A Closer Look at 1932, David Niven's Mother, and the Family of George Mills

Today I'm learning a lesson: There is no such thing as a small bit of information.

Thinking I'd sit down and fire off a short posting regarding yesterday's study of wills and probate, I find myself knee deep, once again, in information. Perhaps all of it is not George Mills-related, but some of it's quite interesting. At least to me. And other aspects of it are very pertinent to questions we've often asked here...

The probate record for the Revd. Barton Reginald Vaughan Mills contains this excerpt: "clerk died 21 January 1932 at 5 Collingham-gardens South Kensington Middlesex"

This was the first indication that we've had that, when Revd. Mills passed away "suddenly," he was not at home with his family at 24 Hans-road in Chelsea.

I thought, "Well, I'll go to Google Maps, take a virtual snapshot of 5 Collingham Gardens [above, left], and see if I can find out who he might've been visiting when he expired. I'll punch it up in a short post this morning and be done!"

The address 5, Collingham Gardens has an interesting history. The terraced freehold recently sold, on 29 January 2010, for £8,900,000 to Michaelis Boyd Associates of 108 Palace Gardens Terrace, London, who applied in December 2010 to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for "the provision of rooflight on the second floor roof and alteration of 3 rear basement windows to french doors."

The building now houses Alphaco, a British waste-to-energy company, dealing in "Waste tires, Waste tyres, Scrap tyres, Scrap tires."

It also is the home of Collingham Gardens Child and Family Unit, an NHS psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents [right], apparently one of the few facilities providing inclusive "in-patient child psychiatric care for learning disabled children."

Here's a brief description of the 1883-1884 construction of 5 Collingham-gardens from 'The work of Ernest George and Peto in Harrington and Collingham Gardens', Survey of London: volume 42: Kensington Square to Earl's Court (1986), pp. 184-195:

"No. 5 is much the larger house [than No. 4], partly because of an extra low wing (which has now lost its stepped gable) to the north. Here too the plan and some features survive, showing that the levels were split, with the drawing-room this time at the back on the half-landing. The wooden residence by March 1886, was the fourth Earl of Wilton, who fitted one of the rooms up as an organ-saloon replete with model organ and patent hydraulic engines. The house and its fittings were reputed to have cost him upwards of £25,000."

No. 4 could have been your residence at the time on these terms: "The price of a long lease here was £8,000, or it could be rented for £600 a year." No. 5 being "much" larger, can we assume the original price tag was "much" greater than those figures?

There are images of the interior, circa 1886-1888 and photographed by H. Bedford Lemere, to be found at: http://www.europeana.eu/portal/brief-doc.html?embedded=&start=1&view=table&query=5+collingham+gardens+brompton

By 1889, however, the Earl of Wilton no longer resided at 5 Collingham Gardens. On 22 March 1889, Mr. Robert Duncombe Shafto, a rich, former M.P. for North Durham died in his "London residence" at that address according to the Monthly chronicle of north country lore and legend, volume 3, 1889.

By 1902-1903, the address appears in the Royal Blue Book: Fashionable Directory and Parliamentary Guide as the residence of merchant banker John Conrad im Thurn, of J. C. im Thurn & Sons, merchants, 1, East India-avenue, EC.

And in 1938, Beryl Dallen (née Umney), wife of Deryck N. Dallen of Hartley Manor Farm, gave birth to a baby girl at 5 Collingham-gardens.

The above news, found in the 1938 periodical Chemist and druggist: The newsweekly for pharmacy, volume 128, indicates that perhaps the locale was no longer an upper-crust luxury abode at that time.

In fact, according to the website Lost Hospitals of London, 1947 would see the Metropolitan Ear Nose and Throat Hospital purchase "two freehold houses, 4-5 Collingham Gardens, SW5, which were converted to a 45-bedded hospital and Nurses Home."

But converted from what? The birth of baby girl Cherry V. Dallen at 5 Collingham Gardens in 1938 was probably not due to a visitor suddenly giving birth in the drawing room of a stately home. And that 1938 birth date is fairly close to the date of our interest: 21 January 1932, and why Revd. Barton R. V. Mills was at that address on that day when he suddenly died.

A clue to what became of 5 Collingham Gardens between being the residence of the moneyed J. C. im Thurn at the century's turn, and its sale to the Metropolitan Ear Nose and Throat Hospital in post-war 1947, was found in the strangest of places!

In 2003's Niv: The Authorized Biography of David Niven by Graham Lord, we find this reference to Niven's mother on page 48: "In 1932 [Niven] was in Aldershot on a physical training course when Uncle Tommy telephoned to say that Etta was dying in a nursing home in South Kensington. He rushed up to London and was stunned to see how wasted she was by her cancer, but it was too late to say goodbye. Following an operation, peritonitis complications set in, she did not recognise him and she died on 12 November at 5 Collingham Gardens with her beloved husband at her bedside. She was only 52."

So, we know now that Barton Mills had been committed to a nursing home at 5 Collingham Gardens, about a mile southwest of his home at 24 Hans-road. Obviously not in the best of health, the death of Revd. Mills on 21 January of that very same year was apparently still unexpected.

Interestingly, on the heels of yesterday's examination of wills, probates, and bequests, there's also this snippet from Niven's biography: "She left an astonishingly large estate of £14 169 3s. 9d. net, the equivalent in modern terms of about $950,000 [obviously valued against the RPI]... three times as much as she had inherited from William Niven sixteen years previously. This huge increase in wealth was not caused by inflation, which was nil between 1916 and 1932, nor probably by clever investment, since the British stock market index fell fifty-five per cent between 1919 and 1931 as it was battered by the Great Depression. The only explanation is that Etta left her inheritance from William Niven untouched to grow for sixteen years in some high earning account... Niv's claims that she was desperately poor were quite untrue."

This additional bit of information is instructive for our purposes.

Revd. and Mrs. Barton Mills inherited £22565 8s. 9d., from Edith Mills's father, Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, with whom they lived at the time of his death in 1920.

At the time of Barton's passing in 1932, his "effects" were valued at £17007 11s. 7d.—a greater legacy than that of Niven's mother, Lady Henriette "Etta" Comyn-Platt—but less than Sir George had previously bequeathed to them upon his passing in 1920.

Etta's legacy was worth "three times" its original value in 1916, meaning she had likely been left less than £5000. It's value had trebled by 1932 despite economic troubles in the intervening years.

The Mills family had taken almost £23000, and in four fewer years than Lady Comyn-Platt, diminished it to roughly £17000. And this does not take into consideration the residue of any 'effects' from the inheritance that Barton Mills had received upon the passing of his father, Arthur Mills, M.P., in 1898, which may have approached £10000. Afterwards, he spurned a secure living as vicar of Bude Haven, Cornwall and took the family and his career as a cleric to London. Mills then worked from 1901-1908 as an assistant chaplain at the Queen's Chapel at the Savoy, a position which probably paid little, but also would have helped them 'pay the bills' through the 20th century's first decade.

