The Winifred Hughes Coincidence

Last year in late March I obsessively transcribed the text of an item in The Times from April 1925 [left, and below, right] describing the wedding of George Ramsay Acland Mills and Vera Louise Beauclerk. Both families to some degree had ties to peerage, and the guest list attending the ceremony in Brompton and reception at the Hans Crescent Hotel was fairly extensive. It took me the better part of a morning to get it all down, given my proclivity to hunt-and-peck at the keyboard.

Three weeks later, on 17 April, I was contacted for the first time by Barry McAleenan regarding George Mills. Barry, as you may recall, had been aware that Mills taught at Ladycross Catholic Boys' Preparatory School in Seaford during the summer term of 1956. You may recall Barry writing:

I only vaguely remember Mr Mills and suspect that he used snuff. Many of his books were in the school library and I'm sure I read them as one of the key characters was called Pongo - which was slang at the time for the Army, as in 'the pongos are going in to Suez'… I cannot remember if I was taught by him - the chances are that he was only there that one summer term; the classes were small and I was only 10 at the time; he was very old in the days when being 40 was ancient and my teachers are only remembered for being gifted (rare) or abusive.

Barry, however, also pointed out another person in the photograph, although not right away. Two weeks later, Barry wrote:

Miss Winifred Hughes, mentioned in George Mills's wedding guest list [seen, right] was the name of the school nurse at Ladycross. This does not mean that they were the same person. She is third from the right in the central part of the 1956 school photo [click to see it]. She last appeared in the 1974 school photo and could have retired when she hit 65 - implying that she was born in c1909. Mainly remembered for giving us a monthly dose of 'rhubarb and soda' - an unnecessary and unpleasant laxative comprising washing soda flavoured with rhubarb. It's almost possible that she may have introduced George Mills to the school ...

So a Winifred Hughes was on the wedding list of George Mills and in attendance at Ladycross in 1956. That coincidental information simmered on my back burner for almost a year—until I explored the croquet playing of the Mills siblings in Budleigh Salterton.

That's when Barry also pointed out in the group 1957 Devonshire Park croquet photograph: "The man at 9 in the photo, E.A. 'Tony' Roper was the former (till 1954) headmaster of Ladycross."

So we find yet another connection between George Mills and Ladycross School, although it certainly doesn't prove that Miss Winifred Hughes attended George's wedding was the same rhubarb-pushing "Sister" at Ladycross, circa 1956! [Barry also has determined she is pictured in Ladycross photographs as late as 1974.]

Incidentally, for the clarification of American readers like myself, Barry adds: "Convents/workhouses and then hospitals shared staff titles [like "Sister"] by evolution... She had been a senior nurse in a hospital - a clinical role. Her colleague [at a school] would have been a matron - having domestic and laundry responsibilities."

He recalled this Sister Hughes [left] as: "[I]n her 50's - a devout Catholic and rather cheerless. She usually wore a short red cape."

How many women named Winifred Hughes populated England at the time? Many. Would there be a way of winnowing away the chaff while searching for this Winifred Hughes?

The real key to the identity of the Winifred attending the wedding of George Mills and Vera Beauclerk on 23 April 1925 rests in the name of the guest who accompanied Miss Hughes: "Theodosia Lady Hughes and Miss Winifred Hughes" were in attendance together.

Assuming they were mother and daughter, that means that the Winifred Hughes at the wedding was Winifred Emily Frederica Hughes, who we know inherited £4897 10s. 5d. after Theodosia's passing in 1931. [Even more money was left to someone we can only assume would have been Winifred's brother, a Frederic James Robert Hughes, esquire.]

The trouble is that no one by the name 'Winifred Emily Frederica Hughes' ever was born or died in the UK, or anywhere else I can find for that matter, according to those databases! That name produces no results in Google, either. While she may, indeed, have been referred to by family and friends as Winnie, Millie, or Freddie, those names would not have appeared on U.K. documents recording her birth or death

Her only existence is a probate document [below, right] describing her inheritance after Theodosia's 1931 death in Surrey, as mentioned above.

