"Really, I feel less keen about the Army every day" – Winston Churchill

We know that Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills was trained to be a soldier. After attending Wellington College [1900-1903], he then spent time at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. From there, Mills was "gazetted" [the army apparently prefers the term "commissioned"] directly into the 3rd Battalion of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry on 18 September 1908 as a second lieutenant.

On 5 August 1914, Arthur was promoted to the rank of Captain and called to France after Britain declared war on Germany on 3 August. He was wounded in battle in both legs and disembarked to Freshwater on the Isle of Wight for surgery on his legs on 15 September 1914. Mills returned to his battalion, according to records, on 24 September 1914.

Afterwards, apparently around 7 December 1914, the Lieutenant Colonel commanding the 3rd Battalion recommended Mills for the 1914 Star. He was soon awarded the British War Medal and the Inter-Allied Victory Medal, the three being known colloquially as "Pip, Squeak, and Wilfred [all pictured throughout]"

There is a notation on Arthur's medal card that appers to have been added later and reads: "Extracted from Officer's Roll. 15.3.21 EF/9." Uncertain what that means, I've tried to determine what many of the other obscure notations on the medal card actually mean, but I've not come up with much. My hunch, however, was that it meant that he left the service on 15 March 1921, but other evidence makes me uncertain.

Arthur Mills would write a book about his wounding called With My Regiment: From the Aisne to La Bassée [Lippincott: Philadelphia, 1916], and follow that up with a sequel called Hospital Days [T. Fisher Unwin: London, 1916], which I've discussed in another entry. It's autobiographical, but doesn't encompass all of his service in WW I.

There's a bit more on Arthur's First World War action in Lady Dorothy Mills's autobiography, A Different Drummer: Chapters in Autobiography [Duckworth: 1930]: "My husband of a year [who] had already been severely wounded in France went out to serve in the Palestine campaign."

But it's only a little bit more, because that's all she wrote. Period.

We don't know when Arthur left the military, but what appears to have been his first novel, Ursula Vanet, hit the bookshelves in 1921. Before that, Mills had sole newspaper and magazine articles, some of which were collected into his book, With My Regiment.

Publishing his first novel in 1921 makes sense, especially if his departure from the military did, indeed, occur early in 1921. By July, Ursula Vanet was being reviewed relatively favorably in Punch, volume 161, p. 20. From that year, Mills released at least one book a year, often two, through 1940's publication of White Negro.

Oddly, the London Times on 12 June 1937 carried a snippet from the London Gazette reading: "MILITIA. 3rd. Bn. D.C.L.I.—Capt. A. F. H. Mills relinquishes his commn. and is granted the hon. rank of Maj. (June12)."

It's difficult to unravel all of the the Byzantine agate headings, subheadings, and indentations exactly, but apparently relinquishing his commission may have had something to do with him turning 50 on 12 July of that same year. Somehwere in the text above, reserve officers were stricken from the roll under the instructions: "The follg. having attained the age limit of liability to recall, cease to belong to the Res. of Off.:—"

In 1939, after having been put out in to pasture, Mills was "gazetted" yet again. The London Times on 7 September 1939 carried a story entitled "LAND FORCES" [of the Territorial Army], and stated: "The follg. to be granted Emergency Commissions as Sec. Lts. (September 3)." Found within the hundreds of names is this one: "A. F. H. Mills."

The London Gazette followed that on 12 December 1939 with a less-than-timely pronouncement in a section entitled "SPECIAL LIST" reading: "The undermentioned from Army Officer's Emergency Reserve to be 2nd Lts. 2nd September 1939:— A. F. H. Mills (98184)."

But it wasn't to be. In the 1 March 1940 London Gazette, in a section called "SPECIAL LIST," three consecutive listings read, in order:

"The personal number of 2nd Lt. A. F. H. Mills is 43673, and not as notified in the Gazette of 15th Dec.1939.

The notifn. regarding Maj. A. F. MILLS (43673) in the Gazette of 9th Sept. 1939 is cancelled.

Lt. Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills (43673) relinquishes his comm. 10th Sept. 1939."

Strangely, 1937 and 1939 weren't the first times Arthur Mills had relinquished a military commission. Back in 1914, an entry in the London Gazette of 3 February reads: "Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, Lieutenant Arthur F. H. Mills resigns his commission. Dated 4th February, 1914."

Even more strangely, the same issue of the Gazette features this entry: "Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills, late lieutenant, the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, to be lieutenant, with seniority as from 20th September, 1910. Dated 4th February 1914."