During that time in London, Mills also published a book of sermons, a book entitled Marks of the Church, and several works on the writings of St. Bernard that are still valuable resources to theologians today, as well as having served as a military chaplain during the First World War.

Figuring at least some small income from those ventures, it seems the Mills family was far from impoverished during the decades preceding Barton's death, as evidenced by the seven servants and governess listed in the household by enumerators of the 1911 UK census.

In fact, it seems the Mills family pretty much lived a life of ease on money and 'effects' they'd inherited at various times, further evidence being provided by Barton's probate listing of his son as "George Ramsay Acland Mills, gentleman."

Other men listed among the names on the very same page of probate documents are described as "foreman," "baker," and "engine driver." There's no reason George wouldn't have been listed as a "schoolmaster" if he'd, indeed, been employed in 1932.

Apparently, Mills was at the very least 'between positions' as a schoolmaster at the time of his father's death, probably at home, being a gentleman and tapping out the manuscript for his first book, 1933's Meredith and Co.

Thoughts on this have already been explored, and George's financial situation would have been augmented, along with that of his wife, Vera Louise, upon the death of his mother-in-law, Evelyn Amy Hart Beauclerk, in 1933. Although the executor of Beauclerk's will was Westminster Bank Ltd., it seems highly probable that some of her effects, totaling £9235 19s. 9.d, found their way down to her daughter, Vera, and son-in-law, George, gentleman.

Two things:

● Were George and Vera living with Evelyn Beauclerk or Barton Mills in 1932-1933? There are no telephone listings for the couple, so unless they were rooming with someone else or living in a hotel, they would have been secure with one London family or the other.

● And, given the firm financial footing the Mills family finds itself in, circa 1898-1920, why does the autobiography of Lady Dorothy Mills cry poverty during her courtship and marriage to Barton Mills's elder son, Capt. Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills of the D.C.L.I., George's half-brother by Barton's first marriage?

In 1914, Captain Mills is sent off to the war in France, but according to his autobiographical book, With My Regiment: From the Aisne to La Bassée [Lippincott: Philadelphia, 1916] written under the pseudonym "Platoon Commander", before departing he first "went up to London to my rooms to collect a few things."

His father lived in a 20-room abode at 12 Cranley Gardens, S.W., the likely location of those "rooms."

So Revd. Mills had room in his home for son Arthur, even if no money in his wallet for the newlywed couple after his nuptials to the above-mentioned and apparently disowned Dorothy Rachel Melissa Walpole in 1916. If Capt. Mills couldn't afford to support his wife on an infantry captain's wage, he certainly wasn't renting unlived-in "rooms" in London as well as a bed at a boarding at a house near his barracks on the Thames!

Of course, to believe that cry of poverty is to accept only the word of Lady Dorothy, who wrote her autobiography in 1929 after creating the persona of being a completely independent and modern woman, whose success was due in no part to the help of any man, be he father, lover, or husband. Her self-made, 'rags-to-riches' persona was as much what she was marketing as her stories, and if it appeared at all that she'd ever been well-cared-for as an adult by either husband Arthur or her in-laws, the Mills, it would certainly have taken much of the lustre off of her heroically feminist backstory.

Nevertheless, just one address in the probate record of Barton Mills has led to much additional knowledge of our George Mills—his career, his family, and his prospects, circa 1932. And the writing of this post turned out to be no 'quickie'!

As always, if you have anything that you can add, please don't hesitate to contact me—and thank you in advance!

Of Mills, Wills, Probate, and Executors

Lately we've been dwelling quite a bit on the passing of George Ramsay Acland Mills and members of his family. That subject may be a bit gloomy, a stark contrast to the blazingly sunny and crisp days we've been having here in Ocala, but it's been enlightening as well. Many of our speculations have been affirmed, and when some haven't, the lens seems to have brought them into somewhat better focus.

For example, we've wondered aloud about George Mills and his proclivity to pass from job to job as a schoolmaster from the late 1920s seemingly through the late 1930s. Most of that time was peppered with the fallout of the General Strike of 1926 and the worldwide Great Depression.

The question seemed to be: Did Mills pass from opening to opening, all around the U.K. and even as far afield as Glion, Switzerland, because he simply needed to teach and followed the jobs, or was it because he and his bride, Vera, needed the income.

We know that in 1911, George's family lived at 12 Cranleigh Gardens, SW, while George attended Harrow, and that the census form shows the family having seven servants and a governess attending George's father, Revd. Barton R. V. Mills, his mother Edith, and his sisters, Agnes and Violet. They lived in a home with more than 20 rooms, and were sending a son to boarding school.

It's safe to say the family was not financially distressed at the time.

Later, the family moved in with Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, retired Director of Army Clothing, and father of Edith Mills. It's unclear what became of the Cranleigh Gardens address (Was it sold or rented? Had the Mills family actually owned it?). Sir George passed away in 1920, while George was away attending Christ Church, Oxford.

Edith Mills had no living siblings at the time of Sir George's death, and Ramsay's wife had predeceased him. It seems the Mills family then lived for a time at nearby 24 Hans-road, Chelsea, following their departure from Sir George's home at 7 Manson Place, and it is while living there that Barton Mills passed away suddenly on 21 January 1932.

What occasioned the family moves? And how did the career movements of son George Mills (and wife) factor in? It sounds as if the family may have been living in homes large enough to have accommodated George and Vera between his stints as a schoolmaster during the years from 1926 and 1932. It also appears that this was a family accustomed to having servants.

Let's check the probate records. When Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay passed away in 1920, his effects were valued at £22565 8s. 9d., according to figures pulled from records available to ancestry.com [above, left; double-click to enlarge].

To calculate the value of that in terms of today, I went to measuringworth.com and used their indicators. They suggest that when valuing the worth of a person, one should calculate his or her value as a share of the GDP. Their calculations peg the worth of Sir George's estate at a whopping £5,270,000 in 2011 terms.

That's quite an inheritance for Revd. Barton and family!

Let's not forget that Mills departed a stable living as vicar of Bude Haven, Cornwall, to come to London in 1901, after the death of his father, widower Arthur Mills, M.P., also of Bude. Arthur's estate had been probated at £42 305 in 1898. Using the measuringworth.com calculator, that estate was worth £34,400,000, and would have been split among Barton, Barton's brother Dudley, and kin on the Acland side of the family. Even coming away with just 30% of the value of his father's estate, Barton would have left for London knowing he'd secured an inheritance valued at £10,000,000 in 2011.