Regarding attendance at the nuptials, some connection to Vera Beauclerk's family seems probable. The Miss Hughes on the list attended the affair with Lady Theodosia Hughes, who would have ben an in-law to another wedding attendee that day, Mrs. Topham Beauclerk, whose full maiden name was Gwendolen Loftus Hughes, 4th daughter of Capt. Sir Frederic Hughes, and mother of the 13th Duke of St. Albans, Charles Frederic Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk (1915-1988).

Perhaps it's just another in a line of coincidences, but Lady Theodosia's late husband, Capt. Sir Frederic (official documents show no "k") Hughes of County Wexford, Ireland, had fathered a daughter, Winifred Emily Frederica (the lone official document again shows no "k") Hughes.

He also sired another daughter, artist Kathleen Myra Hughes (sometimes Myra Kathleen Hughes), who was a noted artist who was associated with Seaford in early 20th century. Yet another Seaford connection!

M. K. Hughes, by the way, is listed in the Dictionary of Women Artists: An International Dictionary of Women Artists Born Before 1900 by Chris Petteys (Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1985).

Hughes studied in London at the Westminster School of Art and the Royal College of Art where she trained in engraving and etching by Frank Short and Constance Potts. She exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Paris Salon, and was elected an associate of the Royal Society of Painter Etchers and Engravers in 1911.

Frank Short's career was notable because of his association with, and depictions of, Seaford, Sussex, where Hughes drew the etching seen at the left.

And here's something interesting: That artist (and spinster), M. K. Hughes (born in 1877) had died in 1918 at about the age of 40 in Surrey. Her probate records show that her own relatively substantial estate (£3825 9s. 5d.) passed on to—You may already have guessed it!—the mysterious "Winifred Emily Fredericate [sic] Hughes spinster" in 1920.


Let's take a look at some other documentation.

In 1897, Hughes, Lady (Theodosia) is listed in Who's Who: "d. of Edward James of Swarland Park, Northumberland; widow of Capt. Sir Frederic Hughes, Kt. Rosslaw Fort, Wexford."

Dod's Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, of Great Britain and Ireland in 1901 further described her in this way: "m. 1871 as his 2nd wife, Sir Frederic Hughes, D.L., J.P., late capt. 7th Madras cavalry, and knight of the order of the Lion and Sun of Persia, who died 1895. Residences—Barntown House and Rosslare Fort, Wexford."


The London Gazette of 29 July 1919 published a list of 31 July recipients of the Royal Red Cross to "the under-mentioned Ladies in recognition of their valuable nursing services in connection with the War." Among the honorees, we find:

Miss Winifred Hughes, A.R.R.C., Sister, Q.A.I.M.N.S.R., Berrington War Hospital, Shrewsbury.

Berrington War Hospital [right] at Shrewsbury was later known as Cross Houses Hospital. Whether this Winifred Hughes was also George's 1925 wedding guest, I don't know, but it is likely that she would be Ladycross's Sister Hughes. (The title "Sister," by the way, in the QAIMNS Reserves, now QARANC, would seem to have implied a military rank similar to a lieutenant).

There isn't much else known here except what Barry recalls: "Now that you've mentioned Winifred Emily Frederica Hughes's full name, I have this notion that when she wrote out chits (at Ladycross), she signed them WEFH - but this has to be very unreliable after 55 years. It's also possible that her name may have been spelt Frederika or Frederike. I'm not convinced that she [Lady Theodosia's daughter] is necessarily the same person as in the 1974 photo. Just forensic reticence I suppose."


That is exactly why Barry is so invaluable to Who Is George Mills? Whereas I might get a running start and pitch myself headlong upon a conclusion that these Winifred Hugheses were one and the same, his reticence keeps me in check, and I appreciate it very much. Here's what we actually know:

● George Mills taught at Ladycross School in Seaford, east Sussex, in 1956.

● George Mills played croquet with E. A. "Tony" Roper in East Sussex in 1957.

● Roper had been Head Master at Ladycross through 1954.

● The nurse at Ladycross during those years was a Sister Winifred Hughes.

● A Miss Winifred Hughes attended the wedding of George Mills in 1925.

