The "Who Is George Mills?" Mailbag: August 2010

Now that we've concluded the first day of the 3rd incarnation of Wiedemann v. Walpole, let's take a look at some comments that have accumulated on the website. They constitute a "mailbag" of sorts for this website. Let's take a peek at its contents....

● Here's a comment received on 24 August 2010 regarding what appears to have been a wedding gift to Robert Horace Walpole and his first wife, the parents of Lady Dorothy Mills:

Charles said...

Wow!

Have just been researching and old silver trinket box of mine. On the bottom it reads Tiffany, Paris. Around the sides there is worked floral decoration and on the top it reads Louise Melissa Corbin, Robert Horace Walpole Married May17th 1888.

What a surprise to come across your work!!

Charles, I'd certainly be interested in the history of your box, and most especially about Miss Corbin [pictured, above, right], about whom little is known. I do hope you'll share any research you discover!


● Here's an anonymous message from 26 August 2010 regarding a mistake I'd made in the early summer. In researching London phone directories of the 1920s through the 1940s, I'd assumed a "G. R. A. Mills" I'd been tracking was the George Ramsay Acland Mills [left] of our interest here. Not so:

Anonymous said...

George Robert Alexander Mills is part of a family tree I am researching - born 1903 in Brockley and dies in Canterbury in 1981. I stumbled across your research for the simple fact that your George Ramsay Acland Mills and Vera Louise Beauclerk also added some difficulty to my research! My George Mills was a stockbroker and married in 1927 in Lewisham. He lived at 51 Wickham Road, which had also been the family residence of his parents. I am afraid I cannot shed any light of the further addresses however, as I am unsure how long they continued to reside in the area.


● Finally, back on 10 August 2010, I received this comment regarding my search for a person who seemed to be named "Barbara Mills":

andrewbore said...

Hi there,

Henry Valentine Mills married Frances Georgiana Miller on Jan 27, 1917 in Radway. He was 35 and she was 22. They were married by licence. A Selina Mary Mills was one of the witnesses. I just happened to be indexing the marriage for Family Search Indexing and decided to do a search for the couple. Sorry I can't help more with Barbara Mills.

Henry and Selina Mills were, indeed, relatives of George Mills. Barbara Mills, however, appears to have been created as a result of a transcription error made while Mrs. Barton Mills [mother of George] was ordering flowers [right] for the funeral of a relative, Maj. Reginald Ramsay Wingate, in 1938.

Thank you, Andrew, for the information, and for your interest! It certainly is greatly appreciated.

As always, if you have any information about George Mills or anyone in his family, I hope that you'll contact me via the e-mail address at the upper right of this page or via the option to leave a comment on any posting you see here.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Exclusive: A Photographic Tour of North Cornwall

A good friend of Who Is George Mills? is David Harcourt Maule Wingate, a distant relative of George Mills, who recently traveled to North Cornwall. David was kind enough to send me images of the 'old stomping grounds' of the Rev. Barton R. V. Mills, his wife Edith Ramsay, Barton's son, Capt. Arthur F. H. Mills, Barton's daughter, Agnes Mills, and her younger brother, George.

Admittedly, Agnes was 6 years old, George, 5, and Arthur away at Wellington College when the family left Cornwall for London, where they would spend the rest of their days. Still, these photographs capture places they knew and loved, places in which grow the roots of our story of George Mills.

I hope you'll enjoy seeing them as much as I have! At the upper left, you can see the windows of St. Olaf's Church in Poughill, where Barton Mills was Vicar from 1887 to 1889. You can click any image to enlarge it for a better look. Now, here are more images of St. Olaf's...































































































And here are images from St. Michaels & All Angels Church in Bude, where Rev. Mills had been a "Steward of the Mystery" from 1891 to 1901...

David also sent photographs of St. Andrew's in Stratton, Cornwall...

The window to the right is dedicated to Rev. George Wingate, David's great-grandfather.

Above, we see the final resting place of Major Reginald Ramsay Wingate, D.C.L.I., David's grandfather, next to his father, Rev. George Wingate. We read about Maj. Wingate once before.

Finally, below, we see the World War I Memorial form St. Andrews Church in Stratton. I'd like to take a moment to thank David for taking us along on this whirlwind tour of beautiful North Cornwall before he headed for holiday on the Isle of Man. It was very kind of him to include us, and I want to express my deepest gratitude!