Is there any wonder there were so many servants?

That examines two inheritances in which Barton had a stake: His father's and his father-in-law's. But Barton himself passed away in 1932. What did he leave behind in terms of wealth?

Barton's effects were probated at £17007 11s. 7d. [right]. Admittedly during a worldwide depression, that works out to a mere £5,620,000 in terms of 2011 value.

Barton's estate was bequeathed to Elizabeth Edith Mills, widow, Agnes Edith Mills and Violet Eleanor Mills, spinsters, and George Ramsay Acland Mills, gentleman.

One assumes that real estate values, for example, returned more to normal and continued to accrue value as time went by following the depression. The value of anything invested as such would have grown in value after Barton's passing, making that quite an inheritance.

Looking at those 1932 assets in terms of liquid value, one would use the on-line calculator to compare Barton's "effects" versus the RPI, making it worth "only" £875,000 of purchasing power—a tidy sum today, let alone during the Great Depression!

My hunch is that, unless George had been estranged from his father and/or family during the years between 1925 and 1932, he would likely have been able to avail himself of his family's good will as he bounced form position to position in various preparatory schools and tinkered with authoring his first novel.

It appears that George must have, indeed, wanted badly to teach, and kept at it with the support—presumably often financial—of his family.

Just for fun, let's also look at the will of Lady Dorothy Mills, once George's sister-in-law, as described in the 30 March 1960 edition of The Times [below, left]. Lady Dorothy was, indeed, estranged from her family, and for lack of other evidence was poor at the outset of her 1916 marriage to George's stepbrother, Captain Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills, of the D.C.L.I. To believe that, one must assume that Arthur was also at least somewhat estranged from his family at the time (and, strangely, we have no real reason to believe that), and that the crown was literally paying officers in the infantry a pauper's wage during the First World War (and I'm at a loss to explain why that ever would have made a military career in the UK even remotely attractive).

Anyway, after a lifetime of apparently squeezing her shillings so tightly that King George must have wept, her probate in 1960 netted out at £63446—a value in terms of 2011 totaling £1,090,000.

Passing with over a cool million of 2011 pounds, while living in a seaside hotel with flats in 1958 starting at as little as 9 guineas a week in the winter, it seems that Lady Dorothy had, indeed, come along way from her destitute days of depression, allegedly working in the East End of London, while her family enjoyed their peerage.

Incidentally, the £1000 she bequeathed to the Royal Geographic Society in 1960 that would become the one-time Lady Dorothy Mills Award would be valued today at £17,200.

That certainly leaves a lot for an executor direct to someone or something else.

Lady Dorothy passed away childless, and as far as we know, never remarried after her divorce in 1933.

George, Agnes, and Violet Mills, who would have shared an inheritance from their mother, Edith, when she passed away in 1945, also died unmarried and childless at Grey Friars in Budleigh Salterton. All were no longer with us by July 1975.

Their branch of the family tree came to an end, making the unearthing of the history of their nuclear family so difficult. But one finds it hard to believe that among George, Agnes, Violet, and Lady Dorothy, none had a will, or that they all were inclined to leave the entirety of their estates, and even their personal effects, to the crown.

Ancestry.com has no information on UK wills and probates available after 1940. If we could find out who the executors were of the wills of the Mills, we could have access to persons who potentially would also know details of the Mills family's history—details that could make them and their story all so much more real—including possible access to family photos, letters, passports, post cards, ticket stubs, train schedules, awards, military records, etc. And all of that ephemera could possibly include George's original outlines, character studies, blue-penciled manuscripts for his published books, and perhaps even plans for future texts he'd never gotten around to authoring!

As always, if you can help, please don't hesitate to let me know!

A Virtual Walking Tour of Budleigh Salterton (While Thinking Aloud about George Mills)

Churches seem to have always played an important role in the lives of the Mills family. This is probably no better exemplified than by the letter that George Mills wrote to The Times on 8 April 1959 entitled "Dogs in Church," apparently in reply to an on-going, whimsical thread of mail that had struck a chord in Mills. The missive is a nostalgic retelling of a story that George's father, the Revd. Barton R. V. Mills often told about going to church with his parents, Arthur Mills, M.P., and Lady Agnes, as well as their black retrievers, Belle and Achille.

The last line of the death notice of George Mills that we saw yesterday reads: "Funeral service at the Roman Catholic Church on Wednesday, December 13, at 10:30 a.m." Friend Michael Downes couldn't find a grave for Mills in the local burial ground in Budleigh Salterton (although that may have been due to the inclement weather), and until we know where George rests, his story in Budleigh ends in a church with that 10:30 a.m. service.

It's a dazzlingly sunny morning here in Florida, but cuttingly cold for this part of the world [37°F / 3°C] and the level of insulation found in the houses. However, technology has advanced to the point where I can sit here and virtually stroll around Devonshire, exploring—thanks to Google Maps. I know this won't be of interest if you are a resident of Budleigh Salterton, but for me, it's exciting to see the town across the pond!

First, let's look for the Budleigh Salterton Hospital [above] where Mills peacefully departed. It's at the corner of Boucher and East Budleigh Roads in what is apparently Otterton. Really it's just across the croquet lawns and cricket fields—both sporting loves of George—from his home, Grey Friars. It's about 1500 ft. from the Mills home to the main entrance of the hospital, but it appears to be a rather circuitous drive from one to the other.



On the way back to Grey Friars, I strolled down The Lawn from High Street and took a look at the beautiful edifice that appears to be St. Peter's Church of England [above], although I couldn't find a sign. After receiving his Master's in History from Oxford, George's father, Barton, had been a vicar in the Church of England from 1887 through 1901, as well as having been a chaplain briefly in San Remo, Italy, and an assistant chaplain at the Royal Chapel at the Savoy. Subsequently, the senior Mills worked as a religious scholar and as a military chaplain during the First World War.

We know, however, that Barton Mills converted to Roman Catholicism while at Christ Church, Oxford, before becoming a cleric in the Church of England—sometime before 1885. From the United States, it seems odd that a cleric in one denomination would worship as a member of the congregation of a different denomination—Barton Mills certainly must have missed a few Catholic masses while busy delivering sermons for the C of E at the same hour—but no one I've discussed it with in the UK seems very much surprised by that at all (except for the current Chaplain of the Queen's Chapel of the Savoy, Peter Galloway, who found the news implausible and immediately questioned the authoritative 1885 reference book without even bothering to review it because it did not coincide with his bias). Revd. Barton R. V. Mills appears to have been Roman Catholic by faith, Church of England only by vocation. I leave it to the reader to surmise the tenets of which creed would have been passed, personally, from father to children in such a case.