● That Miss Winifred Hughes was a relative (in-law) of George's wife, Vera Beauclerk.

● That familial relationship stemmed from Winifred's half-sister, Gwendolen Hughes, marrying Aubrey Topham Beauclerk.

● Winifred's half-sister, M. K. Hughes, was an artist of some renown whose mentor was Frank Short of Seaford, Sussex, a locale which Hughes herself often depicted as well.

● Myra Kathleen Hughes [whose works from the British Museum are seen above, left, and at right] was close enough to Winifred to leave her sizable estate solely to her, despite having at the very least other sisters (or half-sisters) Gwendolen Loftus and Georgina Theodosia, and likely a brother, Frederic, mentioned above.

● Two women named "Winifred Hughes" (no middles names in the records) passed away in Sussex after 1974—one, born in 1894, died in the Lewes district(encompassing Seaford) in 1977, and one, born in 1896, left us in not-too-far-off Brighton in 1986.

● Both would have been about the same age as George Mills.


Perhaps Mills coincidentally knew two different women named Winifred Hughes, of the same approximate age, at different times in his life. And each also had an attachment to Seaford, East Sussex.

Could these women have been the same person? Or is this simply an amusing coincidence that would have had George remarking, "Miss Winifred Hughes? My! I once had an in-law, long ago, called Miss Winfred Hughes, and her sister so loved to come here to Seaford to sketch!"

And, as always, if you can help determine if these two Winifreds are one and the same—or not—please don't hesitate to contact me, and thank you in advance for your help!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They arrived in Honolulu on 21 March.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sheikhs, Spinsters, and the Local Standard of Beauty

I'm not sure when Lady Dorothy Mills suffered her 1929 automobile accident returning from Ascot, but by 29 November she was not sufficiently recovered to be permitted by her medical advisors to attend a benefit in London for the King Edward's Hospital Fund and recount some of her African adventures.

A year later, in 1930, she published A Different Drummer: Chapters in Autobiography, a memoir presumably written during recovery from an accident that "left her scarred for life."

It's unclear at this point whether or not the 'scarring' referred to is literal or not. Either way, we already have seen that Lady Dorothy has some self-image issues related to her body. Those issues are touched upon in this newspaper piece from The Argus [Melbourne, Australia] on Saturday, 8 November 1930, and are almost used as a punch-line after 1600 or so words on the topics of romance, marriage, and divorce.

Lady Dorothy comments on younger women capturing the attentions of older men, and about the lack of faithfulness of "Sheikhs" once a wife, who once had been showered with poetry and promises, finds she has eventually become "old and ugly."

These adventures must have taken place years before, but they may have taken on new meaning to Lady Dorothy as she was convalescing, much of the time probably spent in her home on Ebury Street in London. It was a home she shared with her novelist husband, Arthur Mills. Was she concerned about Arthur, now that she was 41 years of age, had recently suffered serious injuries unlike any of the discomforts she endured on the road, and was still likely far thinner than she knew the men of England at the time would "admire."

[Update: After sleeping on it, I also can't help but wonder how, after a few years, husband Arthur felt about Lady D. repeatedly regaling friends, family, and the public at airshows and the like with tales of these amorous advances in wild but romantic locales, and how she always led on each fellow and evoked more information about his"proposal". I'll admit, if my wife, Janet, came back from a holiday with such tales, I might be a bit jealous, if not utterly miffed.]

Does she sense here that a page has been turned in her life, and that love and/or marriage would never be the same for her again? Her life had once been filled with adventure, danger, and exotic locales; here she spins yarns on behalf of fantasizing spinsters who do not know the "truth" about men.

See what you think. Here's the complete newspaper text plugging her new autobiography:

DITH M. HULL'S novel is almost forgotten; Rudolph Valentino is dead. Yet for many women sheikhs—the sheikhs of fiction—still have a curious fascination. Lay Dorothy Mills, the author and traveller, who is the daughter of the Earl of Orford, has no illusions about them. She has travelled since she was a child. Among her most conspicuous achievements are those of being the first Englishwoman to visit Timbuctoo and of leading an expedition through Liberia. During her travels she has met many sheikhs—she has even been proposed to by two—and she writes amusingly of her experiences with these great lovers in a chapter entitled "Sheikh-Stuff" in her book "A Different Drummer." The title of her autobiography was taken from Thoreau: "And if a man does not keep step with his fellows, it may be that hears a different drummer."

