Summarizing George Mills: A Final Perspective

Much of our story here involving George Mills has revolved to a great degree around one thing lately: Religion. However, there certainly are many threads running through his story, and in this—oddly my 300th and hopefully not my final post— we'll begin to summarize, to some degree, what we have learned about George's life.


The Mills Family and Catholicism

It seems odd, at least to an American viewing it from the vantage point of the 20th century, that George's father, the Revd Barton R. V. Mills, converted to Roman Catholicism while attending Oxford around 1883 and then took a series of positions as an Anglican vicar afterwards, eventually ending up as assistant chaplain at the Chapel Royal of the Savoy in London, and doing a segment of Queen Victoria's funeral service. No one else seems surprised or very much cares save one man: The current chaplain of the Savoy, Peter Galloway, who simply chooses to disbelieve, preferring the strange point of view that the public record of the conversion of Mills must be in error.

I guess that's why they call it "faith."

In fact, I recently wrote to a Church of England vicar of today to ask about the relations among the Anglican Church, the High Church, the Low Church, Anglo-Catholicism, and Roman Catholicism. I let him know that some very learned people in the U.K. have expressed directly to me that there's really not much difference at all, especially today, and that it's unlikely anyone cared very much back then, either—hence the vicarages and the chaplaincy to the Savoy being awarded to Mills.

Like most people I've contacted who are involved with the Church, that vicar never bothered to reply to a collegial request for research assistance from an educator. (Just an aside: When clerics contact scholars, do they expect assistance in their own research? If so, that would be quite hypocritical!)

In lieu of that learned opinion, the difference between the Anglican Church and Roman Catholicism seems, however, to have been a big enough deal for some people actually to make the effort to convert from the Church of England to Roman Catholicism, and to form specific religious societies, and publishing houses, and the like, especially when converting was 'of the moment' in the early 20th century.

I think it might a bigger surprise that George Mills was friendly with Roman Catholic converts, frequenting their haunts, publishing with their publishers, and basically living a very Roman Catholic life, all the way through to his funeral service at the Catholic Church of St. Peter's in Budleigh Salterton (as opposed to the St. Peter's C of E there), than it is that he might've been gay, for example, as we recently heard discussed.

Given the overtly Catholic nature of many of George's friends, religion seems to have been the windmill at which Mills tilted most as the son of an Anglican vicar—even if his father also had been a closet Roman Catholic—in an extended family involved fully in Church of England. His sexuality would seem to have been secondary.

Having moved away from the Church of England also seems to be an explanation why distant relatives living today simply don't know the "Barton R. V. Mills" twig on their branch of the family tree exists, let alone anything about any of the Mills family. Honestly, except for a few recollections by a few ancient relatives of George's Uncle Dudley Acland Mills, now living in Canada who do know, but apparently are not interested in the Mills family at all!


A Childless and Forgotten Family

It didn't help that all four of the Rev. Barton Mills's children died childless (unless George's brother, Arthur, had late-in-life offspring I can't locate), but there's something more to the fact that virtually no one knows or cares who these people are or that they even existed.

Except, to some degree, for the women who married into the Mills family.

In the case of Vera Beauclerk (Mrs. George Mills), her family today bviously knows about her, and she's easy to trace—being descended from William the Conqueror.

Considering Edith Ramsay (Mrs. Barton Mills, George's mother), her surviving family today knows of her, but not very much, even to the point of having documented her Christian name incorrectly [as Elizabeth]. It's as if she dropped off the very face of the Earth when she left her nuclear family after marrying Barton Mills and moving to Kensington, just blocks from Buckingham Palace. Of Edith's parents, much is known today, including the possession of a great deal of ephemera, much of which has appeared among these pages. Of Edith herself: Nothing, save the image of her as a toddler in the montage at left.

The last in-law, Lady Dorothy Mills (née Walpole, Arthur's first wife), maintained a high profile of her own as an author/explorer until a horrific car accident drove her into retirement, despite the fact that her family quite literally disowned her for marrying a soldier. They divorced in 1933. Also childless, she has been allowed to fade into obscurity since her death in 1959.

Her onetime husband, George's half-brother Arthur, apparently barely acknowledged his family, and is the best-kept secret of all the Mills siblings.


Something is amiss in all of that.

George, Arthur, and their spinster sisters—Agnes and Violet; very athletic girls, into the Girl Guides and scouting, who never found mates at all and were devoted to George, and he them—were an entire little family all of whom, sadly, had failed to reproduce to continue the family name.

Still: Why does almost no one recall that these people ever were?


George Mills at School

George had been in a great deal of pain in his life and not all of it could have been addressed with an aspirin or two. Physically slight of build, with varicose veins as a boy, and saddled with a speech impediment [possibly a lisp like his sister Aggie's, causing an unclear voice], I can see why he would've preferred sensitivity in the people around him—but boys at school probably tormented him. He basically washed out as a young scholar, spending a brief two years at Harrow. He would not have excelled at something he always loved: Sport, especially cricket. Stronger, more confident, less sensitive boys would have made his life miserable in a variety of ways, even unknowingly.

George had stockpiled many regrets based on his own preparatory schooling.


George Mills during World War I

I don't see Mills's life having been much better as a "Grade III" army recruit (unfit for most military duties) in the service during the First World War. Except for his time in the Army Pay Corps, the corps where the friend and fellow B-III, Egerton Clarke, was also assigned, the slightly built and sensitive Mills must have faced similar torments to those he'd known at school.

The army was another place where Mills would have been a failure: He was a washout as a soldier, a washout as a APC clerk, and a fellow who had been determined fit only to be a "fatigue man"—the lowest form of military life, with virtually no hope of promotion. And things, as we've seen, got worse for him after his friend Egerton was hospitalized and demobilised, leaving George in Winchester alone.


George Mills at Oxford

After having been demobilised himself, George attended Oxford for three years or so and managed to leave without having taken a degree or a single examination to earn one. The academic and social discipline required by an institution like Oxon would have been a struggle for Mills, who had lived a sheltered life, especially in regard to having been allowed to 'quit' when the going got tough, as they say, during his preparatory schooling.

Without that degree, gaining a career in which he could have been a success—and make his father (twice an Oxford graduate) proud—would prove then to be difficult.


George Mills As a Non-Author

As a youth grown into a man, George Mills had been the only male member of his immediate family who had not published a book, from his paternal grandfather on down! While that may never had been said to him directly, when the men all were discussing their books and their publishers, George had to know he was the only one just listening.


George Mills, Schoolmaster, 1926 – 1933

Failed as a schoolboy and scholar and failed in the military, by 1933 we know George also failed to hold down a regular teaching job for very long. He had moved from school to school as a teacher between 1924 and 1933 (one assignment being as far afield as Switzerland) in search of a situation. This presumably meant time spent away from his family, and even his wife.