I guess it all worked out since he was embarked to France in August 1914. There must have been some sort of issue about Arthur's promotion [or lack of one] to lieutenant that was at issue as his seniority was back-dated almost four years, and three months later he commanded a platoon in France as a Captain!

On 4 July 1916, the Gazette, in a section called "COMMANDS AND STAFF" announced: "The following appointments are made: "SPECIAL APPOINTMENTS. (Graded for Purposes of Pay as G.S.O., 3rd Grade) Capt. A. F. H. Mills, D. of Corn. L. I., Spec. Res. 3rd May 1916."

Arthur Mills had just married Dorothy Rachel Melissa Walpole at St. Paul's Church in Knightsbridge in the spring of 1916. The additional pay would have been welcome as, apparently, officers were not particularly well-paid at the time. Lady Dorothy describes their situation in 1916 as having "no money, scarcely enough to pay for the wedding celebrations."

Mills apparently also had little in the way of savings or anything from his family. Lady Dorothy also writes that in 1913: "I fell in love with a young man possessing most of the world's assets except money. But that "Except" had a capital "E." It was the one unforgivable sin…"

As one checks the dates here—1913, meet Dorothy; 1914, threaten to relinquish commission to get promotion and more money... and, 1916, marry the disinherited Lady Dorothy who had no trousseau; 1916, promotion to General Staff Officer, 3rd Grade, for purposes of pay—one can see that behind every great man, there is a woman who probably needs more money. It wasn't until after their wedding that Lady Dorothy learned to economize—doing her own hair and lacing up her own shoes—and even going out to find work while Arthur was overseas.

It's unknown at this point how long Arthur Mills stayed in the D.C.L.I., and when exactly he took up a place at 91A Ebury Street as a full-time writer, but it's probably safe to say that living between Lady Dorothy and the Militia wasn't as safe and easy as Mills might've wanted. There's another listing for A. F. H. Mills in the London Gazette on 9 October 1919. Perhaps it indicates financial times had been finally improving for the couple: "COMMANDS AND STAFF. The undermentioned relinquish their appointments:— Cl. FF.—Capt. A. F. H. Mills, D. of Corn. L. I., Spec. Res. 3rd June 1919."

But, if that's the case and Mills left the service, there's then a puzzling entry in the Gazette dated 14 July 1922, ostensibly after Arthur had been a civilian again for over three years, that is quite cryptic to me. While we know he was promoted to Captain in 1914 and G.S.O. 3rd Class in 1916, this 1922 citation reads: "3rd D.C.L.I.—Capt. A. F. H. Mills, from Supplementary List, to be Capt. 15th July 1922, with seniority 5th Aug. 1914."

Had Arthur left, and then returned briefly to, the military in 1922? Or had there simply been a problem with his commission after leaving? Again, something about this smacks of a money issue here.

By 1922, Arthur had published four books, including Ursula Vanet [about a lad from Sandhurst and a society girl who makes the wrong friends] in 1921 and Pillars of Salt in 1922. Lady Dorothy had already published three novels as well—Card Houses in 1916, The Laughter of Fools in 1920, and The Tent of Blue in 1922, all presumably written there on Ebury Street, London [left].

Arthur would write three more novels in 1923-1924, so I find it hard to believe he returned to the armed forces for any length of time. Is it possible, though, they still didn't have nearly enough money and were poking at the Army for more? Or was it that they simply did not have enough to meet their current "needs"? Lady Dorothy doesn't appear to have missed very many society balls during the early 1920s—largely without Arthur along in attendance.

It just seems quite odd to me that Arthur Mills, trained as a soldier as a youth, and an officer and a gentleman as a young man, a veteran of foreign wars and a verifiable hero, presumably from 1908 to through approximately 1920, simply couldn't support himself and a wife on a captain's salary.

His uncle, Dudley Mills, who was a Major in the Royal Engineers at the time, had a wife and five children by 1908. How little money could Captain Arthur have been sending home in 1916?

There are some clues in Arthur's 1930 novel The Apache Girl, but it's a work of fiction. Still, it's informative.

One wonders, though, if being an officer in the British Army was actually a living for a young couple, circa 1913-1919. My guess is that it was—but the evidence doesn't fully explain why Arthur and Dorothy couldn't seem to get by on his commission.

Any ideas? Would his pay rate have been a 'living wage' for a husband and wife at the time? Please let me know!