Lady Dorothy Mills begins by describing an incident in a little tourist town of the North Algerian desert. In the dining room of the same hotel were 12 elderly English women under the care of a harassed, flurried looking courier. "They belonged to one of the less expensive tourist agencies which, in 10 days, from door to door, for ₤30 or thereabouts, give their clients a fleeting taste of the Sahara and its thrills." In the middle of the meal there entered the Caid of a nearby douar with whom Lady Dorothy was acquainted. "He was a tall, handsome, black-bearded man of about 40, with lordly deportment, immaculately dressed in embroidered burnous and snow-white turban, and his rank in life corresponded to that of an English country squire." He made a profound impression upon the 12 English spinsters, and Lady Dorothy basked in some reflected glory because the "sheikh" recognised and spoke to her. She had to answer many questions, and, despite the fact that she was disillusioning them, told the truth: "that the Caid had five wives, three living, one dead, and one divorced, that he had 11 children, that he had never killed anyone in his life, in fact, that he considered fighting uncivilised, that he was a peaceable, home-loving soul, chiefly interested in farming.

The Sheikh at His Best.

"And that is what the 'Sheikh' at his best generally is," adds Lady Dorothy Mills. "The hawk-eyed bit of proud, brown beauty that struts the market-place, causing havoc among the more susceptible tourists, is as often as not, but a hen-pecked householder, who spends his days in money-getting, and loves to play with his numerous children after the day's work. That is the 'Sheikh' at his best. At his worst, he may be a lot of other things, but he is rarely romantic."

There was another side of the incident of the 12 English spinsters. The Caid told Lady Dorothy Mills that he had noticed the interest which they had taken in him.

"Who are they?" he asked. "It was told me that it was an English milord, who travelled with his wives."

"When I denied the truth of this typically Arab conclusion," Lady Dorothy Mills says, "he answered with an equally typical one. 'I thought not,' he said. 'Had it been true, he would have chosen them younger and handsomer. That information, out of the kindness of her heart, Lady Dorothy Mills did not pass on.

"'A queen by night, a beast of burden by day.' Thus, and pretty accurately, has an Arab writer summed up the position of an Arab wife," she says. "The Arab is fond of women as playthings, but he regards the subject of marriage very seriously, and his courtship is a matter of barter. When he finds himself financially able to support a wife and family, his parents search around among girls of marriageable age, that is to say, about 13 or 14, and of suitable requirements, possessing money, virtue, good health and temper, and, if possible, good looks. The girl found, the parents of both young people haggle for days or weeks or months over a dowry, which varies according to her share of the above-mentioned assets. No personal inclination of hers carries any weight, and the young man takes it for granted that his parents have done their best for him.

"They never see each other until the evening of the wedding, though the girl, if she be of the lower classes, may have caught a glimpse of him as, closely veiled, she passed through the streets. In very exceptional cases only can she obtain separation if he is unkind to her, but he on the contrary, can divorce her on any or no ground, providing he returns her dowry, by a few words spoken before the Cadi (town lawyer), for the sum of a few francs. This is certainly not the Koranic law, which is fair and generous in its treatment of women, but it is the custom-made law of the Arabs themselves, in a country where women's lack of education makes it impossible for her to assert her rights and privileges.

Hazards of Married Life.

"The young wife is lucky if her bride-groom is young and amiable; for sometimes he is old and repulsive, with a multiplicity of wives, regular and irregular, who may make her life a burden to her," Lady Dorothy Mills writes. "If she is young, though, maybe it is better for her to be the last wife than the first. For the Arab woman ages early and it is only a question of time, she knows, before her husband takes in marriage a younger, better looking girl, on whom he lavishes his kindness, his endearments, and his presents. As a sad little Arab wife said to me once: 'It is better to be the wife of an old man, the last and favoured one, than that of a young man and to grow despised and neglected in his service.' Luckily for her, the Arab woman is generally too ignorant to be dissatisfied, or to realise that there are greater possibilities of happiness than to simply be well fed and clothed by a husband who does not actively ill-treat her.