Something during this time, however, 'clicked' for Mills.

It seems to have been spurred by his relationship with Joshua Goodland at Warren Hill School in Meads, Eastbourne [below, left]. Although Goodland had managed to take two degrees during his seven years at Cambridge, he never fully settled into a career. Goodland was an occupational nomad, veering from a career in teaching to becoming an architect, and following that, a career in law. He then returned to teaching and became Head Master at Warren Hill before eventually turning to his final vocation, serving as a vicar in the Church of England.

Goodland was a diminutive but passionate man, older than George, who had traveled around the world and possessed a myriad of skills and talents, but who lacked a sort of stick-to-it-ness (as we say in the States) that would have inspired the erratic young Mills to find success in his own life in a similar way: Not necessarily along a single, direct career path, but divergently.


In 1932, Barton Mills, George's father, passed away. This simultaneous event, a tragedy, also seems to have been a catalyst and clearly a pivotal point in George's life.


Vindication of His Failures

Mills tackled his lifelong failure issues seemingly one at a time, and began to assemble a future. Whether or not this was consciously done, we cannot tell.

He seems to have gained a great deal from his time spent at Oxford, even if he didn't earn a degree. He met and had been exposed to a sensitive class of fellows who, rather than hurting George, seem to have understood him—perhaps that was something he'd never experienced within his own family—and those well-educated men even liked and cared about him. He learned about himself as a person, as well as receiving reinforcement regarding his faith in Catholicism.

His university experience planted many seeds that would later begin to flourish.


George Mills Returns to Prep School

Some success and popularity at Oxford led Mills to do something that many children-grown-into-teachers do: Return to the scene of previous educational 'crimes' against him and others like him, intent on 'righting' many wrongs that had been perpetrated upon him while at school.

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, under the auspices of progress and enlightenment in education, he then spent time teaching in schools and being the sort of schoolmaster he'd wanted to have, I suppose: His first book is fully titled Meredith and Co.: The Story of a Modern Preparatory School.

Key word: Modern. Things now were finally different in the world of British education, and George had returned to become a part of it all.

Much of what he wanted as a schoolmaster likely was acceptance within some educational institution more than any sort of abstract revenge: During his time in the classroom he was liked and appreciated by faculty, staff, and students, all within a milieu in which he was once considered a failure.


George Mills Finds Success as an Author

After he was unable to hold onto one job for long as the world moved into a severe global economic depression, George then wrote books about his fledgling teaching career—a vocation that he may not have returned to, as far as we know. (There's no evidence he taught more than a single term after WW2.)

This process of writing and being published, in a family of both distinguished scholars and popular authors, enabled him to raise his esteem, I'm sure, in the eyes of his family, as well as in his own. We find that yet another area in which he was dismal failure could be checked off his metaphorical list, and not just barely: His books became popular and were unique in having captured much of the behavior, slang, and idiom of British Schoolboys between the wars, becoming the forerunners of a literary genre that would later flourish.

Once Mills published his third and fourth book in 1939, the label "author" could clearly and permanently be attached to him. Clouds were gathering darkly over a Europe increasingly held in the steely embrace of fascism, however.


George Mills and the Royal Army Pay Corps

There were not many failures left to vindicate, but next came George's lack of any sort of success in the military in general, and within the Army Pay Corps in particular. George had been summarily and permanently sent packing from the APC during his dismal service there during the Great War, so I understand why, while enjoying success as a writer at 43 years of age, all of that was cast suddenly aside. He obviously had put his name into the Officer's Reserve pool as a War Substitute (probably claiming to have the Oxon degree he'd falsely told his prep schools that he had earned) at the onset of the Second World War.

We find that Mills soon ended up back in the Royal Army Pay Corps in 1940, and it must have been all the sweeter when he walked in this time wearing the uniform of a 2nd Lieutenant. George then would have been walking on metaphorical air when he eventually was promoted to full Lieutenant in 1942! Check 'success' in that area off of his 'vindication list'—although it would be short-lived.

Never what we'd call a "finisher," Mills relinquished his commission as an officer in 1943, after just two years, due to "ill-health." He was awarded the honorary rank of Lieutenant.

George's life had been bombarded by loss during this time period, and he would suffer more by the end of the war—the deaths of friends (Terence Hadow, Egerton Clarke), colleagues (Capt. Wm. Mocatta, Joshua Goodland), and loved ones (his wife, Vera, and his mother, Edith), all between 1939 and 1945—which is something he admittedly had in common with the rest of the British Empire during that time frame. It is distinctly possible Mills then suffered from terrible depression.

As we know, George's "ill health" didn't permanently debilitate him, which is fortunate because George had one more item to be dealt with on his 'checklist' of youthful failures, and it would be the one that took the longest time for him to get around to vindicating.


George Mills and Sport

Where Mills was and what he was doing between the end of the war and the late 1950s is unknown: They are George's Missing Years.

By the late 1950s, however, he was playing competitive croquet out of Budleigh Salterton and had quickly and respectably shaved down his beginner's handicap. George went on to win a number of tournaments along the south coast of England before he played his last match in 1970 at 76 years of age.

It's unlikely that athletic competition was something the slight Mills had ever felt good about before the age of 60, and though I imagine his trophies could not have been described as huge, I believe they must have been treasured by him as if they had been colossal!


George Mills and Catholicism

In a world that so recently had been fought over quite violently by Fascists and Communists, there is circumstantial evidence that Mills may have had Socialist leanings during the time. Toss in the lifelong struggles George had had along the way with religion, discussed above, and Mills always seemed to have had something on his philosophical plate!

Mills attended the local Catholic church in Budleigh, where he lived his last years with his spinster sisters, Agnes and Violet, at Grey Friars on Westfield Road, next to the croquet club. With his allegedly Anglican father no longer living, and with no close relatives nearby to embarrass (Arthur had died in New Forest in 1955), he finally could be comfortable and public worshipping in his chosen faith.

One does wonder about his relationship with croquet's Maurice Reckitt, the renowned Christian socialist author who, however, was "terribly anti-Roman Catholic," according to fellow player, Dr. William Ormerod. Did they ever speak of it?


The Social George Mills

From the time of George's first teaching appointment at Windlesham House School in 1926, to his obituary written in 1973 by Lt.-Col. G. E. Cave for the Croquet Gazette, George Mills was seen as a very social man. He has been described as "sociable," exuberant," "lovable," and that "He made people laugh, a lot."

He once was also so keen on children, and was so able to become part of their world in his prep schools that he could write unprecedented and insightful books about the world of his students, books that looked far beneath the veneer of the prep school classes, curricula, and discipline and saw the inner child.