The entire Mills family's repeated affiliation with Catholicism is far more than coincidental, so it's no surprise at all that George's funeral service was held at Budleigh's "Roman Catholic Church" (also named for St. Peter, a fact left out of the death notice, presumably to prevent confusion among those wishing to attend the service). Grey Friars is virtually equidistant between the two churches of St. Peter, so Mills's spiritual choice of denomination clearly wasn't based on mere proximity. The Mills family clearly was no longer associated with the Church of England.


After turning north up Slaton Road and Moor Lane, I turned north on Upper Stoneborough Lane. While walking along Clinton Terrace, I found a lovely, far more simple, brick church [above].

Turning the corner, I found the entrance [above]...

Looking carefully, the sign at front appears to read "Catholic Church of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles," obviously the location of George's funeral. I imagine Mills closing his dripping umbrella and stepping into the warm, dry vestibule on rainy Sunday mornings...

Returning to Moor Lane, I followed it out to the West, to the very end, where it meets Dark Lane, across from the primary school. There I found St. Peter's Burial Ground, presumably where Michael Downes and his wife, Annie, looked for the final resting place of George Mills one misty winter day.

Approaching the entrance, I carefully read the sign, then strolled along the hedge [above], peering over and thinking... Wishing I could enter...

I wonder if this locale is where George Mills finally went to rest. His paternal grandfather was a powerful M.P., and associated with the Efford Down House in Bude, Cornwall. His paternal grandmother was Agnes Lucy Dyke Acland, daughter of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland VI, 10th baronet, M.P., of Broad Clyst, Devon. The Columb John Chapel at Killerton [below] there in Devon was still being used for Acland family burials after Sir Thomas's death. Could George have found a resting place there?

But one wonders where his father, Barton, was buried after his death in 1932? With the Aclands at Columb John, part of the estate where he and his brother Dudley Mills had been raised for much of their youths by the aging Sir Thomas while father Arthur journeyed to many of the empire's colonies? Knowing where Dudley now rests might help in all of this!

George's mother, Elizabeth Edith Ramsay, was the daughter of Londoner Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, and she may have been laid to rest alongside her father. Might George be resting near his mother in London—or even with other kin in Scotland?

His wife, Vera Louise Beauclerk Mills, was of the lineage of William I on the Beauclerk side of the family, and granddaughter of the legendary Sinophile Sir Robert Hart on the other. Vera, who passed away in 1942 at the age of 48, may have been buried in a family plot with either family. Could it be that George ended up alongside her?

Or is it likely that the childless Mills, along with his spinster (and presumably childless) sisters, Agnes and Violet, rests together with them in the St. Peter's Burial Ground there in Devonshire, near Grey Friars, the croquet club, and the sea, where they'd all lived so happily for a quarter of a century at the end of their lives?

It's even possible, I suppose, that Mills and/or his sisters were cremated. Still, nothing in the family's past would lead me to believe that.

We've followed the life and career of George Mills—schoolmaster, author, paymaster—from his birth in Bude, Cornwall to his passing in Budleigh Salterton, Devon. He spent a great deal of his life moving around, as we're well aware. I'll admit, I'd very much like to know where, exactly, he at long last came to rest.

Working Out Where Mills Was in the First World War

In trying to piece together the service record of George Mills, some of the work must be done by inference. As we saw in the previous entry, Mills was sworn into the army in Kensington, London, on 15 January 1916 and apparently immediately assigned to the "Rifle Depot (Res)." His papers were stamped at Whitehall on 11 July 1916, and you see the original form at left.

Oxford archivist Anabel Peacock has records that show him assigned first to the Royal Rifles, and subsequently to the Royal Army Service Corps. Oxford records the date of his entry into the military as 16 June 1916, though, so perhaps he left home until June, well after he'd been sworn in.

Well, George wasn't the only fellow entering the service in England at the time, so let’s take a look at an exchange I found on-line regarding another couple of soldiers who were enlisting at a quite similar time:

ray hurley
Apr 11 2009, 11:38 AM

Hi i am trying to find out when my grandfather went over to france

name Arthur Hurley

private

9th battlion the rifle brigade service no S/26044 formerly R/29675 KRRC

killed Cherisy Arras 3rd may 1917

many thanks Ray Hurley


Stebie9173
Apr 11 2009, 01:45 PM

Whilst Arthur Hurley's Service Record appears to be lost, I hope that I can offer a possible timeline for his service by reference to a man who has apparently very similar service.

Henry Alfred Gunning

Enlisted 29-6-1916

Posted to Rifle Depot, 29-6-1916

Posted to 23rd (Reserve) Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps, No. R/29614, 8-7-1916 (The 23rd Battalion was a "Second Reserve" battalion, set up, in theory, to supply the volunteer New Army ("Service") Battalions with trained recruits).

Posted to 111th Training Reserve Battalion (this was the 23rd KRRC converting as a whole battalion to a Training Reserve battalion), No. TR/13/33981, 1-9-1916

Posted to 9th (Service) Bn. Rifle Brigade, No. S/26040, 7-10-1916

Embarked to France, 8-10-1916.Arrived in France, 9-10-1916, and posted to 47 Infantry Base Depot at Havre.

Joined 9th Battalion Rifle Brigade on 27-10-1916.

Henry Gunning had a bout of sickness in April 1917, was wounded in August 1917, and later transferred to the Army Service Corps, No. M/427995, on 30-11-1918.

Now, George's papers had been stamped at Whitehall on 11 July 1916. Gunning's were stamped there on 29 June 1916—less than two weeks earlier. Gunning clearly must have been at the Rifle Depot upon George's arrival there, and given Oxford's record of 16 June 1916, Mills may even have beaten Gunning there!

Gunning obviously had been assigned to the 22nd Battalion of the King's Royal Rifles, but his paperwork must have been stamped with that information later.

Mills, on the other hand, has the letters "R.B." [Regimental Barracks? Royal Battalion?] stamped on his, although it's uncertain to me what that meant and at what time it was done. And, as we saw last time, the letters "MY PAY CORPS" clearly had been typed or stamped near the "Corps" line at the upper right of the enlistment document in a location similar to Gunning's "22ND BATTN K.R.R." stamp. That easily could have been added later. Could it be that Gunning, 33, was assigned to combat immediately, while Mills, 19, might've been seen to need additional maturation and assigned elsewhere? I've always heard it was the other way around.

Something else that strikes me as interesting about the above record of H. A. Gunning is that he eventually transfers to the Army Service Corps in late November of 1918. Mills, as we know, eventually transferred to the RASC before the end of the conflict as well.