Arthur Hobart Mills: A Whole New Life with a Whole New Wife

Sometimes, as I'm working on this project, I find something new. Other times, I find something surprising! That happened to me yesterday when I stumbled upon this: A 1968 telephone directory listing for "Mrs. A. Hobart Mills."

That came as a surprise for a few reasons. Arthur Frederick Hobart Mills, half-brother of George Mills, apparently used the name Arthur Hobart Mills, and even occasionally simply Arthur Hobart, as an author of novels and magazine articles. For example, this is from ebay.com:

Product Category : Books

Title : Escapade

Authors : Arthur Hobart Mills

Publication Date : 1931

Condition : Very Good

A quick dash shows that a search for "Arthur Hobart Mills" using the admittedly crappy engine at ancestry.com either turns up our own Arthur F. H. Mills or unrelated junk. He's the only "Hobart" among the Arthur Millses.

Much of what we know about Arthur's life has already been published here, taking us through his divorce from Lady Dorothy Mills [née Walpole] due to infidelity with a Miss Jasmine Webster. The divorce petition was filed in 1932 and notice of the divorce decree ran in the London Times on 24 March 1933.

Lady Dorothy had suffered a nervous breakdown in 1932, and I'm certain most folks assumed it had much to do with her recovery from a horrific traffic accident in 1929 and her all-too-ambitious travel to Venezuela and the Middle East soon after. One wonders if the breakdown was, at least in part, a result of discovering Arthur's adultery.

Arthur and Lady Dorothy had lived separate but equal lives throughout at least the last decade of their marriage. They traveled independently of one another, celebrated Christmases away from one another, and essentially seemed to have lived parallel lives. It wouldn't be the world's biggest shock to realize that they'd drifted far apart.

London telephone directories indicate that Arthur and Dorothy Mills first had a telephone in 1917. The listing read: "Victoria .. 3292 Mills, A. H., Capt. .. .. .. .. 131 Ebury st S.W."

In 1920, they move to anearby residence and the listing changes to: "Victoria 2285 .. Mills Arthur .. .. .. .. .. 91A Ebury st S.W.1."

In 1922, the listing changes Arthur's name to "Mills, Capt. Arthur H." That stays the same until the September 1929 directory, when only the telephone number changes: "SLOane 6986."

The 1930 London book, however, adds something interesting. There's an additional entry at that number: "Mills Lady Dorothy, 91A Ebury st S.W.1 . SLOane .. 6986." The same number, just an entry for herself.

It stayed that way through the November 1932 directory, but in the subsequent May 1933 London book, the listing for Capt. Arthur H. Mills at 91A Ebury Street is gone. The listing for his ex-wife was changed to "Mills Lady Dorothy, 17 Burnsall st S.W.3 FLAxman. 2476." That listing, after their divorce, remains in place until 1939.

[Note: I can't find a telephone directory for 1940, likely due to the war, but in the 1941 London directory, Lady Dorothy's Burnsall Street listing is gone. After that, although I know that she moved to Sussex and ended her days in Brighton, I can no longer verify any telephone listing as being hers through her passing in 1959.]

It's a crapshoot knowing exactly where and when ex-husband Arthur went for the next two decades. There's a relatively immediate 1933 directory listing for him in Hurstpierpoint, Hassocks, just 5 miles south of Cuckfield: "Mills Arthur, Stables cottage ……… Hurstpierpoint 188." A 1942 listing remains the same, save for the actual telephone number having been changed to "2188." The listing would make complete sense because, as an avid golfer, Mills would have been close to the Hassocks Golf Club [seen in the map, left]. In 1943, however, that listing was gone.

Finding a future wife for Arthur had me checking other for records of that apparent second marriage, and I found one of the most peculiar entries I've ever seen in British record-keeping!

Sometime in late 1933 [October-December], an Arthur F. H. Mills married a woman named either "Wilson" or "Wilks" in Cuckfield. That's actually what is recorded [below, right]: "Wilson or Wilks."

I looked up Wilks and found that "Monica C. G. Wilks" married a man named "Mills" in Cuckfield during that time frame.

However, I also found a record showing that "Monica C. G. Wilson" married a man named "Mills" during that same period in Cuckfield.

I thought to myself, "Let's check more records!" We know that Arthur Mills died while living at Winds Cottage, Downton, near Lymington, Hampshire. Today, that's actually listed on Google Maps as being in "New Forest." The result of a quick records search turned up a death in New Forest between July and September in 1981: "MONICA CECIL G MILLS" who had been born on 07 JE 1902 [where JE apparently stands for "June"'.