One wonders, then, why so very few people remember George.

His physician in Budleigh does, but except for a few patent comments, Dr. Evans of Budleigh isn't saying much.

Barry McAleenan, a great friend of this site, knew of Mills as a child, but only really recalled that he likely was a user of snuff. (Barry, by the way, possesses the best photograph of George Mills known publicly, and it is seen at the top of this page.)

Joanna Healing and Judy Perry remember many of the characters during that era of croquet, and while Agnes and Violet Mills are more easily recollected (especially Agnes), George Mills really is not. Not at all.

A clue arrived recently via Martin Granger-Brown, who recalled George's sister "Aggie was very haughty and posh and used to look down on people," something that could have affected public perception of George as he chose to live the final years of his life in her company.

Another clue may be found in the recollections of Dr. William Ormerod. Upon hearing George described as "exuberant," "loveable," and "enthusiastic," he replied, "Those are words I would use to describe Gerald Cave himself."

Given the speech impediment of Mills, Mills may have been extremely uncomfortable with strangers. He may also have been somewhat of a chameleon, reflecting the positive qualities of those he was with, so as to keep himself in harmony with situations that could have caused him a geat deal of social anxiety.

Perhaps Mills was "exuberant," "loveable," and "enthusiastic" with those who, themselves, acted exuberantly, lovingly, and enthusiastically with him. And it follows that those who were cold or unaware of him always would remain so, as he likely would have called no attention to himself.

This would also explain why so many were unaware, during the final years of Mills's life, of his past success as an author.


Summary

Why is a man—George Mills—who was known to be so sociable, so amusing, so full of life and laughter, and a man who not only enjoyed children but seemingly understood them as well, remembered by so very few?

The life of George Mills seems to have been divided in to two halves: Failure and Success—or at least noteworthy degrees of each.

It took fifty years, but George finally vindicated himself regarding the aspects of his life in which he felt like a failure.

It doesn't appear that he ever struggled to survive financially, and that he was a relatively popular, stylish gentleman through the end. He left us childless, as did his siblings, so there are no stories of Uncle or Grandfather George at Christmas, Baptisms, funerals, or on holidays. No stories told by him were repeated to a subsequent generations of children. No one remains, then, to recall the way he spoke, smoked, or laughed.

He ended a man about whom, following his death, very few would ever think again.


The following quote recently entered my e-mail box as part of the signature of a sender, and it immediately struck me:

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.
———————————————————————————————————————————————Ralph Waldo Emerson


Those are hopeful words by which we any of us might assess the true value of our lives.

Emerson's words summarize the impact that George Mills—now seemingly forgotten—had on the world. Whether or not he is remembered widely doesn't lessen any of the impact he did, indeed, have—especially on me.

Still, it's nice for someone, anyone, to be remembered, and that's what Who Is George Mills? has always been about.

Unless new information comes to light (as, I'm grateful to say, so often has happened here over the past year or more), unless I'm contacted by a relative, friend, or acquaintance who remembers George and his family, unless we receive a copy (or scan, or photocopy) of his last children's book, or unless we discover his letters or other ephemera that would help us know more in answer to the question, "Who Is George Mills?" then my work here is essentially done.

And I've enjoyed it all. Thank you so much: Everyone.


Goodbye for now, George.

Egerton Clarke: A Final Look at the Man and his Work

After a month of almost full-time study, I feel as if Egerton Arthur Crossman Clarke—orphan, scholar, soldier, poet, librarian, and art director—has become a part of me.

While I can appreciate and enjoy Clarke's poetry, I'll admit to being far more of a "free verse" sort of fellow, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda being my one of my favourites, along with American Langston Hughes. Egerton's early work in couplets and quatrains simply doesn't move me the way I am certain he would have preferred, and any critique I could offer, save a dim "I like it," would be embarrassingly uninformed.

To the rescue comes friend of the website Jennifer M., an English Literature major from prestigious Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. Over the past few weeks of my obsession with Egerton Clarke, I've shared information and his poetry with her, and she has generously consented to share with us her thoughts on our subject.

The real beauty of what she has written is found in being able to follow her along the linear path of her thinking about Egerton Clarke, his life, and his work. Flavoring it along the way with thoughts of the poetry she's read, as well as some personal experience and the influence of outside readings she has done, makes the result a commentary, rooted in informed speculation, on the life and times of Clarke, and to a degree, George Mills.

Mostly regarding Clarke's text, Kezil and Other Poems, and presented in her own words, here it is, interrupted only an occasional note answering any questions she had along the way. You can also click HERE to read the poems in a different window as she discusses them.


Sunday, June 26, 2011 11:49 AM

What really interests me is the dedication. Ernest "opened the door for me," Gerald "opened my eyes once and for all," and the mysterious "Kezil" who inspired so much. My first thought is that Egerton was gay, and he's subtly paying tribute to friends/lovers who helped him come out in some small way. The poem refers to Kezil as a "she" but of course that could have been just for cover.

It's an interesting coincidence that you would send me this now, because I just added Wilfred Owens' poetry [Owen is pictured, right] to my Amazon wish list, and Clarke's book was written around the same time. I know I had read "Dulce et Decorum Est" in high school or college at some point; when I read it again just recently I appreciated it on a whole new level, and I decided I would like to read more of his poetry. Clarke's poetry is different, of course, not all about the horrors of war.

I often prefer "old fashioned" poets like Clarke or Owens; I can understand what they're trying to say, and because they don't use the surrealistic or outlandish imagery of later poets, the ideas can really sink in more easily.

I like "Kezil." It's very romantic in a mysterious, "Far East" kind of way. The imagery of all the red and the sun and the feast on the lawn reminds me of some of the imagery of Maugham's stories. I imagine a landscape hot, maybe in the desert, the sky is shades of red, orange and gold, and lying about as the heat starts to increase as the sun rises, remembering the lovemaking of the night before as "poems of his body's memory/Carved upon the lawn." Clarke is remembering all this from a long time ago, and it was so wonderful he thinks it may have been "but a garden dream." The poem is "writ/But as yet unread," maybe because Clarke never told "Kezil" of his feelings for her/him?

Feel free to tell me I'm way off base, if I am. But I have a feeling I'm pretty close.

I loved "Shadows" because the imagery is of a time that I enjoy reading and watching movies about: a graceful old England, tea in the garden but not a simple picnic, no, we have a table with lace cloth and the good china things brought out to the garden by the servants. It reminds me of some reading I've done about the British Raj, where these people in India would go on an outing and take half a dozen donkeys with tents, furniture, household utensils, and loads of other things just to spend the day outdoors, but in
comfort and with as much style as they would have at home. I was just out on my balcony cooling off before coming in to write this, and while I just have my little folding chair, it is nice to sit outside, away from TV and music and internet, and just laze around with a book on my lap, or just look around me at the trees, thinking my thoughts.