Bringing the Heat and Bringing the Meat

As I sit here pecking away, I'm listening to the drumming beat of hammers on the house and roof. When we returned from Michigan, we were confronted by a leak at the top of the wall over the fireplace. There had been a great deal of rain while we were gone, and it's taken a while to figure all of this out.

The barrage of entries that I've posted lately have been while I've waited for people to return my phone calls, waited for people to show up to look at the situation, and finally around my first trip up onto a roof in many years. Although we live in a "ranch" style house, the ground looked very far away from up there, and I discovered that the only place hotter than the ground here in Florida on a sunny day is up on a roof. I'm glad I wore gloves up there because the roof was seriously HOT. I didn't have a thermometer with me, but it was likely nearly as hot as the surface of the sun. Or at least it felt like it…

As some workers pound in their last nails and fit the soffits and gutters back in place around the newly-sided chimney, I find myself still catching up!

Here's word from Barry McAleenan, weighing in on a number of recent posts. The first is regarding one involving misspellings on, and in the transcriptions of, census forms:

Apparently, the UK government decided to subcontract the transcription of one census to the Prison Service. It was only when 'prison officer' was found to be routinely transcribed as 'screw' that the checkers realised that the inmates were having 'a bit of a larf'. The routine use of 'do' (as an abbreviation for ditto) meaning 'as above', lead to a lot of grief when search results were sorted after transcribing. The enumerators would also have refined their abbreviations as the data was accumulated. The contract was diverted to Bombay for half the price and a quantum leap in accuracy.

From your latest blog:

PHONE NUMBERS It's possible that the phone books were reference office copies, which were annotated with changes for next year's edition; 22/6 and 27/7 were date references; R120 and Kx were correspondence references. Actually, Kx may just be a messy Tx, implying sent or transmitted in line with Rx for receiver and Tx for transmitter, which I have always assumed was 'jargonised texting' which evolved fairly rapidly for telegrams using Morse telegraphy from decades earlier. Abbreviations would have been commonplace and only needed to be read by colleagues.

CARD
You said:
'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.'
This is a challenging speculation.

Another guess may be:

The person taking the message was told the flowers were from "Mrs Barton and THE Misses Agnes and Violet Mills," but carelessly logged, "Misses Barbara, Misses Agnes, and Violet Mills," and whoever wrote the card decided that the message was nonsense. I'm sure Mrs Barton Mills would have known precisely what she expected to be written on the card.

Thanks, as always, Barry! Now that I look at those notations again, I'm sure it the note in the phone directiory reads "Tx."

In another useful e-mail, Barry weighs in on Lieutenant Terence Hadow, a former schoolboy who had been a friend of George Mills:

May I speculate that Lt Hadow was KIA during Orde Wingate's Chindit 'Operation Longcloth' into Burma in Feb-April 1943. This may explain why he was in the Infantry when he died. Wikipedia gives dates and casualties.

Reading the Wikipedia entries about the campiagn and its leader is somewhat disturbing. While it's written academically, one can easily imagine the absolute nightmare in the jungle that 'Operation Longcloth' apparently quickly became. A couple of sentences in the article above jump out.

First: "On many occasions, the Chindits could not take their wounded with them; some were left behind in villages. Wingate had in fact issued specific orders to leave behind all wounded, but these orders were not strictly followed."

A second frightening sentence: "Of the 3,000 men that had begun the operation, a third (818 men) had been killed, taken prisoner or died of disease, and of the 2,182 men who returned, about 600 were too debilitated from their wounds or disease to return to active service."

Those sentences don't even begin to encompass the lack of drinking water, the dearth of cleared paths, forcing men to "clear their own with machetes and kukris (and on one occasion, a commandeered elephant)," and the constant ambushes by the Japanese that forced the beleaguered Chindits "into a progressively smaller 'box.'"

Reading about 'Operation Longcloth' and its commander, Brigadier Wingate, is quite unsettling, but one can't help but admire the heroism and steadfastness shown by the troops. Here's to them all!

And, as always, Barry Mc was 'bringing the meat' [Is that current colloquial compliment known in the U. K.?] to a table I'd only set with hors d'œuvre. Many thanks…

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?"

Panora Cameras, Francis de Wolff, the Koh-i-noor Diamond, and the Marquess of Dalhousie

I'm still working at cleaning out the ol' mailbag here at Who Is George Mills? and here's something that's been unaddressed for far too long.