"Personally I have met many charming Arab gentlemen, some of whom I am honoured to number among my friends, but I would not marry one of them for all the wealth of the Sahara. And when I have mentioned this fact to them, and we have threshed out the subject; when, more especially, I have enumerated my requirements in a husband, with a grave smile most have admitted to me, from my point of view, to be right! Many Arab wives are happy after their fashion, for they know of no other order of things. But, however she may be beguiled by the imagery of the Sheikh's wooing, or the ardor of his assurances, the Sheikh will treat a white wife—if he can obtain one—just about the same as a brown one, once the novelty has worn off, and the fate of a few white women I have known who have married Arabs has been heartrending."

Although the Sheikh is not as romantic in his wooing, his language is poetic, at any rate to a European woman. Lady Dorothy Mills tells frankly of the two direct proposals of marriage which she has had from Arabs. "Neither flattered my self-esteem," she writes. "The first was from a very beautiful and resplendent creature of Northern Algeria, and his proposal was couched in all the vivid imagery of the 'Arabian Nights.' Among other things, he told me that my hands were like the little pink clouds that race the sky at dawn, and my face like the roses that bloom in a Sultan's garden; all of which pleased me very much! But he came down to earth with a bump when, out of curiosity, I began to probe for practical details."

A Sophisticated Arab.

The following dialogue is recorded:—

"You have already two wives," I told him, "and you know that we Europeans are not in the habit of sharing our husbands with other women."

"I am civilised, madame, I understand perfectly," he assured me. "And if you will marry me I will divorce them."

"But wouldn't you mind that?" I asked inquisitively.

"The elder one I should not mind; she is old and ugly. The younger one I should be a little sorry about, for she is pretty and good-tempered. But if you insisted I would divorce them both."

"But," said I, probing still further, "when my turn comes to be old and ugly, you will divorce me for a younger, prettier woman?" He shrugged his shoulders philosophically.

"Imshallah! If Allah wills!" he said.

"And that, I may add," Lady Dorothy Mills comments, "is what generally happens in Sheikh romances."

The other proposal was from a Caid of Southern Tunisia, "rough and uneducated, sixty and fat, with most of his front teeth missing, but he was a big chief in that wild country. Already he had three wives, two brown and one black, and now he wanted a white one to round off the quartet permitted him by the prophet. His proposal, through an interpreter, was conducted on the most correct lines, and the dowry he offered me was generous in sheep, cattle, and silk. But, he added, though he personally found me charming, I was far too thin to do credit, in the eyes of his people, to so great a chief, and he must make it a condition that I should partake of a local root called khalba, which his other wives would prepare for me, that was guaranteed in a very short time to fatten me up to the local standard of beauty."

It is doubtful, nevertheless, whether all the disillusioning things which Lady Dorothy Mills says in her entertaining book will counteract the romance with which the Sheikh has been invested by fiction and the films.

*"A Different Drummer," Chapters in Autobiography, by Lady Dorothy Mills (London:- Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd.); 11/6

Some Verisi-MILLS-itude!

Let's leave the domain of universities, colleges, and preparatory school and return to the internet. Since I last searched for George Mills, we've come up with middle initials: R. A. We've subsequently discovered that they stand for "Ramsay Acland".

Running a search using his full name revealed far more than I expected!

From ancestry.com: George Ramsay A. Mills died in Devonshire in 1972. He'd have been approximately 76 years old.

From thepeerage.com: George Ramsey Acland Mills was born in 1896. He is the son of Reverend Barton Reginald Vaughan Mills. He married Vera Louise Beauclerk, daughter of William Nelthorpe Beauclerk and Evelyn Amy Hart, on 28 April 1926.