Arthur Mills did, in fact, take a second wife! And, with a marriage in 1933, Monica would have been 29 years old to Arthur's 46 at the time of their nuptials—something that must have chafed Lady Dorothy as she pined over her own lost youth, looks, and health.

Finding Monica Wilks or Wilson's own birth record wasn't quite satisfying. It states that Monica Cecil G. Wilks was born in Ecclesall Bierlow [apparently once part of Sherwood Forest] somewhere between July and August 1902. The name simply would be too coincidental to be an accident, so I must assume they've recorded her birth date incorrectly on either her birth or death record—but who knows which?

Arthur's own death record has him passing on in 1955, at the age of 67, in "New Forest" as well.

Finding records for Monica is quite problematic. I can only find one other, and that's a listing from a 1946 telephone directory for Hampshire, Devon, Somerset, Gloucester, Glamorgan, and Wales. The listing reads: "Mills Mrs. Monica C. G, Lower Mundey's ct ………….. Long Sutton 79." There is no listing for an Arthur Mills in the same directory.

This jumps Arthur and Monica a good ways to the west since that Hurstpierpoint listing in 1942, almost to Taunton, and adds a telephone listing in his wife's name, rather than his own. Is Arthur Mills with her? The Long Sutton Golf Club [left] is nearly as big as the rest of Long Sutton itself. Avid golfer Mills is there, for sure.

It's curious why Arthur would have no phone listing from 1942 through 1945, and then suddenly crop up under his wife's name in Long Sutton. Perhaps coincidentally, between the 1940 publication of his novel White Negro and 1947's Don't Touch the Body, I can't find any evidence of Arthur having published a single word—anywhwere.

Arthur had, indeed, returned to the military on the second of September 1939. Perhaps he'd been recalled, perhaps he'd volunteered. It was odd because Mills left the service as a captain and a war hero, but returned as a second lieutenant. Mo matter, he relinquished his commission just 8 days later on 10 September.

Did something happen to Mills during those 8 days? Did it affect his health and/or his ability to write? It's quite possible that White Negro had almost all been written in 1939 with anticipation of it being published in 1940, and it may really only have needed editing of the manuscript or proofs.


What prompted the move to Long Sutton, one that was apparently short-lived? By 1948, there'a listing for a "Mrs. Arthur Mills" on "Holmwood Farm, Hordle" with a phone number of New Milton 443. This listing seems to reappear just after the publication of Don't Touch the Body. It remains as-is through 1949.

In 1950, the listing changes to "Mills Mrs. Arthur, Mead End ho …………. Sway 239," apparently near Sway, east of the New Forest National Park. Mead End House is pictured, right. What's peculiar about this location is the lack of an 18-hole golf course for miles in any direction—but what a fine, large abode!

In 1951, the blurb from the dust jacket of his crime novel Last Seen Alive read: "Arthur Mills is the son of the Rev. Barton Mills and Lady Catherine Mills. He was educated at Wellington and Sandhurst and was gazetted into the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry in 1908. He has served in China, France, and Palestine. Mr. Mills is at present living in Hampshire where his main recreations are golf and gardening. In addition to books of short stories he has published over twenty novels."

By 1954, the listing changes to "Mills Mrs. Arthur, Winds cottage Hordle la Downton …….. Milford-on-sea 88." That was likely the last telephone listing he'd see. Arthur passed away on 18 February 1955 in an area that today has at least 10 golf courses within a 10 km radius of Winds Cottage, including two on the Isle of Wight, where Mills had convalesced at Freshwater from the wound he suffered at Aisne during the First World War.

That listing stayed in place until 1958, then disppears until it resumes in 1967 reading: "Mills Mrs. A. Hobart, Winds cott Downton la Downton … Milford-o-s 2744." Apparently that part of Hordle Lane had beenrenamed Downton Lane. That listing stayed there until 1972, but disappeared from the 1973 directory.

Then, in the April 1976 directory [right], the listing returned again, same address, same phone number. It remained there in 1977, but in 1978 it disappeared for good. Was it once again simply taken out of the book? Had Monica moved to a nursing home at the age of 76, or in with one of her children? The latter suggestion assumes Arthur and Monica had children—issue we thought had not occurred on this branch of the family tree.

It appears that Capt. Arthur F. H. Mills, DCLI, did, indeed, remarry in 1933. He passed away in 1955. His wife, Monica, left us in 1981.