You may recall that Barry McAleenan sent me a 1956 photograph of his class at Ladycross Catholic Boys' Preparatory School in Seaford way back in April. I knew Barry must've been in the photograph, but in my excitement over obtaining an image of George Mills, I'd neglected to ask which of the boys was Barry himself!

I finally did ask, and here's his reply:

Well... I'm still flattered that you continue to find my musings worth publishing on your blog. I can't guarantee that my comments are categorically correct. I tend to hope that they may occasionally nudge you into a more fruitful line of research.

Re the school photo: I'm second from the right in the back row - looking as if I were sucking a lemon between takes. The tallish boy in front of me is Mervyn de Wolff, whose father, Francis, had been in the 1953 film, The Master of Ballantrae [above, left], with Errol Flynn. The thing about Panora cameras was that they scanned (panned) the group from left to right because the camera was rotated quite slowly by a motor - probably clockwork. The group was actually arranged on an arc defined by the two rows of chairs all at a fixed distance (radius) from the camera. It was a caning offence for a pupil to run from the left edge to the right edge and be in the photo twice!


I'd wondered about these panoramic images before, and now I understand. I also "get" the line from an episode of To the Manor Born in which Marjorie notes that Audrey is seen standing at both ends of their prep school photo!

Shamefully, almost a month ago I received another bit of Ramsay family information, courtesy of Barry Mc. With my school year ending and my holidays beginning, I admit that I let it slip too far below my radar:

Dear Sam

I was listening to a BBC Radio 4 program which was a 'caper' detective play about the theft of the Koh-i-noor diamond, set at the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace....

FROM WIKIPEDIA: One of the terms of the Treaty of Lahore, the legal agreement formalising this occupation, was as follows:

The gem called the Koh-i-Noor which was taken from Shah Shuja-ul-Mulk by Maharajah Ranjit Singh [left] shall be surrendered by the Maharajah of Lahore to the Queen of England.

The Governor-General in charge of the ratification for this treaty was Lord Dalhousie. More than anyone, Dalhousie was responsible for the British acquiring the Koh-i-Noor...

WHICH LINKS TO: James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie KT, PC (22 April 1812 – 19 December 1860) was a British statesman, and a colonial administrator in India. [This based on an entry in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.]

Seems to have been a significant operator. I never quite know how much you may already know. This seems to take the Ramsay link back a couple of generations to the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Kind regards,

Barry

Always one to keep me busy exploring the connections between the Mills family and the world in which they and their ancestors lived, Barry has come up with a link to a fellow—J. A. Broun-Ramsay—who, if I'm correct, may be the brother of David Wingate's great great great grandfather [pictured, right]!

This may be of special interest to David, and to Alan Ramsay, another descendant in South Australia. Even if it isn't, every time he clicks "send," I know I'm bound to learn something. Thank you so much, Barry!

There'll be more from Barry soon. And thanks to everyone who's helping me plaster together a life for George Mills and his family.

I really appreciate it!

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!

Antiques Roadshow & the BBC News Channel

One just never knows what he might find while browsing around the internet and poking his nose into the affairs of others!
From Ask The Antiques Road Show Experts, 21 June 2008:

Inherited treasures

Q I would like to know more about my table, which came into the family through my great grandmother, Lady Elizabeth Patricia Maule (1846-1941). Can you help?

A This is a lovely sofa table and a very good example of high-quality cabinet making in the late 1840s /early 1850s. I'm sure it is London-made, although I would dearly like to be able to examine it to get a better feel for the piece. Sadly, this type of Victorian furniture has hardly increased in value since a high point in the 1970s, but I think it would make between pounds 3,000-pounds 5,000 at auction.

CHRISTOPHER PAYNE

Questions taken from the current issue of BBC Homes &Antiques magazine - on sale now, pounds 3.30

COPYRIGHT 2008 MGN Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2009 Gale, Cengage Learning

I'd love to see what the table looked like in the magazine—there was no accompnaying photograph on-line!

The anonymous sender of the question would be related to both George Mills and David Wingate, a good friend of this site.

Also, this was sent to me just today by Barry McAleenan, and it involves members of the Acland family of Devon, relatives of George Ramsay Acland Mills:

BBC News Channel
Friday, 14 May 2010 17:24 UK

Aristocrat from Cambridge died in crash in Bedfordshire
The widow of an aristocrat who died in a road crash in Bedford has said she blames no-one for the accident.

Tresham Warner, 23, pleaded guilty at Luton Crown Court to a charge of causing the death of Sir John Acland by driving while uninsured last September.