Monday, June 27, 2011 7:30 PM


It occurred to me yesterday after I sent you my thoughts about Egs that maybe I was viewing him through "Maugham colored glasses," so to speak. I've read most of Maugham's works and two biographies of him (the best by far is The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham by Selina Hastings). He was gay, but for most of his life homosexuality was illegal in England, so he constantly had to hide who he was. He traveled all over the world, where in some places it was more tolerated, and retired to France. He had two long term relationships (Gerald Haxton and Alan Searle) and a number of other lovers, as well as a wife (Syrie) for cover, who bore him a daughter (Liza). The caption under the first picture of him is "a lonely child, guarded and withdrawn." People who knew him guessed that having to hide his sexuality went a long way towards making him a guarded and private person in general, who often had little tolerance for other people's foolishness. His stories are brilliant, his travel writing also fascinating, yet most people who knew him felt they didn't really know him. There is one *ahem* remarkable picture in the book of Maugham and some male friends sunbathing nude. So on their private estates they could let their hair down a little, but they also had to be careful who was around.

Anyway, I realized that I was applying many of these standards to Egs, and assuming he was gay. And they could all be true, or none of them true. But that dedication sticks with me. I'd be curious to see the dedications in his other books. I think the one in Kezil is one of the longest I've seen in any book. Do you have any idea who Gerald Crow and Ernest Duggan were? (And I agree with Egs that deciding who to dedicate your first book to would be a difficult choice, which makes his selection of Gerald and Ernest all the more significant.)

[Crow was an influential poet at Oxford during the time. Duggan did not attend Oxford, and there is not enough information about him to identify him from among the many Ernest Duggans of the era.]

I was thinking too about George, and your comments in your croquet article that there was really no trace of him after WWII, except for the croquet results. I imagine it would be hard for him, serving as an Army paymaster but not serving in the Army itself, handing out pay to men he knew might never come home. That could mess with your head. Do you know how George and Egs met? Was it in the Army?

[As we know, Egerton served almost exclusively with the Army Pay Corps in Winchester, Hampshire, where he became acquainted with George Mills, during his months in the military.]

After living through WWII, with Nazi rockets slamming right into your house, I can see how one would want to retire and just play croquet for the rest of your life. After something like that, maybe stories about boys' schools didn't seem so consequential anymore. I'm sure a lot of things that seemed important wouldn't matter much anymore after an experience like that. Perhaps some of the real boys he based the characters on died in the war.

So, back to the poems (in no particular order).

Envy: Well, I saw a whole bunch of "the love that dare not speak its name" in this poem. Making of evidence a lie, he dares taste only the seeds, coward comforts, nought is real before the eye, and in spite of all this make-believe, contented he would be. Of course, if the poem turns out to be something else entirely, I'm gonna feel like a goof. But the more I read them over the more I'm convinced he's talking about something he can't really talk about. Do you know what year he was married? I would be interested to see if it was before or after this book was published.

[Clarke married Teresa Kelly at Winchester, Hampshire, in 1926, and they had three children together.]

Reverie: This one made me sad, because I can relate to his feeling of going back to the places of your childhood and realizing that those days are gone forever. I, too, "understand the present lack of all the half-remembered moods." The places where you were a child may not have changed, but you, the person, surely have. "Is irretrievable the time/When afternoons meant nurse and walk?" Sadly, when you're a grown-up, they do seem to be.

In Hospital: This one brought to mind some of Wilfred Owens' poems. This one is a good portrayal of someone in pain in the hospital, not really aware of their surroundings, but everything makes them uncomfortable and they just want to sleep…

Was Egs in WWI, and was he wounded?

[Exclusive of his first few days under the Colours, Egerton served only in Winchester, Hampshire, in England. He easily could have come in contact with casualties receiving treatment for combat wounds, though.

By the way, is it a mere coincidence that his service and his marriage both occurred in Winchester? Might Teresa even have been one of his nurses?]


Sunday, July 03, 2011 7:31 AM

I've been rethinking my sweeping assertion that Egs and Gerald were gay. I was reminded yesterday of a book by Sharon Marcus called Between Women: Friendship, Desire and Marriage in Victorian England. I've never read it, but I've heard it referenced elsewhere.

In this persuasively argued, provocative book, Marcus makes the case that women in late 19th-century England engaged in intimate friendships—which "the Victorians... believed cultivated the feminine virtues of sympathy and altruism"—that often had a sexual component of visual objectification and even sexual intimacy.

The history of gender and sexuality becomes much more interesting, difficult, and subtle after [reading] Between Women. Reading the love and affection of nineteenth-century women now requires a new level of care and historical self-consciousness that may be painful to possess, as it will remind us of our own losses--of the affection, eroticism, attachment, encouragement, and tremendous fun between the ordinary women--real and fictional--Marcus has so valiantly re-imagined, recovered, and recorded.

I think both men and women can form deep attachments to members of the same gender without it having be a gay or lesbian romantic relationship. I think that's what I was missing when I was looking over Eg's and Gerald's poems. Today people don't generally express such deep emotions so openly. Also taking into account that these men served in WWI, a horrific experience, which would probably bind them closer to their comrades then ordinary friendships. So I withdraw my assertion that I'm certain one or any of them are gay. I just don't know, and there's really no way of knowing, now.

I'm planning to read through Kezil again so I'm sure I'll have more to say about some other of the poems.


Sunday, July 03, 2011 7:40 PM

I've read this poem over several times in a row now, and I'm still not sure what to make of it. On the surface, it's about two people sitting up all night with a friend's body. From reading I know that used to be a custom in many places, that relatives would sit up all night with the dead the first night after they died.

And yet little phrases come in and kind of skew the meaning, and make me think there's something else behind it:

Customary vigil kept
Yet gave no thought to the dead

Knowing Convention had bought
Our silence, we were afraid

But never a thought we took,
For the pale and shuttered eyes

Each thinking the other's thought,
With never a thought for him,

We knew how Custom had bought
Our love for a dead man's whim

So these two people are sitting up with their dead friend, but why aren't they thinking about him? What thought are they sharing? Seeing phrases like "convention has bought our silence" makes me drift back to the idea that Egs was gay, but I'm trying to steer myself away from that, to be open to other interpretations. Whatever is going on between him and the other mourner, it's eating at them both, and they can't think of anything else, and they don't want anyone else to know about it. Something that happened in battle, in WWI? Or they're sitting up with the dead person out of custom, but that don't really want to, it's a "dead man's whim"? I just can't get a handle on that this poem is trying to say, or rather, trying not to say.