Would George Mills have followed the same or a similar itinerary into the Great War? It's certainly not beyond reasonable speculation that he easily could have, even though I admit to being ignorant as to how recruits showing up daily at the Rifle Depot would have been deployed, perhaps into the 9th Battalion Rifle Brigade [pictured, left--Is Mills among them?] circa 1916.

Is it safe to say that Private George Ramsay Acland Mills, 24209—or possibly 12892 as his papers have in no uncertain terms been amended—was sent to France, at some point probably joining the Rifles, later in 1916. He may have seen action near the base in Havre, or further afield.

George's brother, Arthur F. H. Mills, had been an officer in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, and had been wounded at the Aisne in late 1914.

Sometime between 1916 and 1919—Is 1918 a good guess?—Infantryman George Mills received a transfer to the Army Service Corps, a branch of the military whose clothing department had been run by his maternal grandfather, Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay.

It is apparently from there that Mills was discharged from the service in 1919, holding the rank of Lance Corporal. Why does it apparently say "Army Pay Corps" on his primary enlistment document? We don't know—perhaps it was just coincidental, given that George would later re-enter the British Army as a lieutenant in the Royal Army Pay Corps in 1940.

At this point, there's not much else to know about the WW I service of George Mills except to know that, no matter where he had been deployed, he returned safely and enjoyed the benefit of being a veteran to gain admission to Oxford, where he became a student.

Of course, despite having left Harrow some four years before his enlistment in 1916, Mills still listed himself as a "student" on the papers filled out on the day he was sworn in.

Next time, we'll take a look at how Mills might have, indeed, been a student during those "missing years," and a bit of evidence that may or may not back up my speculation…

Solving the Mystery of Barbara Mills... by Telephone

After catching up with my incoming mail, it's time to go back to something I'd started before I left for Michigan: There's more to be gleaned from the British telephone directories.

A caveat would be that just because a person's name is on a telephone in a certain location at a certain time, it doesn't mean that the person in question is actually there. A case in point would be the fact that my mother never took her phone out of my father's name after he passed away in 1997. It stayed that way until she also left us in 2004. That telephone number stayed Dad's for an additional 7 years after his death.

We can assume, however, that it is in someone's interest to keep paying for a telephone number listed in a certain location. I think we can also assume that when a telephone listing moves, the person, persons, or that "interest" moves along with it.

That said, there's still much to be learned from the London listings that we've already looked at in terms of the nuclear family of Reverend Barton R. V. Mills through 1925, and then the listings for "G. R. A. Mills" after his wedding in that same year—listings that may or may not have been listings for the George Mills with which we're concerned.

In the April 1925 London directory [pictured, above left], the number of George's brother Captain Arthur H. Mills [Victoria 2285, listed at 91A Ebury st., S.W.1] is marked by handwriting on the page's margin: "R120 27/6."

The only other listing marked by hand is that of George's father, Rev. Barton R. V. Mills [Kensington 2397, listed at 38 Onslow Gardens S.W.7], designated by what appears to be: "Kx R 27/7."

Why those listings had been singled out to be marked by the telephone company is a mystery because one subsequently changed and the other did not. Could the notes it have to do with a change in billing? Barton Mills is ostensibly retired at this point, immersed in his research about St. Bernard. Arthur, on the other hand, has begun to make a name for himself as an author, having just published his sixth book in the past four years. His wife, Lady Dorothy Mills, had also published five books during that same span of time. Perhaps Arthur has taken on the cost of his father's telephone.

Regardless, Arthur's listing remains the same in the October 1925 London directory [right], but Barton's listing is changed to "Sloane ….. 3278 Mills Rev. Barton R. V. .. .. .. .. 24 Hans rd S.W.3."

That listing for Rev. Barton R. V. Mills stayed in place through 1931. Barton Mills passed away suddenly, however, on 21 January 1932 in London.

The 1932 London directory contains a new listing for that address and telephone number: Mrs. Barton Mills.

In 1933, the telephone number for Mrs. Barton Mills remains the same—SLOane 3278—but the address changes. The new address is 21 Cadogan Gardens, S.W.3.

That's an address we already know. It was associated with Agnes and Violet Mills at the time of the death of Major Reginald Ramsay Wingate, DCLI, in March 1938. He was a relative on their mother's side of the family, and had passed away in Cornwall. At Maj. Wingate's funeral, you may recall, flowers had been received from "Misses Barbara, Agnes, and Violet Mills (Cadogen Gardens S.W.)."

Cadogan Gardens is in Kensington, where Major Wingate's mother was living in 1938 at the age of 90, so a close connection between the two families at that time is easy to see.

The real impact of the juxtaposition of this telephone listing and the Major Wingate's obituary is that it apparently clarifies the mystery of who, exactly, Barbara Mills was!

We've experienced the fact that clerks like census enumerators, and even 21st century digitizers, often end up with things spelled incorrectly. Let's take a look at who would have ordered the flowers for the Wingate funeral in Cornwall.

The telephone listing at 21 Cadogan Gardens, S.W. [and we can see that somewhere between London and the publication of the newspaper obituary in Cornwall (left), "Cadogan" has changed in spelling to "Cadogen"], in 1938 was in the name of "Mrs. Barton Mills."

The flowers were sent from "Misses Barbara, Agnes, and Violet Mills."

Let's assume they were ordered by telephone, with a bill subsequently being sent from Cornwall to London. The person taking the message was told the flowers were from "Mrs. Barton, Agnes, and Violet Mills," but mistakenly heard "Misses Barbara, Agnes, and Violet Mills," and wrote the latter on the card. What difference an incorrectly transcribed syllable can make!

Until the existence of an actual relative named Barbara Mills comes to light, this is probably the best explanation for "Barbara's" kindness in sending flowers to that funeral—she was actually Edith [Mrs. Barton] Mills!

The combination of the card pinned on those flowers and that current telephone listing also tells us something else: Spinsters Agnes and Violet Mills still live with their mother in 1938. Married brother George [getting ready to publish his second book, King Willow], and his wife, Vera, obviously do not.

The listing for Mrs. Barton Mills [SLOane 3278; 21 Cadogan gdns, S.W.3] stays in place in the London directories until its last appearance in the 1947 book.

In an entry posted here yesterday, however, we discovered that Elizabeth Edith [Mrs. Barton] Mills passed away near the end of the calendar year 1945. We must assume that the phone at 21 Cadogan Gardens remained in her name afterwards, with the bill being paid by her "estate," in the persons of Agnes and Violet.

By 1947, Agnes would have been 52 years old, and Violet, 45. Being spinsters who were interested in the "Girl Guides," and with no mother [who'd been born, married, and died there in Kensington] to keep them in London, it would be no surprise to find that the girls might head out of town, into the countryside, to live out their Golden Years.