Warner was given a 12-month community order with 50 hours unpaid work. He was fined £250 with £510 costs.

Judge John Bevan QC praised Lady Susan Acland, of Cambridge, for her "generosity of spirit".

"Her attitude is extremely refreshing. She bears no ill will to the other driver because what happened was the most unfortunate combination of circumstances," he said.

Natalie Carter, prosecuting, said Warner had bought the van for £100 the day before which was described as "tired but roadworthy".

The MOT expired just hours after the accident on 25 September and it was due to be serviced.
Warner had insurance for another vehicle and mistakenly believed he was insured to drive the van.

'Car swerved'
He was driving along the A421 out of Bedford, near Eastcotts, when something fell from the engine.
He pulled off the road, but there was a patch of oil in the carriageway.

Lady Susan, who had had advanced driver training, was driving a Toyota Yaris with her 70-year-old husband in the passenger seat.

Mrs Carter said: "She saw the van on the verge with its hazard lights on.

"She swerved to avoid the object in her carriageway that had fallen from the van, but hit the patch of oil causing her car to spin out of control and crash into the van."

Her husband died from head injuries the following day. She sustained minor injuries.

The couple lived in Cambridge Place, Cambridge, and Sir John was the 16th Baronet of Columbjohn in Devon. He had three children.

Warner's barrister Alan Edge said: "There is not a day goes by when he does not have this on his mind."

Thanks to David, Barry, and everyone else! Have a great weekend...

G. D. R. May 23, 1828. Jan 16, 1920.

In addition to the letter from Queen Victoria below, David Wingate also sent me a scan of the memorial card from the funeral of Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay [1828-1920].

Ramsay was the maternal grandfather of George Mills and the first cousin, three times removed, of David Wingate. He was a civilian who first served as secretary to the Hon. Fox Maule Ramsay while the latter was Minister of War. Sir George later became the Director of Military Clothing in the War Office where he served from 30 November 1882 until his retirement in 1893.

Interestingly, Ramsay has been credited with introducing khaki to the military. You can read more about the life, career, and character of Sir George in the text of this memorial card.

Of great interest to me is the sentiment written on the front that reads: "With My Love Edith Mills." Wingate noted: "It would seem that the funeral card was probably sent to Elizabeth Patricia Wingate (nee Maule) by Edith." That would have been David's grandmother [Edith's first cousin, once removed], the wife of Rev. George Wingate.

Edith's signature and sentiment don't reveal an awful lot except that, despite what the census reports may say, she was called by her middle name, Edith, as opposed to Elizabeth. Perhaps she was raised with or near the recipient of this card, Elizabeth Patricia Maule, and was called Edith to minimize confusion.

[Update: The above speculation is probably not correct. In researching Lady Elizabeth Patricia Maule, it turns out she was born in 1846, making her twenty years older than Elizabeth Edith Mills. What makes me even more certain is that Miss Maule was later involved in a legal proceeding detailed on Wednesday 14 June 1876 in the Scottish Law Reporter entitled "Petition—The Honourable Mrs Elizabeth Binny or Maule, and Miss Patricia Maule." Despite the difference in their ages, Elizabeth Patricia and Elizabeth Edith apparently went by the names Patricia and Edith, respectively!]

That is, though, exactly why, despite being named Harry after my father, the family has always called me by my middle name, Sam. Nicknames like "Little Harry" and "Junior" were considered and rejected [Thank Goodness!]—except that I would not have been a "junior" anyway. For some reason that no one knew, my father was the only one of seven children who hadn't been given a middle name. He was the fifth of the seven, and was followed by both a brother and a sister.

Dad served in the United States Navy during the Second World War as a diesel mechanic and machine operator in logistics, and he spent his time overseas primarily on Okinawa. Apparently the Navy frowns on two-initialed sailors, and he was processed from enlistment to return to civilian life as Harry N. M. N. Williams—"no middle name."

Anyway, to read the story of Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, click the images to enlarge them!

The Queen's Letter, Page 1

This is the first page of Queen Victoria's letter to Lady Christian Maule, the great-grand-aunt of George Mills, dated 7 July 1874, and courtesy of David Wingate. For the published text, click here.

The Queen's Letter, Page 2

This is page 2 of Queen Victoria's letter to Lady Christian Maule, 7 July 1874, courtesy of David Wingate.

The Queen's Letter, Page 3

This is page 3 of Queen Victoria's letter to Lady Christian Maule, 7 July 1874, courtesy of David Wingate.

