A Hodge Podge of Mills Miscellany

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

Here they are, in no particular order:


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


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

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

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

Exeter

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

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


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

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


Manifests and Paperwork, 1913 and 1919:


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

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



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


Warren Hill in 1896:


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



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


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



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

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


Monica Cecil Grant Mills (née Wilks):


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



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



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


Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills in China:


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

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

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

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




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

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

Uncle Dudley and Jamaica:


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




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

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




Gillmore Goodland, Revisited:


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Sir Leonard Daldry on Tape:


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



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

My hunch is that the interview would be fascinating.


I Wish I Could Dial It and See Who Answers:

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

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

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

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


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

The Winifred Hughes Coincidence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Let's take a look at some other documentation.

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

● Roper had been Head Master at Ladycross through 1954.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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