1947 also finds these additions to the British Library's Manuscripts Catalogue: "Ramsay (George Dalhousie) of the War Office; knt. 1900. Correspondence and papers 1835-1898," and "Papers of G. D. Ramsay rel. to the Royal Army Clothing Dept. 1855-1898," Add. 46446 – 46450.

The donors of those manuscripts? "Mills (Agnes Edith). Miss. grand-daughter of Sir G. D. Ramsay. Presented, jointly with Miss V. E. Mills 1947," and "Mills (Violet Eleanor). Miss. grand-daughter of Sir G. D. Ramsay. Presented, jointly with Miss A. E. Mills 1947."

It seems that the girls had been busy cleaning out 21 Cadogan Gardens following their mother's passing, and finally arranging a place for the papers of Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, their maternal grandfather, to reside in perpetuity [right].

It's notable that, as in the case of the flowers sent to Major Wingate's funeral in Cornwall some dozen years before, the name of George Mills—in 1947, then five years a widower and four years past the relinquishing of his service commission in the Royal Army Pay Corps—is not one of the donors.

There's no reason to believe that George was not close to his sisters, but the evidence suggests that he was not living with them in 1938 or in 1947. The 1947 London directory alone has at least eight listings for a "George" or "G." Mills, all of whom could very well could be the George Mills of our interest.

Nevertheless, the "Misses Mills" appear to be heading out of town in 1947, and there's good reason to believe we know exactly where they went—and that location has been tied intimately to our George Ramsay Acland Mills as well.

But we'll examine that another time. For now, let's just be satisfied with solving the previously perplexing puzzle, "Who in the world was Barbara Mills?"

Eleanor, Edie, Baby Alexander, and Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay

Another outpost heard from while I vacationed was the Isle of Man, where friend of this website David Wingate was on holiday with his fiancée. I'd been pestering him for a while about forwarding me an image he has of Edith Mills, mother of George Mills. Here's an excerpt from David's latest e-mail:

Hi Sam,

Attached is the picture of Edith as a young girl… Pictures of St. Michael's, Bude; St. Olaf's, Ploughill; and St. Andrew's, Stratton will be on their way to you on Monday.

Have a nice weekend,

Regards

David

You see the long-awaited image above, at the left. It features a photograph of "Edie," her father, Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, his wife, Eleanor Juliat Charteris Crawford, and Edie's brother, Alexander Panmure Oswald Ramsay, who died on 15 February 1897 at the age of 30.

"Edie" was born Elizabeth Edith Ramsay on 27 July 1865 in Kensington, London. She married Reverend Barton R. V. Mills at St. George's Hanover Square in Kensington on 10 January 1894. Their first child, Agnes Edith Mills, was born in Stratton, Cornwall, on 11 June 1895.

Their second child and first son, George Ramsay Acland Mills, was born on 1 October 1896, also in Cornwall where Rev. Mills was vicar of Bude Haven.

After the family moved to London in 1901, Violet Eleanor Mills was born on 17 November 1902.

Reverend Barton passed away suddenly on 21 January 1932 in London. "Edie" lived at Cadogen Gardens in Kensington afterwards with her daughters Agnes and Violet, and possibly her son, George, at times.

"Edie" Mills passed away in nearby Chelsea, probably at the Royal Hospital, during the last few months of 1945 [Oct/Nov/Dec] at the age of 80.

Knowing as we do that George Mills suffered through the deaths of his wife, Vera, in 1942, and a young friend who was important to George's career as an author, Terence Hadow, in the Burmese campaign in 1943, his mother's passing near the end of the war in 1945 certainly made it a difficult three years for Mills, already, as we know, in failing health—he relinquished a commission as a lieutenant in the Royal Army Pay Corps due to "ill-health" in late 1943.

Thank you, David, for this wonderful portrait of Edith Mills with the family of her youth. I'll look forward to receiving those images from Cornwall via snail mail!

Onslow Gardens, Action in South Africa, and an Epic Match on Court No. 18

Some thoughts after watching the U.S. and England advance in the World Cup, and spending the entire rest of the day not working in the garden, but watching the incredible Nicolas Mahut-John Isner match in the inexorably fading lightof Court No. 18 at Wimbledon. After 188 service aces, 108 5th set games, two sweaty players, and a partridge in a pear tree, the match will resume—once again—tomorrow, and apparently during that long-awaited royal visit…

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was wondering about the address 38 Onslow Gardens, S.W. I think I'll just take a moment here to reflect on that.

I'd wondered about George Mills using the 38 Onslow Gardens address on his WWI enlistment papers in 1916. I wondered, since I knew the family had an address of 12 Cranley [or Cranleigh] Gardens in the recent past, might it have been George's own address, one which he shared with his half-brother, Arthur.

We've seen, however, that according to telephone records, the family had, indeed, moved to Onslow Gardens by the publication of the August 1915 London telephone directory. Now there wouldn't be any reason to think that George—who claimed to be a student on his 1916 enlistment form—wasn't residing with his parents.

And Arthur F. H. Mills, George's half-brother, talked of going to his "rooms" in London before embarking to France in 1914. Those rooms might've been at 12 Cranley Gardens, but they almost assuredly weren't at 38 Onslow Gardens, something I'd wondered about.

And as we saw in our last post, it's apparent that Rev. Barton R. V. Mills, George's father, had begun using 7 Manson Place, S.W. as a his address by 1919, even though the family ostensibly was still living at 38 Onslow. It's likely that the aging Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay—almost 92 at the time of his 1920 passing—had a family member caring for him full time in 1919, possibly Barton, or Barton in conjunction with his wife, Edith, Sir George's daughter.

Perhaps, given that the Mills used that address when George was enrolled at Christ Church, it might have been George's address. The young man may have been "enlisted" to care for his ancient grandfather after his return from the First World War, and may have been living there full time before embarking for Oxford.

Most of my questions about 38 Onslow Gardens S.W. have ended up being answered by the London telephone directories. But those directories have propmpted some new queries that we'll examine soon.

"The telephone book is full of facts, but it doesn't contain a single idea" -- Mortimer Adler

It's Father's Day, Sunday morning, 20 June, and as I write this my girls are still in bed. Last night we went out for dinner at my favorite restaurant and I had a wonderful meal: Fried calamari and bell peppers, crab and corn chowder, mussels in a light garlic wine sauce with tomatoes and basil [left], and crème brû·lée. What happy and satisfied guy I was!

This morning I find myself thinking as much about telephones, though, as anything else. They've caused me to readjust my thinking on several issues related to George Mills and his family, and have also left me with as many unanswered questions as the London telephone records have been able to answer.