The Queen's Letter, Page 4

This is page 4 of Queen Victoria's letter to Lady Christian Maule, 7 July 1874, courtesy of David Wingate.

The Queen's Letter, Page 5

This is page 5 of Queen Victoria's letter to Lady Christian Maule, 7 July 1874, courtesy of David Wingate.

The Queen to Lady Christian Maule

David Harcourt Maule Wingate is, I believe, a third cousin, once removed, of George Ramsay Acland Mills. David has been gracious enough to share some of his family's archive with me and this is the first of item of six consecutive posts I'll very happily create this evening.

This is the text [left, click to enlarge] of a letter from Queen Victoria to David's great-great-grand-aunt, Lady Christian Maule, on the passing of her brother, the Hon. Fox Maule Ramsay, 10th Earl of Dalhousie, 2nd Baron Panmure of Brechin & Navar, K.T., M.P. Christian Maule would have been George Mills's great-grand-aunt, and Lord Dalhousie his great-grand-uncle.

The printed text of the letter found here is from page 496 of The Panmure Papers, published in 1908 and edited by Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, who had served as Lord Dalhousie's private secretary while the latter was Minister of War. Sir George is George R. A. Mills' namesake and maternal grandfather.

It was interesting reading the letter in Queen Victoria's actual hand, which I did with my daughter Emlyn, aged 19. We hadn't sat and read together—just father and daughter—in quite some time, and it was wonderful. We made some errors in our reading [apparently the Queen had "children," not "chickens"], but did fairly well—we even think there may be a mistake or two in Sir George's transcription of it!

It's not every day that a 19-year-old finds something old to be "cool," but this clearly was. My family was fascinated and delighted to be reading it!

See and read it for yourself. I'll upload the five-page missive in the next five posts in reverse order so it can be read easily from top to bottom.

I hope you enjoy it as well, and, once again, many, many thanks, David!

Jerseys, Guernseys, Pullovers, Jumpers & Sweaters

So much has been going on! It's a busy time of year at work, closing out the school year. I've been teaching my daughter, Emlyn, how to drive. I've been trying to get the bank before it closes, and eventually will. And I've been welcoming more information related to the Mills family…

David Wingate has sent me some very interesting items by snail mail that I want to scan and share, and the Diocese of Middleborough archivist is helping discover if Barton R. V. Mills did, indeed, convert to Roman Catholicism. More on all of that in due time.

Today, however, I received a message from Barry McAleenan that I simply had to share. Is it related to my pursuit of George Mills? No! But, again, I'm trying to construct a world around Mills and his family, and it's a world I'm fairly unfamiliar with. I enjoyed learning this, regarding a photo in an earlier post, "Dogs in Church":

Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 10:13 AM
To: Williams, Harry (Sam) - Madison Street Elementary
Subject: Jerseys, Guernseys, Pullovers, Jumpers & Sweaters.

Dear Sam

The photo of Rev. Hawker shows him wearing a Guernsey - a kind of crew-neck pullover. Wikipedia has a long article on them. As I understand it, one of the reasons that they were so popular with Cornish fisherman is that the 'parish patterns' included variations particular to an individual. This allowed washed-up bodies to be identified by their widows if they had been lost at sea weeks or months earlier.

In my biking days, I always wore one in the winter with a silk scarf round my neck; this was a lot more comfortable than wearing a polo neck sweater (aka jumper).

Kind regards

Barry

Being a confirmed landlubber [Is that an American word or British?] who mostly deals with water in a pool or by the bottle, I wouldn't have been prone to think of the need to identify washed-up bodies in an era before C.S.I. After all, I grew up in Philadelphia, where large bodies of water erupted from faulty fire hydrants and ships were most often seen floating in the bathtub.

Thanks once again to Barry, and everyone else, who is making all of this such an enjoyable learning experience for me!

Desperately Seeking Barbara

Last Sunday was rolling along smoothly. I put down my new grass seed and really soaked it to keep it moist on its first night out of the sack. I cut back some outdoor plants that almost didn't survive the bitter cold of our record-breakingly frigid winter here. And I pronounced some others dead.

After getting cleaned up, I checked my e-mail and found one from David Wingate, a distant relative of George Mills. He'd sent me a few things of great interest. One item, though, saddened me, but also made me question how much I actually know about George Mills and his family.

Here's a segment from one of those weekend messages:

Hi Sam,

This is an obit of my grandfather, Maj. Reginald Ramsay Wingate, DCLI. One of the wreaths was sent by Violet Mills (Cadogen Gardens, London S.W.).