Saturday, July 23, 2011 1:33 PM

You know, I'm really starting to second guess myself on the whole "Egs is gay" thing. I was so sure at first, but the more I learn about him from all the research you did, I'm kind of changing my mind. I think he and George were very close friends, sure, but I'm no longer convinced it was anything more than that. I think friendships between people, women or men, were different and sometimes more intense "back in the day," and I was trying to apply that using today's standards. I mean, maybe I was right, but we'll never know for sure.


Saturday, July 23, 2011 7:29 PM

Reading [this] all over, I don't think I really have a summing up to write... Just that Egs was a good poet, and maybe we're not meant to know for sure, much more about him than that.


This missive arouses a notion that has crossed my once in a while during my time researching George Mills: Could George have been gay?

Egerton's dedication, if nothing else, certainly plants the seeds for wondering something like that. He and George had been friends in the Army Pay Corps and likely also at Oxford, although they studied at different colleges: Mills at Christ Church and Clarke at Keble.

They both were extremely sensitive individuals who probably never fit into the regimentation of the military, and perhaps not even into the institutional discipline required for success at Oxon. It seems they may have relied upon one another to make their way through those experiences, although it seems as if Mills may have been more reliant on the Clarke, who ostensibly had been an orphan and already must have had ample experience taking care of himself under the auspices of an institution, St Edmund's School [left].

George's 1925 marriage to Vera Beauclerk, indeed, could have been a cover for his romantic preference. That would explain in part his childlessness, as well as providing a possible reason that Vera was residing away, in such an unusual place—Minehead—at the time of her death early in 1942.

Still, not a bit of that means, or even really suggests in the least, that he was homosexual.

It seems far more likely that George's dirty little secret as a young man—something his family knew but most others would not—was that he, like his father, was a closet Roman Catholic in a land brimming with Anglicans, of both the Low and High Churches.

It's quite possible that his faith in Catholicism might have rubbed family members the wrong way. There must be, after all, a reason why his relations today are often unaware of the existence of Georges entire branch of the family. It is possible that his mother, Elizabeth Edith Ramsay Mills, may have found herself distanced from her own family when, after they believed she was marrying an Anglican vicar, it turned out she had married a secretly devout Roman Catholic. As much as I am told it really didn't—and doesn't—matter, something certainly 'mattered' that managed to erase Revd Barton Mills and his progeny from all of his in-laws' family trees.

I find it difficult to believe that, by chance alone, they all simply happened to be entirely forgotten by everyone.


There have been other suggestions along the way here that things with Mills may not have always been what they seem. The sentence, "I'm afraid that the Catholic school system, as you probably know, was infested for many years by paedophiles and ghastly sadists," once shared by a friend of the site, springs immediately to mind. It regarded why, in the end, George [pictured, right, at Ladycross School in 1956] may have been disappointed by the union of his faith and his career in education, and eventually left teaching.

This is not to take a swipe at only Catholic prep schools regarding a problem common to many institutions. We recently received this message, attached to an entry regarding Parkfield School in Haywards Heath: "In hindsight it was a hideous, sadistic and monsterous Dickensian nightmare of a school."

There may, in fact, be some aspects of the story of George Mills that one might consider a bit on the dark side. Still, there's nothing in the evidence to verify or even indicate that George participated in any of it.


George Mills may simply have been a relatively bland fellow: A bit sickly, tall, slight of build, overly sensitive, with a speech impediment, a fine sense of humor, a keen eye for observation, and a proclivity for failing to finish what he started, especially regarding any of his careers. There may be a part of us that would like some sensational quality upon which to hang our metaphorical hat regarding George Mills. We are, after all, often privy these days to many of the controversial secrets of those in the public eye, and we have almost come to the point as a society where it's not a matter of 'if they exist,' but 'when they will be revealed.'

But that does not seem to be the case right now with our George Mills.

Returning in conclusion to Jennifer's implication of some Higher Power overseeing all of this, or with at least the sure and steady hand of fate writing out this script, she sums up everything succinctly above: "Maybe we're not meant to know for sure much more about him than that."

Mr. Egerton Clarke, Kezil, and the Popular Kerry Blue Terrier

By the end of September 1918 Egerton Arthur Crossman Clarke found himself demobilised from the military. The armistice would not be signed until 11 November of that year.

On 29 September 1918, the Kaiser had been advised that Germany's situation was hopeless. General Erich Ludendorff, according to Wikipedia, "could not guarantee that the front would hold for another 24 hours." Negotiations began in earnest in October.

To enlisted men around the camps in England, all of this must have been a secret, or just a part of an ever-grinding rumour mill at best.

Egerton Clarke, despite his weak heart and health issues, would have been anticipating staying in the service for a bit longer, and hitting the streets as a civilian during that month of October 1918 must have caught him a bit off guard, even if it was liberating. It's unlikely he had any knowledge that the hostile nations had entered into entente, and it's unlikely that he had been in the midst of preparing himself and planning for an armistice, and peace [above, left].

Egerton's 61 year old mother, Emma Anna Clarke, was ensconced at Thorley Wash, Hertfordshire, with her widowed and wealthy elder sister, Hannah Patten, so there was no immediate need to begin taking responsibility for her.

In fact, having been a scholar at St Edmund's School in Canterbury up until joining the ranks, Clarke probably knew little, if anything, about caring for himself in the world outside of academia. What would he do? Where would he go?

When one knows nothing but school, it's likely one would attempt a return to the safety, order, and stability of an educational institution. That was the case with young Egerton.

During our study of George Mills, Egerton's friend form the Army Pay Corps, we learned of an opportunity presented to veterans of the war to attend university. It was described here by Anabel Peacock, an archivist at Oxford:

[A veteran] was exempted from taking Responsions (preliminary examinations for entry) and the examinations of the First Public Examination, under a decree of 9 March 1920. This decree stipulated that until the end of Trinity Term 1923 any member of the University who had been engaged in military service for twelve months or more before his matriculation, was permitted to offer himself for examination in any Final Honours School, despite not having met the statutory conditions for admission to that School. This was on condition that he had obtained permission from the Vice Chancellor and the proctors; that he had entered upon the third term and had not exceeded the twelfth term following his matriculation; and that he had paid the fee for admission to the examinations the decree excused him from.


This was the situation of which Mills had taken advantage when he matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 19 October 1919, following his service under the Colours. It was probably under the auspices of the same decree that Clarke entered.