George's grandfather, Arthur Mills, died on 12 October 1898. His will was probated in 1899. In 1900, George's father, the Rev. Barton R. V. Mills, lists his address as "The Vicarage, Bude Haven, N. Cornwall." Father's Day seems as food a time as any to delve more deeply into the world of Reverend Mills, George's dad!

By the 31 March 1901 census, however, the Mills family—then Barton, his wife Edith Mills, and young children Agnes, 5, and George, 4, were living at 13 Brechin Place [right] in London. In February, he had already preached sermons at the Chapel Royal at the Savoy as Vicar of Bude Haven, Cornwall, but by 24 November, Barton is listed among the Royal Chapel's assistant chaplains.

Then, by 25 April 1902, the family was found living at 16 Cranley Gardens [left, spelled "Cranley-gardens" in the London Gazette], and on 12 November George's younger sister, Violet, was born.

Later, the year of 1907 brought something else: The family's first telephone! The July 1907 listing read: "Western…. 3184 [MILLS] Rev Barton R. V… .. .. 16 Cranley Gdns." I don't know if it was a party or a private line, but it did cost £5 a year, plus long distance and trunk charges.

The next year, 1908, at the age of 51, Reverend Mills and the Savoy part ways around November for reasons that are not clear. The address of the family's listing in that year's January telephone directory changes their address to 12 Cranley Gardens [right]. The move would have been made sometime in late 1907, before Mills left the Savoy.

The telephone records remain the same until August 1915. The family listing then has a new number and a new address: "Kensington 2397 Mills Barton R. V., Rev. .. .. .. 38 Onslow Gdns SW."

The 1920 book adds a listing for "Victoria .. 2285 Mills Arthur .. .. .. .. .. 91a Ebury st S.W.1 [left]." That listing would be for George's older half-brother, Arthur F. H. Mills, and his wife, Lady Dorothy Mills.

Something else in the on-line copy of that April 1920 book is interesting. A handwritten note at the top of page 713 [MIL] reads "K 3545 Mills Barton R. V. Rev. *e/* R 4/6" [* = illegible character].

On 16 January of that year, Edith Mills's father, Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, passed away. His home was at 7 Manson Place, S.W.7 [right].

Sir George's listing in that 1920 directory stays the same; presumably the note above simply had been switched the billing of that telephone number to the responsibility of Rev. Mills.

1921 found a big change, however: Two listings, this time in the name of "Mrs. Barton Mills," one for 38 Onslow Gardens, S.W. [Kensington 2397], and one for 7 Manson Place, S.W. [Kensington 3545]. Not only has the extra number been added to this single listing, but it has been taken out of Barton's name.

[Note: It's now three days later, Wednesday morning, and I'm finally getting around to finishing this post!]

Now, it's debatable how many siblings Edith Mills—Mrs. Barton Mills—had. Her brother, Alexander Panmure Oswald Ramsay had passed away in 1897 at the age of 30. Ramsay family genealogists today often show a third sibling, Edith Judith Ramsay, in their family trees, but I can find nothing about her except information that clearly belongs to the life of Elizabeth Edith Ramsay [Edith Mills], like a marriage to Rev. Barton R. V. Mills.

It's likely, then, that Sir George's daughter, Edith Mills, was his only surviving heir—his wife, Eleanor Ramsay, had passed away in 1918 at the age of 90. Barton Mills had been using Ramsay's '7 Manson Place' address as his own since 1919, and after Sir George's passing in 1920, that address is firmly associated with the Mills family by telephone records as well. It seems likely that, any Edith Judith Ramsay notwithstanding, Rev. Mills's wife, Edith, had inherited that Manson Place home.

In 1922, the telephone listing for Kensington 2397 returns to the name of "Mills Rev. Barton R. V." and the old Ramsay number, Kensington 3545, is no longer associated with the Mills household. Perhaps they had either sold the property at Manson Place or were renting it.

1923 brought an interesting addition to that April's London telephone directory: "Kensington 4353 Beauclerk, Mrs. Nelthorpe .. .. .. 4 Hans mans S.W.3." After arriving from America in 1919, this is the first telephone listing for the mother of Vera Louise Beauclerk, the future wife of George Mills. Therefore, by April of 1923, Vera had entered Kensington [coat of arms pictured, right], where George had likely returned after his educational stint at Oxford. Target 1923 as the year during which George meets and begins to court and woo Vera.

The last entry we'll consider here will be the 1925 listings for Rev. Barton Mills. In the archival copy of the April edition of the directory, the address of Rev. Barton R. V. Mills has bee crossed out and a note added. In the October edition, the address of the Mills family is listed as residing at "24 Hans rd S.W.3 [pictured below, left]," an address with which I was completely unfamiliar!

As you'll recall, the wedding of George and Vera Mills occurred in April of 1925. It's hard to say this event occasioned this move of the entire Mills family, but we know George and Vera bought a house in Portslade in 1925 as well. With the Mills family dwindled in size to four members: Barton, Edith, Agnes, and Violet, perhaps it was to a location that was more fitting for a family of four adults.

So, we find ourselves approaching the holidays in late 1925. The Mills are settling in at 24 Hans Road, Mrs. Beauclerk and Hilda live at 4 Hans Mansions, Arthur F. H. Mills and his wife, Lady Dorothy, are ensconced at nearby 91a Ebury Street, and George and Vera Mills are off to the southern coast near Brighton for George's junior appointment as a schoolmaster at Windlesham House.

The phone records will begin to take some interesting twists and turns as we enter the records for 1926. They'll verify some speculation, add detail to some things we already knew, and open up some new questions as they reveal some very unexpected information.

But we'll look at all that next time…

38 Onslow Gardens, SW

Pickings have been lean lately on the George Mills front. Right now, I'm reading Robinson Crusoe, and I feel like the title character, savoring crumbs from the last of my biscuits!

As I've mentioned before, I've created a "timeline" of events in the life of George Mills and his family. I seem to think of the gaps in the line as "windows," places where George is outside of the timeline, but that I'm peering out of, looking for him. The bigger the "window," the less I know about George, his family, and that time period.

Here's an interesting bit of information that may help to narrow one of the gaps in the time line, closing the window ever so slightly.

According to website called Kelly's Genealogy Projects, George Ramsay Acland Mills entered the army reserve in the "Rifle Depot (Res.)" in 1916, during the First World War. We basically already knew that. What's interesting is his address at the time:

38 Onslow Gardens, SW, in Kensington, London, England [pictured, above left].

In 1911, Mills's nuclear family lived at 12 Cranleigh Gardens, SW [pictured, right] on the date of the census. In that home had been found his father, mother, and two sisters, being tended to by no less than seven servants.

George Mills, however, is 14 years old and living in 2 Grove Hill at Harrow School from 1910 to 1912. He was counted along with three other student boarders, school master Charles George Pope, and five servants on the night of that census, 2 April 1911. Easter fell on Sunday, 16 April, that year, and I'm not sure how that would have figured into the school's terms.