Regards

David Wingate


Now, Violet Mills is George's younger sister [born 1902], and she's mentioned in the obituary dated 19 March 1938 [above left, and at right]. Violet would have been 36 at the time, the same year that George was publishing his second book, King Willow. George had dedicated that text to the exceptionally mysterious and elusive "Eaton Gate Preparatory School" in London, so I've assumed that's a place where he had recently worked, if he was not still on the staff list at that time. Either way, it did seem safe to say that George Mills and his wife, Vera, were probably somewhere in or around London, circa 1938.

Where his siblings were at that time, however, was open to conjecture. I can find no record of the passing of George's mother, Edith Mills. She had been living in her father's home at 7 Manson Place when he passed away in 1920, and I have no reason to believe that Edith wouldn't still have been living there with her unmarried daughters after her husband, George's father, Rev. Barton R. V. Mills passed away in 1932. After 1932, however, it becomes unclear where and when anyone may have moved, all the way through to Agnes and Violet Mills both passing away in Devon in 1975. George is listed as having died in Devon in 1972.

Major Wingate's obituary pinpoints Violet as living in Cadogen [Cadogan] Gardens, S.W., in March of 1938 [below, left]. Not only that, Violet isn't listed here alone: The wreath is from "Misses Barbara, Agnes, and Violet Mills."

Agnes and Violet are George's sisters, born in 1895 and 1902 respectively. But who in the world is Barbara Mills?

I found myself in need of a family member that could have produced a daughter named "Barbara Mills," and it didn't take me long to sift through George's Uncle Dudley's offspring to find out that Barbara was not a first cousin from that family.

Uncle Dudley is listed as having issued "a son and two das." in the 1911 edition of The Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal's Mortimer-Percy Volume. Col. Dudley Acland Mills had married Ethel Joly de Lotbinière, a French Canadian, in February 1896, but finding the names of their children and anything much about them is far trickier.

Their children seem to have been: Hubert Mills (born 12 March 1898); Jocelyn Mills (31 August 1900-1 March 1901); Ottilie de Lotbinière Mills (born 11 June 1902; married Michael Heathorn Huxley); Verity Margaret Mills (born 5 August 1905; married Neil Frank Cathcart Forsyth); and Mordaunt Mills (17 September 1908).

I believe that Mordaunt Mills survived into adulthood because I found a reference to a Mordaunt Mills in London in the 1930s, when he would have been in his twenties. With so many on-line references to Sir Arthur Mordaunt Mills, however, finding anything about a Mordaunt Mills has been more daunting than other searches—or would that be Mordaunt-ing?

Anyway, if the Plantagenet Roll is correct, that leaves Ottilie, Verity, and Mordaunt alive in 1911, aged about 9, 6, and 3 years, respectively. By 1938, these three would have been 36, 33, and 30 years of age. Had they children by that year, Ottilie's would have been called Huxleys (and likely born in Canada) and Verity's would have been little Forsythes.

Only Mordaunt Mills could have had a legitimate child with the last name of Mills by 1938. Is it reasonable to assume that he probably wouldn't or couldn't have fathered the child at an age younger than 16 or so? If that assumption is correct, any child of his in 1938 couldn't have been much older than 14 years of age.

Now, Agnes and Violet were about 43 and 36 years old in 1938. Assuming that the wreath sent to Major Wingate's funeral was from those two and possibly a teenage daughter of Mordaunt Mills, would they have listed the young girl first? Perhaps it would just be a modern tendency, but wouldn't Agnes and Violet have been listed as they are—in sequence of their ages—with the youngster to follow, not to precede them in signature on the wreath?

It seems highly unlikely that Barbara Mills was a daughter of Mordaunt Mills living in Cadogen Gardens with Agnes and Violet. So who else could Barbara Mills be?

George's grandfather, Arthur Mills, had a brother, Rev. Henry Mills, who married Mary Hippisley in 1841. They had three children, Catherine [who married Rev. Alfred Freeman in 1882], Francis [who married Selina Mary Knightley in 1877], and Fanny. As far as I know, Fanny Mills never married.

Francis Mills, however, had four children, three daughters and a son: Mabel Frances, Phoebe, Esther Mary, and Henry Valentine Mills. Henry was born on 23 November 1881 and is of a perfect age to have had a daughter similar in age to Agnes and Violet in 1938.