So! "Miss Vera Beauclerc" is actually Vera Louise Beauclerk! This is where it really starts to get interesting! Here's the same site's information for Miss Beauclerk:

Vera Louise Beauclerk was born on 21 September 1893 at China. She was the daughter of William Nelthorpe Beauclerk and Evelyn Amy Hart. She married George Ramsey Acland Mills, son of Reverend Barton Reginald Vaughan Mills, on 28 April 1926. She died on 5 January 1942 at age 48. Her married name became Mills.

I soon realized that the real gold mine was in searching for Vera! From geneall.net and william1.co.uk, we find that Miss Beauclerk is listed as a descendant of William the Conqueror and the Dukes of St. Albans!

Here's a bit of information about her descent from the first Duke of St. Albans from cracroftspeerage.co.uk:

Mr William Nelthorpe Beauclerk mar. (2) 5 Sep 1892 Evelyn Amy Hart (d. 10 Jun 1933), 1st dau. of Sir Robert Hart, 1st Bt., GCMG, Inspector-General of Customs, China, and had further issue:

4b. Vera Louise Beauclerk (b. 21 Sep 1893; dsp. 5 Jan 1942), mar. 23 Apr 1925 George Ramsay Acland Mills (b. 1 Oct 1896; d. 1972), only son of Rev Barton Reginald Vaughan Mills, Vicar of Bude Haven, co. Cornwall, 1891-1901 and Assistant Chaplain of Royal Chapel of the Savoy 1901-08 (by his second wife Elizabeth Edith Ramsay, only dau. of Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay CB), 2nd but 1st surv. son of Arthur Mills MP, of Efford Down, Bude Haven, co. Cornwall, by his wife Agnes Lucy Acland, 2nd dau. of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Bt.

5b. Hilda de Vere Beauclerk (b. 21 Jan 1895; d. 16 Sep 1964), mar. 21 Jun 1933 Miles Malcolm Acheson, Chinese Maritime Customs Service, son of guy Francis Hamilton Acheson, and had issue.

Apparently, Mills and Vera Beauclerk "had no issue" and were childless at the time of her death in 1942.

From familysearch.org, we find exactly where Miss Beauclerk was born:

Gender: Female Birth: 21 SEP 1892 Chefoo,British Consulate, Chefoo, Shan-Tung, China

The date here would be just 16 days after the wedding date listed for William Nelthorpe Beauclerk and Evelyn Amy Hart above. Most sites list her birth year as 1893, over a year later—far more appropriate! There is also some issue above as to when Mills married Vera, 1925 or 1926. From the information provided by Dr. Houston, I had assumed he'd meant 1925, and that they had bought a house in Portslade at the same time. I'll choose to go with Dr. Houston's time line and stick with 1925 as the wedding year.

Be it either in 1925 or 1926, however, George Mills seems to have married into a line of royal blood dating back to William I. It seems that, unfortunately, it ended there with him. No descendants for the couple, George and Vera Mills are listed.

As an American, I'm uncertain as to what advantages that might have brought to George. I've seen BBC comedies in which, for example, a cousin of the Queen, born in Russia and 20 times removed, is delivered to a locale via limousine and provided with advance CID security. Of course, that's just television.

It's odd, but I don't envision Mills driving up to Windlesham House or Warren Hill in a Rolls Royce to teach English every morning.

In fact, I wonder how a fellow who didn't graduate Oxford, served as a private and lance corporal in the First World War, taught in a prep school as a "junior appointment", and authored slang-filled children's books ended up listed on the rolls whose intent is calculating one's nearness royalty.

Finally, how would his 17 years or so as an in-law of the Duke of St. Albans have affected the unknown portion of his life, from then until his death in 1972? Excuse me for wondering, but without children to relate him to the Beauclerks, how close might he have been? And how financially sound might his marriage to a woman of royal blood have left him?

These links all tie him to Vera Beauclerk. Might he have remarried, though? Might there be descendants of Mills after all?

Again, as seen above, it's been far easier to find information about the history of George Mills and his lineage than about his life after the publications of his books from 1933 to 1939.

What Mills did in the 30 years is wife's passing in 1942 and his own demise in 1972 is the beginning of the real mystery of his life.