From Nicola Hilton, Archives Assistant at Oxford, we learn this about Egerton:

Egerton Arthur Crossman Clarke was born on the 20 September 1899 in Canterbury, Kent. He was the second son of Percy Carmichael Clarke, Clerk in the Holy Orders, deceased. Before coming to Oxford, Egerton attended St Edmund's School, Canterbury, Kent. He matriculated (ie was admitted to the University) from Keble College on 14 October 1918. I cannot find any record of a degree being conferred (ie at a ceremony) on Mr Clarke.


[Note: Thanks to Janine La Forestier, Clarke's granddaughter, we can identify Egerton's brother: "In front of me now is a letter in which he is answering a question my mother must have asked concerning his brother. The letter dated December 1, 1942 refers to his brother as John (Jack) Percy Dalzell Clarke born in 1892 and died 21/02/1915." (08-17-11)]


Considering the above information, we once again find a connection between Egerton and George Mills. It may only be circumstantial, but with both gentlemen, formerly mates in the armed forces, matriculating during the same week—Egerton on Monday and George on Saturday—it seems strange to think that they had not been in contact and that they had not been sharing, at the very least, loose plans to further their educations at Oxford.

And it may not be far-fetched to believe that Oxford may have been George's idea—and if not his idea, then a very practical decision. His father, the Revd Barton R. V. Mills, was a graduate, as had been his grandfather, Arthur Mills, M.P., and Barton still was alive—he was serving as a "Chaplain to the Forces"—and able to take the boys, advise them, and show them around a bit. Egerton's father, the Revd Percy Carmichael Clarke, had attended Cambridge, but unfortunately had passed away on 1902. There could have been no similar connection there.

It would have been comforting, one imagines, for both boys to know that they were heading off to university assured there would be at least one familiar and friendly face among the Oxon crowd.


By 1919, Egerton had become editor of Clock Tower at Keble, presumably a literary magazine of some sort, and his name appears in the 1919 calendar. He, however, actually was busily working on another literary project—and a somewhat surprising one.

In 1920, Clarke would publish his first book, with this lengthy title: The Popular Kerry Blue Terrier: Its History, Strains, Standard, Points, Breeding, Rearing, Management, Preparation for Show, and Sporting Attributes.

A new edition of this seemingly immortal book is still in print today. The original 1920 first edition is described thusly:

By Egerton Clarke. With a foreword by The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Kenmare. Line drawings by Hay Hutchison. Illustrated. London: Popular Dogs Publishing Co. [1920]. 12mo., 78p., blue cloth with gilt lettering, and endpapers, illustrated with photographs and drawings.


This project may only be a surprise to those who aren't aware of George Mills and his family's great affinity for dogs. From his father's early church-going days in Cornwall to reminiscences from his last years in Budleigh Salterton, an overall fondness for dogs pervades his story. One could even make the argument that a dog was the most popular character of a pair of his children's books.


Contrasting with the publication of The Popular Kerry Blue Terrier, Clarke also published a book of poems entitled Kezil and Other Poems [London : A.H. Stockwell, 1920]. Kezil is available today as a scanned reproduction of the original text, as well as on-line.

Clarke's dedication is quite interesting:


Dear ———

To whom one should dedicate a first book is often, I am told, a difficult question to decide.

For my part I can but feel that to offer this, my first to any one particular person would be both ungenerous and unfair, and it is for this reason I am persuaded to offer it, small though its value may be, to all those who have been good to me through-out my life.

So my offering is to you, friends, and among you :

Firstly, my Mother because you are also the mother of these poems ;

Nan, because without you these poems would not have been written by my hand, and because of your care for a stranger-child :

Madeleine, for the sake of your gentleness ;

Dorothy Sayers, in recognition of your kindness, and in appreciation of "Op" ;

Ernest Duggan, because of the door you opened for me ;

Gerald Crow, because you opened my eyes once and for all ; and last but not least

" Kezil," mysterious inspirer of so much.


EGERTON A. C. CLARKE.


THE GRANGE,

FOLKESTONE, June, 1920.



First of all, we find Egerton residing in Folkestone, near Dover, on the southeast coast, while writing at least this dedication.

We can determine some of his influences: Poet and biographer Gerald Henry Crow (we hopefully will hear more about him soon) and Oxford's own Dorothy L. Sayers, novelist, playwright, essayist, translator and poet. Here he specifically mentions the latter's interesting 1915 collection of poetry, Op. I.

Ernest Duggan and Madeleine are two unknown characters in the life of Egerton Clarke, circa 1920. Duggan did not attend Oxford, and Egerton has left us no clues with which to determine his identity—there are more than a few Ernest Duggans in the Empire, circa 1920. And Madeleine will remain a mystery, at least until she gains a surname.

Nan, however, is essentially nameless, but quite interesting nonetheless. She is appreciated in this dedication "because without you these poems would not have been written by my hand, and because of your care for a stranger-child."

These touching words imply not just the binding and careful treatment of a youth's injured hand, but that Egerton was treated with an overall care and tenderness that would not necessarily have been expected from a stranger. Heart-wrenching tales of orphans such as Oliver Twist and Jane Eyre were well-known, and while they had been around for many decades by the passing of Clarke's father in 1902, the more modern world at the turn of the 20th century still would not have been an orphan's proverbial oyster.

The presence of Nan caring for a "stranger-child" also gives us insight into the lack of mothering suffered by Egerton during his youth. Where he experienced the tenderness of Nan's care is unknown at this point. Perhaps early in France she had been his nurse. Perhaps she was a matron at St Edmund's School in Canterbury who took a liking to the boy—or he to her. Perhaps she was simply someone who watched after him when school was out, someone who allowed him to leave St Edmunds occasionally.

Apparently, at whatever time Nan bestowed her kindness, Clarke had had no mother to provide it for him. Knowing that our best guess right now is that his mother was in the workhouse at Watford in 1911, that would go a long way toward explaining why Egerton so very much needed a "Nan."

By contrast, Egerton's mother essentially is thanked for having given birth, and so, indirectly, having enabled him eventually to write the poems found within the text. There are certainly no immediate thanks for her, just an overall fondness, and a gratitude born of a worrisome life that finally seemed to have turned out well.

Missing from the dedication would be George Mills: A friend but not a powerful influence on Clarke's words and imagery.


"Kezil: A Fantasy" is a languidly alluring, Eastern erubescence of a poem, and well worth reading. Within the brief text, Clarke explains: "'KEZIL' a Persian word meaning 'red,' or sometimes, I believe 'the red one.' — E.C."

But for our purposes here, I've selected a different poem from this volume to share:


IN HOSPITAL.

SEMI-CONSCIOUS.