I also found this, though:

From: djjahn@comcast.net

Subject: Mills Family of Pillerton Hersey, Warwickshire

Date: 27 Sep 2005 10:24:50 -0600

Surnames: Mills, Knightley, Miller, Walker Classification: Query

Message Board Post:

Seeking information on 2nd Lieutenant Henry Valentine Mills' family. Born 23 November 1881 in Pillerton Hersey, Warwickshire to Francis & Selina Mary (Knightley) Mills. Served in the Royal Garrison Artillery (321st Siege Bty), killed in action, 25 June 1917.

Married for a short time before death to Frances Georgiana Miller; related to the Miller family of Radway, Warwickshire. Believe Frances married a Mr. Walker after Henry's death.

Any information appreciated.

That doesn't say anything about Henry and Frances having had a child before 1917. If they did, it's possible she could have been called Barbara Mills.

Now, it's also possible that Barbara is a descendant of William Mills, the brother of George's great-grandfather, Rev. Francis Mills, of Barford, Warwickshire.

On that side of the family, however, the Mills surname seems to have petered out at William Mills (25 July 1862—9 February 1917) , who married Sybella Fairfax on 16 April 1901, and Sydney Mills, born 5 July 1867, and who died of wounds received in action in South Africa, likely during the Second Boer War [1899-1902].

They are both great-grandsons of William Mills, mentioned above, and appear to have passed while still childless, also finalizing that branch of the Mills surname in 1917.

I'll admit: I'm at a loss to come up with another female with the surname of Mills who was likely born around the turn of the 20th century into the family of George Mills—but I am, as always, open to suggestions!

Word from a Relative of George Mills...

A few weeks ago I was doing a routine internet search for George Mills-related web pages and stumbled on something interesting. At a genealogy site in a section entitled Ramsay Family Genealogy Forum, I found this posting:

Looking for information on the children and further generations of Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay C.B 1828-1920. He was married to Eleanor Juliat Chartris Crawford and they had issue Edith E. Ramsay and Alex O.P Ramsay. Sir George was the son of Sir Alexander Ramsay 2nd bt of Balmaine and by his second marriage to the Lady Elizabeth Maule (dau 1st Lord Panmure). I believe Edith married Barton Reginald Vaugh Miles.

I thought about it and sent the person requesting the information, David, this reply:

Edith Ramsay did marry Reverend Barton Reginald Vaughan Mills [M.A. Oxford, 1883, b. 29 October, 1857, d. 21 January, 1932], a "holy cleric and scholar". He was the son of Arthur Mills, Esq., M.P., from Taunton and Exeter, one of the leading experts on Colonial Economics and the cost of the Sepoy Mutiny, so much so that his books on the subject are still in print today. Barton was the first living son of Arthur Mills, and had a younger brother, Col. Dudley Acland Mills [Broadlands, Jersey. Retired; b. 24 August 1859]. They were also grandchildren of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland [pictured, right], Killerton House, Broadclyst, Devon.

Barton had a son, Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills, b. 12 July, 1887, with his first wife, Lady Catherine Mary Valentia Hobart-Hampden. they had been married on 10 July, 1886, when she was granted the rank of Earl's daughter. Lady Catherine died on 25 September, 1889.

Elizabeth Edith Ramsay and Barton R. V. Mills were married on 10 January, 1894, and had three children: Agnes Edith Mills, born 11, June 1895, George Ramsay Acland Mills, b. 1 October, 1896, in Bude, Cornwall, and Violet Eleanor Mills, born 17 November, 1902.

Barton was the vicar of Bude, Cornwall [I believe the vicarage is pictured, left], at the time, a position in which he remained until 1901. He then became the Assistant Chaplain of the Royal Chapel of the Savoy, where he stayed until 1908. He wrote, edited, and translated religious texts, notably involving the writings of St Bernard, and his work is still cited by theologians today.

George Mills attended Parkfield in Haywards Heath and Harrow before fighting in WW I, first as a private and finishing as a lance corporal, in the Royal Rifles and the Royal Army Service Corps. He then attended Christ Church and Oxford, but did not receive a degree. He went on to be a Junior Teacher at Windlesham School, then in Portslade, at Lent, 1925. That same year he married Vera Louise Beauclerk, a granddaughter of Sir Robert Hart and daughter of the Duke of St Albans, on 23 April, 1925, and they bought a house in Portslade.

He was off the teaching roster at Windlesham [right] by Fall, 1926, and subsequently taught at Warren Hill School in Eastbourne, The Craig in Windermere, the English Preparatory School in Glion, and Eaton Gate Preparatory School in London. Vera died on 5 January, 1942. They were childless and he apparently never remarried.