The London Gazette in 1955 published this information:

Name of Deceased (Surname First)

MILLS, Arthur Frederick Hobart

Address, description and date of death of Deceased

Winds Cottage, Downton, near Lymington, Hampshire, formerly of Stable Cottage, Hurst Wickham, Hassocks, Sussex, Captain H.M. Army (Retired), 18th February, 1955

Names, addresses, and descriptions of Persons to whom notices of claims are to be given and names, in parentheses, of Personal Representatives

Hunters, 9, New Square, Lincoln's Inn, London, W.C.2, solicitors. (Hugh Murchison Clowes)

Date on or before which notices of claim to be given

8th September, 1955 (283)

No mention of a wife or heirs: All business. There was no obituary in the London Times, although he was mentioned in Lady Dorothy's scant, well-hidden obit in the 8 December 1959 Times that read: "Obituary LADY DOROTHY RACHEL MELISSA MILLS, elder daughter of the fifth and last Earl of Orford, died on Friday at Brighton. She married in 1916 Captain Arthur Hobart Mills, from whom she obtained a divorce in 1933 and who died in 1955."

I supposed that served as Arthur Hobart's belated Times obituary as well.

Did Arthur and Monica Mills actually have children? Right now, I'm uncertain, one way or the other. Children could be significant: They might hold family mementos, photos, souvenirs, memorabilia, and other ephemera that I have been assuming ended up at best being sold in lots at an estate sale in Budleigh Salterton in 1975 when the Misses Mills, Agnes and Violet, passed away there. At worst, I feared it may have all ended up in a dumpster.

This is a lot of new information, but at as always, if it triggers any thoughts, ideas, or informed speculation, please don't hesitate to let me know!

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…

Wallis & Steevens, George & Uncle Dudley, and Hants & Brazil

Wallis and Steevens began doing business in 1840 as merchants and carriers of corn, coal, and salt under the name R. Wallis and Sons in Hampshire, England. They soon became ironmongers, and later opened a foundry for iron and brass.

By 1860, the firm was producing machinery and was taking its first steps toward producing steam engines. By the end of the decade, the firm, then known as 'Wallis and Steevens' after Charles Steevens came aboard, was producing threshing machines and steam engines, including steam engines as English farming went large scale and threshing contractors moved from farm to farm.

Their steam engines soon became portable, and in the 1870s, trade was opened with Denmark, Bavaria, and South Africa for their award-winning agricultural machinery. Development continued on portable steam and traction engines, but, after a series of poor summers, an agricultural depression hit England by 1879.

The company soon developed the first portable engine developed specifically to produce electrical light, and 1882 saw the construction of the two largest engines ever built by the company. Trade in fixed engines remained steady as family member and mechanical engineer William Alfred Wallis joined the firm as a junior partner in 1888.

In the 1890s, Wallis and Steevens begins producing road rollers [pictured, right] and low pressure steam engines. Trade with South Africa diminished when Herbert Wallis died in Johannesberg in 1894, but a year later the company debuted the first 'road locomotive.' The company contemplated making smaller engines while, in 1896, Frank and Alfred Wallis attended the Motor Car exhibtion at the Crystal Palace and determined that the "future lies with light steam traction engines." [In hindsight, it seems that decision may have been a tad short-sighted.]

The company was disappointed in sales of a larger tractor they produced after road restrictions were eased from three tons to four in 1904. By 1906, the firm added a reverse gear to their engines, but by 1910, the agricultural side of the business diminishes in favor of road vehicles.

In 1913, the company decided to reverse gear themselves, and were moving toward creation of an internal combustion engine when further development was postponed by the outbreak of the First World War. By 1914, the company was producing shell casings as well as road rollers and traction engines for the War Department.

A loan opportunity for Brazil extended from Britain was withdrawn due to the onset of global hostilities, and it wasn't until well after unrestricted submarine warfare was begun by Germany that the country of Brazil, along with the United States, entered the Great War.

With many prior trading partners suddenly embroiled in the war, Wallis and Steevens was likely doing everything it could to find new trading partners to supplement its government contracts. Brazil, one of the four most powerful nations in the Americas, and South America's foremost power, would have been a good bet for trade among then-neutral nations early in the conflict. U-boats had not, at that point in 1914, begun sinking merchant vessels from neutral nations.

It was the sinking of a non-neutral ship, the R.M.S. Lusitania, on 7 May 1915 off the coast of Ireland that turned public opinion in non-aggressor nations worldwide against Germany, and probably changed the trading plans of Alfred Wallis of Wallis and Steevens who had been in South America with an entourage in early 1915.