PALE shadows round my head.
In whispering conference,
Nurses moved, and one said,
"B. one-seven-five ref'rence,
A. F. discharge," like ghosts,
They swayed unreal about
The room, The Red Cross hosts.
I wished someone would shout —
I wanted so to sleep.
A cruel "Hush !" "Be quiet."
Was all I heard and "creep
Like mice ;" and " Special diet."
Now and then a single word,
A phrase, against my brain,
Insistent beat and stirred
The quietude to pain,
Then somewhere slammed a door.
One moment echoed deep
Along the empty corridor,
Outside, I turned and heard no more,
And turned again and fell asleep.


Winchester,
1918.


When last time we read of Egerton's hospital stays in Winchester, it appeared to have been so easy for him: Resting in bed, recuperating, enjoying some time away from duty. In the poem above, written in that bed, we can see that clearly was not the case as Clarke, reconstructing his lack of lucidity, expresses the semi-consciousness of his condition and does his best to capture fleeting and fragmented scraps of his environment.

His volume ends tenderly with this poem:


FINIS.

To M. C.


NOT so much pity, what better an end
Than a night of shadow and quiet sleep,
When there's nothing of love that's left to spend,
Why should we linger to fidget and weep ?

O little's the pity of such a kind,
Let us light our candle and go upstairs
As children do, and dropping down the blind
A comfort make wherein to say our prayers ;

Not so tenderly now, no endless kiss,
Nor hold my hand so long, now love is pain,
But say "sleep well, sweet dreams," and things like this—
"Good-night," laugh too, lest Love find fault again,

Pity can go the way of love, and now,
As though we had nothing of that to mend,
Politely unkissed let us nod and bow,
With a "God bless you, dear," and "Good-night, friend."


Quite a contrast, I think, to The Popular Kerry Blue Terrier ("Teeth set right ensure a strong grip on the terrier's natural foe—vermin"). Perhaps these final verses are dedicated to Madeleine—M. C.—who was probably not his lover, ascending the figurative stairs with him 'as children do.'

Egerton Clarke would go on to write texts, poems, and a play. Here is as complete a bibliography as I can manage for his works after 1920:


• The Ear-ring: A comedy in one-act. [London: Egerton, 1922]

• The Death of Glass and Other Poems. [London: Egerton, 1923]

• Nature Poems. [Amersharm: Morland, 1923]

• The Death of England. [London: C. Palmer, 1930]

• The Seven Niches: A Legend in Verse. [London: C. Palmer, 1931]

• St Peter, the First Pope. [London: Burns, Oates, & Washbourne, 1936]

• Our Lady of Flowers. [London: Burns, Oates, & Washbourne, 1937]

• Alcazar and Other Poems. [London: Burns, Oates, & Washbourne,1937]


Editions of Who's Who in Literature in 1928 described Clarke in this way:

CLARKE, Egerton A. C. b. 1899. Ed. Clock Tower (KebleColl.,Oxford), 1919. Au. Of Kezil and Other Poems (Stockwell), 1920; The Earring (one-act comedy); (Hugh Egerton), 1922. Sub.-Ed. National Opinion, 1922. C. Morn. Post, West. Gaz., Colour, Even. News, Dy. Mirror, Poetry Rev., Oxford Poetry, Oxford Fort. Rev., Nat. Opinion. 73, EGERTON GARDENS. S.W.3.


So, by 1928 Clarke, who had published with a publisher called Egerton, was living in London, interestingly in Egerton Gardens, situated just across Brompton Road and less than 1,000 feet from the Holy Trinity Church in which George Mills wed Vera Louise Beauclerk in 1925.

Egerton did not attend.

Clarke did follow George into the world of wedded bliss when he returned to Winchester and married Teresa Kelly in the spring of 1926.


[Note: Janine also reports that "Therese received her nurses training from Guys Hopital in 1922." Note the spelling of Mrs. Clarke's name. A photograph depicting her nurse's uniform can be found at Rediscovering Egerton Clarke. (08-17-11)]


We can see from the bibliography and the brief biography above that 1926 was in the middle of a 6 year period during which Clarke did not publish a book, although another edition of The Popular Kerry Blue Terrier would be published in 1927 or 1928.

An on-line reference to this new edition describes it thusly:

Clarke, Egerton.
The Popular Kerry Blue Terrier
Popular Dogs Publishing Company, Ltd, c1928
65b, Long Achre, London, W.C.2.

Egerton Clarke of Narcunda Kennels wrote the “Popular Kerry Blue Terrier”, with a forward by the Rt. Hon. The Earl of Kenmare. Illustrations by Hay Hutchison. Published by Popular Dogs Publishing Company Ltd. in England in the 1920's. There is no publishing date in the book, but advertising for The Bog Kennels on page 71 makes reference to the dates 1925 and 1926. This is the first book published on Kerry Blue Terriers. Addresses breed history, Standard, Points, Breeding, Rearing, Management, Preparation for show, and Sporting attributes. A very scarce book. Hardcover, 78 pages.


All we really know of Egerton at this time is that, after his marriage, he is associated with a place called "Narcunda Kennels," presumably in England. By 1930, however, his wife crops up in the Cruft's Dog Show Catalogue in the category [below, left]: "Class 806—FOX TERRIERS—MINOR LIMIT BITCHES." It reads: "2071 Mrs. England. Colonnade Credit. b. Born 24 Oct. 27. Breeder, Mrs. Egerton Clarke. By Earlington Goldfinder—Selecta Merit."

[Just an aside: In this 1930 catalogue, the first person listed in the "Index to Exhibitors" is "Abbey, Lady Ursula, Woldhurst manor, Crawley, Sussex. 770." Lady Ursula Abbey, a well-known breeder of show dogs, played croquet with and against George Mills and his sisters during the 1950s and 1960s.]

Clarke, if nothing else, obviously shared a love of dogs, and of breeding dogs, with his bride. It's an odd interest for a child, Egerton, ostensibly raised in an orphan school, to have picked up. One wonders what sort of life that "Nan" was able to share with him before he went off to war, or if the school itself had a Kerry Blue Terrier that became a love of Egerton's life.

In fact, could some of Egerton's dog tales (no pun intended) have made their way into the stories of George Mills?


Let's look at an excerpt from an even more informative biography of Egerton Clarke, this time from The Catholic Who's Who & Yearbook: Volume 34, edited by Sir Francis Cowley Burnand in 1941:

Clarke, Egerton — b. 1899, s. of Rev. Percy Carmichael Clarke, some time Anglican Chaplain of Dinard, Brittany; educ. St Edmund's Schl Canterbury and Keble Coll. Oxford; received into the Church 1922; served 5 Devon Regt 1917-8; a Vice-Presdt of the Catholic Poetry Soc.; Sec. St Hugh's Soc. for Cath. Boys of the Professional classes; m. (1926) Teresa, dau. of Joseph Wm Kelly and Clara Kelly (nee Sheil), of Dublin (2 sons, 1 dau.). Publications: 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)— Alcazar (1937).