Mills's older half-brother, Arthur, was stationed in the Gravesend Barracks and Military Hospital in Kent on 2 April 1911. Arthur was 23 at the time and serving as an officer in the D.C.L.I.

The gap regarding George Mills and his late adolescence is the who, what, where, how, and why of things may have occurred in his life between leaving Harrow in 1912 and the commencement of his military service in 1916. We still may not know much of all that, but we now have an idea of where: 38 Onslow Gardens, SW.

George would have left Harrow at almost 16 years of age. By 1916, he was approaching 20 and providing the military with that Onslow Gardens address.

From an earlier post here dated 7 April 2010, we know that: On 3 August 1914, [Arthur Frederick Hobart] Mills is "staying at the time in a large house by the banks of the Thames" with his hostess, a mother of soldiers, [when he is called upon to leave for France at the outset of the First World War]… [Arthur] continues, "I went up to London to my rooms to collect a few things."

If Arthur Mills had, as I'd suspected, been keeping some of his belongings at his parents' home, it wouldn't have surprised me. Still, it's odd that he mentions only his "rooms" and not his father and step-family. Isn't it peculiar that in a household of at least a dozen people, he'd have referred to their home as his "rooms"?

Speaking of his "rooms" actually makes more sense if he's keeping a private flat for himself somewhere else in town. It appears that Mills had received a promotion earlier in 1914, and had perhaps that afforded the opportunity to move out of the Gravesend [left] barracks and into the more comfortable nearby situation "on the Thames" mentioned above. Did his new commission allow him to keep a flat of "rooms" in the city as well?

What if George had been living at an Onslow Gardens flat that he shared with Arthur in 1916? It would not explain what exactly young George was doing there, how he managed to contribute to the paying of the rent, or how he was getting on with his life. It would, however, imply that George and Arthur, half-brothers with almost a decade difference in their ages, had been closer than we otherwise might have suspected.

Is it possible that their father, Rev. Barton R. V. Mills, had helped not only George, but both of the boys, by providing that address as a place to live? Could it be that Reverend Mills had held the home as a rental property, and that the boys were simply his tenants at the time?

Despite separating himself from the Chapel Royal of the Savoy in 1908, the household of Barton Mills was still sporting seven servants in 1911, indicating that he was making a comfortable living somehow. His next steady employment is listed as having served as a "Chaplain to the Forces" during World War I, despite approaching sixty years of age.

After that war, George entered Christ Church in 1919, and Barton Mills listed his address as 7 Manson Place—the S.W. home of Sir George Ramsay, Barton's father-in-law, who would soon pass away in 1920—pictured at right. Or at least I'd assumed that Oxford was given Barton Mills's own address. Is it possible that young George Ramsay Acland Mills, having just returned to London from the war, had opted to live instead with his namesake and ancient maternal grandfather in 1919, and that the address given Oxford was, indeed, that of son George and not Barton's own?

If Rev. Mills and his clan were not then living at 7 Manson Place in 1919, it could be that the entire nuclear family was living at 38 Onslow Gardens, SW. That could also mean that they all had been living there in 1916 when George went off to war, and that Arthur's "rooms" were, indeed, in his family's home, and that George had returned from Harrow and lived with his parents for those four years. That would still move Arthur closer in spirit to his family than we might otherwise have thought, since there is no evidence that they were truly close thereafter.

The key bit of knowledge here would be when, exactly, the Mills family moved out of 12 Cranleigh Gardens, and to where: Into 7 Manson Place or 38 Onslow Gardens?

One clue may be in the London Times article covering the marriage of Mr. G. R. A. Mills and Vera Louise Beauclerk on 23 April 1925: "The marriage took place yesterday at Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, of Mr. George Acland Ramsay Mills, son of Rev. Barton and Mrs. Mills, 38, Onslow-gardens, S.W., and Miss Vera Louise Beauclerk, daughter of the late Mr. William Nelthorpe Beauclerk, of Little Grimsby Hall, Louth, Lincolnshire, and Mrs. Nelthorpe Beauclerk, 4, Hans-mansion, S.W."

Rev. and Mrs. Mills are sporting an "Onslow-gardens" address in 1925. Had they moved there following the death of Sir George in 1920 after living with him at Manson Place? Had they lived there all along, having moved sometime between the 1911 Census and George's military induction in 1916? Was the house an investment property held and perhaps rented out by Rev. Mills during the early 20th century, one that, by 1925, he and his own family eventually had settled into?

I know this doesn't "close the window" on the 1912 through 1916 span of the life of George Mills very much, but it does suggest that much had been going on within the family during that time.

The Mills family arrived in London, living at 13 Brechin Place [pictured below, right] with two children in tow, and no servants, in 1901. By 1911, their household contained three children and seven servants, and was located at 12 Cranleigh Gardens, S.W.

In 1925, Rev. and Mrs. Mills resided in Onslow Gardens, SW, but after 1911 had been at least associated with the Manson Place address that had been recorded in written documents filed by Rev. Mills himself on behalf of George at the University of Oxford in 1919.

The veracity of that address seemingly as Barton Mills's own is corroborated by a book, The County Families of the United Kingdom; or, Royal Manual of the Titled and Untitled Aristocracy of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland [Ballantyne & Co., London: 1919], which lists Rev. Barton Reginald Vaughan Mills among its entries, and cites his then-current address as "7. Manson Place, S.W."
If the above reference is completely accurate, it isn't just George who's living at Manson Place in 1919, but Barton and family. I suppose it's possible that the family lived in Onslow Gardens in 1916, moved to Manson Place by 1919, but then returned to Onslow Gardens once again by 1925. Still, if so, why?

The Rev. Mills had, indeed, proved to have been a man-on-the-move throughout his career, with occupational stops at Rochester, Battersea, Devon, Hanover Square, San Remo [Italy], Poughill, and Bude between 1883 and 1900.

He seems to have been no less a man of many locations and occupations after arriving in London. It's unfortunate that his London Times obituary doesn't account for his residence at the exact time of his passing, but he's listed in the England and Wales Death Index of 1932 as having died in Kensington. Hence, it's likely he still was living at the Onslow Gardens address in that year, but given his history of movement, that can't be considered certain.

Does all of this suggest instability in the family, or simply in the Reverend's occupational choices? George Mills later showed a similar predilection to living a nomadic life and career. Was it simply a familial trait?

The real question is: What did the address 38 Onslow Gardens, SW, mean to the Mills family in 1916? Who lived there? And for how long?

Answers to these questions would go a long way toward closing the "window" in my George Mills timeline between 1912 and 1916!