Most notably, Mills authored four very popular books, mostly about preparatory school boys: Meredith and Co. [1933], King Willow [1938], Minor and Major [1939], and St. Thomas of Canterbury [1939], all of which can be found in the British Library. The books were reprinted into the very late 1950s, but it appears Mills never published another word after his prolific 1938-1939 period.

He then disappears from sight until his death in Devon [possibly Budleigh Salterton] in 1972.

The only thing I know about his sisters, Agnes and Violet--other than that Violet Mills was a bridesmaid at his wedding, but Agnes Mills was not and attended unescorted--is that the girls donated a collection of Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay's papers to the British Library in 1947, still using their maiden names. The sisters would have been about 52 and 45 years old at the time. If they had, indeed, remained unmarried, it seems likely they were childless as well.

Almost immediately, David answered:

Edith Judith Ramsay did indeed marry Rev. Barton Mills. I was most interested to read that he was vicar of Bude, N. Cornwall. I would imagine that it was St. Michael's Church in Bude [left]. I was a choir boy there in the 60's!! I was at boarding school at St. Petroc's School in Bude, following my father's footsteps in education.

Now another interesting point here for me, was that my Great Grandfather was the Rev. George Wingate (died Dec 16, 1898) who was vicar of St. Andrew's Church, Stratton, N. Cornwall. The towns of Bude and Stratton are next to each other. Rev. George Wingate had married Elizabeth Patricia Maule. Her father was the Hon. William Ramsay Maule (1809-1859) and his father was Lord William Ramsay Maule, Lord Panmure of Brechin & Navar. His father was Lord George Ramsay 8th Earl of Dalhousie.

You mentioned Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, he was the son of Lady Elizabeth Maule and Sir Alexander Ramsay, Bt of Balmain. Elizabeth Maule (1796-1852) was daughter of William Maule Ramsay, Lord Panmure.

Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay (1828-1920) married Eleanor Juliat Charteris Crawfurd (1827-1918) daughter of John Crawfurd, Gov. of Singapore. Their issue were: Edith Elizabeth Ramsay, Alexander Oswald Panmure Ramsay (1867-1897) and Edith Judith Ramsay and the rest you know!

Thank you so much, David, and I do look forward to hearing from you again.

One oddity in all of this would be the name of George's mother. David—a man with more than ample knowledge of his family's history—writes that "Edith Judith Ramsay", not "Edith Elizabeth Ramsay", married barton Mills. Other genealogical sites list his wife as "Elizabeth Edith Ramsay".

It's possible that, due to handwriting that was difficult to read, or merely a transcription error, Judith and Edith could have been confused in paperwork. Looking in the ancestry.com database, she is listed as "Elizabeth Edith Ramsay", but her husband in that database is listed as Barton R. V. HILLS, not Mills. In fact, David's records may have had him recorded as "Barton R. V. MILES.

It's also possible that the person attending to the certificate of her birth didn't put in a correct name. In my ex-wife's family, it was years before they discovered that what they had been calling their daughter—Alice, I believe—was not the Christian name that had been written on her birth certificate, simply because the physician hadn't really cared for the name "Alice".

Stranger things have happened. Needless to say, errors likely abound. I spent countless hours looking for "Vera Beauclerc" before I became aware that the wife of George Mills was actually named "Vera Beauclerk".

Oh what a difference a single letter can make!

One primary source that I have for the name Elizabeth Edith Ramsay is the 1901 census [pictured, left]. It's unclear if the Mills family [Barton Reginald Vaughan, Elizabeth E., Agnes Edith, and George Ramsay Acland Mills] is still in Cornwall at the time it was taken, or if they already have moved to London, where Barton apparently found employment as the Assistant Chaplain of the Royal Chapel of the Savoy sometime in 1901. London, Middlesex, will be the birthplace of George's sister, Violet Eleanor Mills, in 1902.

[UPDATE: I just checked the records, and the housemaid in that census, listed immediately above Barton R. Mills, is Kate R. Neave, age 20. That sets her birthdate around 1882. She's listed in the 1901 census as residing in London, England, on the date of the census, 31 March. It appears that the Mills family already has moved to London by the late spring, 1901.]

Thanks to Jennifer for researching the above census! And if you have any information about the Ramsay family that might help David in his own genealogical quest, please let me know and I'll have him get in touch!