By 1941 Egerton and Teresa Clarke had two sons and a daughter. But what's really interesting here, along with the title of the text [right], is that he was "received into the Church 1922." During the mid- to late-1920s, Egerton had become involved in a new religion: Roman Catholicism.

Dogs. The Army Pay Corps. Oxford. Writing. Neither staying at Oxford to earn a degree. Fathers who were Anglican clergymen. And their own conversions to Catholicism.

Yes, there was a great deal that George Mills had in common with his friend, Egerton Clarke.


Next time we'll look at the children's books of Clarke and the final published text of George Mills, as well as reviewing Egerton's contributions to George's own literary work.

See you then…

Looking at Mr. E. A. Roper and Ladycross School

As we wrap things up here at Who Is George Mills? let's take another quick look at one of our favorite coincidences regarding the life of George Mills: His association with Seaford, East Sussex.

Is it odd that we've never stumbled upon any sort of relationship between Mills and, say, Leighton Buzzard, Great Yarmouth, or Newscastle Emlyn at all, but other places do seem to crop up a great deal, while Seaford has?

Today we'll look at a croquet-related connection between George Mills and Seaford.

As we know from the indomitable Barry McAleenan, the 1957 Devonshire Park photograph that has been of such great interest to us here bears the likeness of Mr. E. A. "Tony" Roper, one time headmaster of Ladycross Catholic Boys' Preparatory School [above, left] in Seaford. We have also speculated that it may have been an acquaintance—or even friendship—kindled on the croquet lawns of southern England that led to Mills teaching at Ladycross for at least the summer term of 1956.

Was Mills simply there in a manner akin to Mr. Aloysius Quole ("Well, should you wish for some light reading, I can commend an excellent pamphlet on the life of the cheese-maggot"), the elderly replacement for fictitious schoolmaster Mr. Lloyd in the 1938 novel King Willow by Mills? Is it possible that Mills actually taught there longer, or at a previous time, a few years before? We don't know, but we do know a bit more about Mr. Roper.

Esme Antony Filomeno Roper was born in Christchurch, Hampshire, on 5 June 1895. The easiest information to glean regarding Roper is his service in the First World War as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 9th Battalion of the East Lancashire Regiment. Roper's address was listed in 1916 as "Ladycross, Seaford, Sussex," and his father named: A. F. Roper. This at the outset would indicate that Ladycross School was a longtime family-owned institution.

The London Gazette dated 16 October 1914 lists Esme Antony Roper in a section indicating, "The undermentioned to be Temporary Second Lieutenants. Dated 13 October 1914."

Roper's medal card indicates that he earned a "Badge" on 9 October 1916, and adds: "Refusal List/25." An additional entry reads: "2nd application through A. F. Roper (father) 22 – 4 – 17." The final entry on the card notes: "Further application 29th – 9 – 17 A. List 336."

I have been unable to discover what the "Refusal List" might have been.



Roper's father appears to have actually resided at Ladycross for a number of years after the war while Tony took up quarters elsewhere (with his bride, as we shall find). For example, the 1933 telephone directory that encompassed Seaford shows the following separate entries:


Roper, Alfred F, Ladycross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seaford 52

Roper, E. Antony, M.A., Cross Keys . . . . . . . . . . Seaford 89


This indicates that the younger Roper had earned a Master's Degree. Checking the 1956 Oxford University Calendar, we find an entry that reads: "Roper, Esme Antony Filomeno 1931." The 1957 yearbook includes the notation: "Oriel 1917," indicating that Roper had returned from the war and had matriculated in 1917.

Sir Francis Cowley Burnand's The Catholic Who's Who and Yearbook: Volume 35 contains the following entry: "ROPER, Esme Antony, MA. (Oxon.); Headmaster of Ladycross; yr.j. of AF Roper, MA. (d. 1935), founder of Ladycross 1894, and Isabel May, nee Hoffman: m. 1929, Dorothy Marie Gladys, yr.d. of late Alfred Ames, formerly of Ceylon; Educ: Downside; Oriel Coll., Oxford (1st cl. Classical Hons); served W. War 1 as 2/Lt. E. Lanes Regt.; Publ.: Ladycross Motets. Address: Ladycross, Seaford, Sussex."

The Downside Review (Volumes 35-36) in 1916 contains the following entry in a list of soldiers: "Roper, Esme Antony F., April 1910-July 1914, 2nd Lieut., 9th East Lancashire Regiment."

So Roper [right] was an "Old Gregorian" from Downside School, a Catholic independent school located in Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Somerset, as well as having taken degrees at Oxford.

In addition, we see reference above to a publication entitled Ladycross Motets (Cary & Co, 1947), which is listed thusly at amazon.co.uk:

Ladycross Motets for general use four Voices (and Organ). Book 1, etc by E. Anthony [sic] Roper (Unknown Binding - 1947)

The music is still available through Banks Music Publications.

Once again, we easily can see no less than six very commonly occurring "coincidental" links to George Mills: Attendance at Oxford, a connection to Sussex (often Seaford), an interest in the performing arts (especially music), a boys' preparatory school, croquet, and a devotion to Catholicism.

In regard to the Devonshire Park image mentioned above, Barry Mc indicated to us that: "E.A. 'Tony' Roper was the former (till 1954) headmaster of Ladycross."

Retiring in 1954, Roper most likely still had influence at the school that his family had founded and run for exactly 60 years, even after he had indicated a preference for spending his time upon England's croquet lawns. If Ladycross had needed a teacher in 1956 and Mills was an acquaintance, George's appearance at Ladycross having been a result of some connection between the men seems probable.

We know Mills played from at least 1957 (although there are no complete records for him in the database at the Croquet Association) through the very last game of croquet I can find George playing on 26 June 1970. As far as we know, Mills never played Roper, but the latter played George's sisters on three occasions, having beaten Agnes Mills once, while having been defeated by Violet Mills twice.

[For a compilation Roper's croquet record and other information, click HERE.]

To where exactly did Roper retire? On 8 April 1960, the R.M.M.V. Winchester Castle, of the Union-Castle Mail S.S. Co. Ltd., steamed into Southampton from Durban, South Africa, bearing the passengers Esme Antony Roper, retired, and Dorothy Marie Roper, housewife, born 19 November 1888. The couple's address is listed as "Ladymead, Hurstpierpoint, Sussex."

Roper passed away in Surrey early in 1979 at the age of 83. Ladycross School already had closed in 1977 and was demolished.


For more about Ladycross, visit: http://www.ehgp.com/ladycross/


Next time, we'll cross Seaford and visit another local, longtime, family educational institution there, Newlands School. Stay tuned…