, he is blonde), blue eyes, with a light complexion and a mole over his right eye. He must have been an impressive man at the turn of the 20th century, and a veritable Goliath among the Indians in the mountains of Chihuahua.

He was carrying $200 and had travelled in the United States for the first time while making a trip from New York City to El Paso, on his way south, in May of the same year. Under Rule 41e, there was no "head tax" on Gillmore, and when asked about his physical condition, the words "Dr. Says Good" are transcribed, although we don't know if the physician or Gillmore himself uttered those words.

Gillmore then proceeded home to Newquay [right] aboard the Lusitania of the Cunard Line, sailing out of New York and arriving in Liverpool on 26 July 1910 (at immigration, the person behind him in line this time was another British citizen named Alfred Hitchcock, which may be of interest to no one but me). Gillmore had spent just a month in Mexico, but was calling it a "permanent residence." Then he spent well over a month trying to get home to England. What was his rush?

By this time, Gillmore had two daughters, Kathleen, who was born in 1901, and Joan Lillis, born in 1902. In the late summer of 1910, the Goodlands would have a son, registered at the time (Jul-Aug-Sep) as "Gillmore," but known in most subsequent records as "Desmond." The birth was recorded in Godstone, Surrey, indicating that in the year after Gillmore's return from Chihuahua, the family had relocated from Cornwall to Surrey.

Would I be wrong in assuming that such a geographical move may have been prompted by economic success?

What's unclear is why Gillmore would have set sail for Mexico with a pregnant wife if he had intended to return for the birth. Perhaps he didn't know she was pregnant when he departed. A close to full-term late summer birth would imply a winter conception. Pegging travel from Cornwall to Chihuahua via New York and El Paso at about a month, and knowing Gillmore passed into Mexico in May, he must've left England in April.

It's conceivable that Gillmore was unaware of Kathleen's condition—but she was probably 5 to 7 months pregnant at that point. Is it likely she herself didn't know? Or is it possible there were unexpected medical complications that were wired to Goodland, who originally had left fully expecting to miss the birth entirely ?

Anyway, by this point, Joshua Goodland had earned his Master's Degree in Law from Cambridge and was beginning his career as a barrister in London. He and his wife, Florence, may have been a help to Kathleen during that summer.

In fact, the Gillmore Goodlands time spent with their infant son, Desmond, would be quite brief. On 5 November, the S.S. Arabic, sailing from Liverpool, steamed into New York City together. Goodland, 39, a "consulting eng.," and Kathleen, 29, provided the name and address of their nearest relative as "Brother J. Goodland, 9 King's Bench Walk, London," [left] near the Temple. Their own home was given as "Woldingham," and their destination was "Mex."

Incidentally, Gillmore is listed here as being 6' 2½ ", and Kathleen as 5' 2".

Why Kathleen would have traveled with him at this point, leaving behind a son who could have been no older than 4 months, is anyone's guess. I suppose she might have been ordered to recover and get some "sea air," convalescing after a dangerous birth. What is clear is that barrister Joshua Goodland is now Gillmore's closest relative, and not merely geographically.

By the 1911 census, taken on 2 April, the Goodlands had not yet returned to their new relatively new home in Woldingham. The girls, Kathleen and Joan, are in Godstone, Surrey, according to the count, but we don't know exactly where. There ages were 10 and 9, respectively, so they may have been at boarding school.

The infant Desmond ("Gillmore") is found in Cardiff, Galmorganshire, Wales, fast approaching one year of age, and likely with his aunt, Grace Goodland, who was also living in Cardiff at the time.

It would be 5 July 1910 before Gillmore and Kathleen Goodand would set foot in Great Britain again, sailing out of New York City on the Cunard Line's S.S. Campania [right]. They didn't sail all the way to Liverpool, however, disembarking at Fishguard in Wales.

The Goodlands would have been soon reunited with their baby, Desmond, and presumably set off immediately to see their daughters back in Surrey after some 10 months away.

How long would the Goodlands be home in England after their long winter and spring spent in the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico? And what, exactly, happened there in Mexico?

We'll look at that next time.