The manifest [seen below, right; click to enlarge] of the Avon, a steamer sailing for the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, states that the ship sailed into Liverpool on 15 March 1915 from Buenos Aires, by way of Montevideo [where Wallis, et al, had boarded], Santos, Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco, Leixões, and Vigo.

Wallis had been sailing with a brace of apprentice engineers: James Young, 19; Albert Hopson, 17; John Thomas, 21; and George Mills, 19.

It's not a stretch to think that a teenage George Mills—having left Harrow in 1912 and seemingly not immediately interested in continuing his education in the classroom—had begun an apprenticeship in the years between his time as a Harrovian and when he's sworn into the army. It would also go a long way toward explaining why a fellow who'd departed Harrow four years before had listed himself as a "student" when called upon to provide his current occupation at the enlistment office in Kensington in 1916.

Traveling by rail to Basingstoke would have meant he would have a trip of a mere 40 miles or so from home. An apprenticeship with prestigious Wallis and Steevens would have kept him relatively close to the family in a geographical sense, and he'd have been "close" to a family member in another way as well: George's uncle, Major Dudley Acland Mills, had served for decades as an officer in the Royal Engineers [some of whom are pictured in 1914, below left]. Dudley's work took him the world over, China, India, Canada, the South Seas, and he eventually was named a governor of Jamaica. I'd be stunned to find that, as a boy, George hadn't keenly admired his exceptionally interesting Uncle Dudley.

As an engineer, Major Mills would have been intimately acquainted with the terrain, climate, people, navigable waterways, railways, roads, potential roads, weather patterns, peoples, customs, and the laws of a plethora of nations, spanning the globe. According to his obituary in the London Times on 22 February 1938, Uncle Dudley was "an authority on things Chinese and early maps and a man of all-round culture and knowledge."

It must have been a thrill for young nephew George to have Uncle Dudley visit with tales of his latest travels and exploits. And, as George grew older and cast about for a career of his own, Uncle Dudley's Royal Engineers simultaneously would have been the delighted recipients of the War Department's First World War contracts with Wallis and Steevens for "traction engines and road rollers." The connection there is obvious.

George at that point in his life seems to have shown none of the passion for religion that his father, Rev. Barton R. V. Mills had shown, or a desire for a prolonged career as a military man as both his Uncle Dudley and half-brother, Arthur F. H. Mills, had shown. His career path evolved in a different direction.

As far as the skills George later exhibited in life, he was a talented writer, and had helped write, produce, and compose songs for dramatic productions at Windlesham House School. He had some bookkeeping, if not accounting, skills that enabled him to re-enter the military as an officer in the Royal Army Pay Corps in 1940, but those seemingly were not apparent when he enlisted the first time in 1916 and was apparently assigned to the Rifle Depot.

He was also a schoolmaster based on time spent at Oxford after WW I. Presumably, it was also that time spent at Oxford [Had he also told the military that he was a graduate?] that afforded him a commission as an officer in the Pay Corps.

There's just no evidence to indicate that the vocations and talents he exhibited throughout what we know of the rest of his life could have evolved out of a 4-year student apprenticeship in industry between 1912 and 1916. He must have been involved in trying some other line of work, and his connections to engineering make it likely that those "missing years" in the life of the adolescent George Mills had been spent near those blazing Wallis and Steevens foundries at Blasingstoke in Hants. Mills was alwas creative, as we know, and the industry was, at the time, growing quickly and always seeking the next great idea or design.

We clearly know that Mills had perennial trouble settling into a single career, job, or long-term home in his adult life. Would it seem highly unlikely that, after dabbling in what I assume was the quite serious, material business of engineering and manufacturing, George eschewed that industry for a return to the abstractions of the classroom in Christ Church and Oxford following his demobilisation from the armed forces in 1919?

My position is that it would not be a quantum leap to suppose that—despite Stanley Elkin's suppostion that the world was, is, and always will be populated by armies of indistinguishable George Millses—the George Mills, sailing in his 19th year, that steamed into Liverpool out of Buenos Aires on 20 March 1915 was, indeed, the George Mills of our interest here.

As always, however, I invite your thoughts, additional information, or informed speculation on my hypothesis—a speculation that, as much of a long-shot as it may be, seems to be the only one for which I can find any evidence at all!

World War Two, Malta, and my Ilfracombe Supposition

The internet is certainly a wonderful thing! If one wants to know about paymasters in the Royal Army Pay Corps during the Second World War, just tweak the search terms, and continue to do so, until the information bubbles up to the top!

Here's another memoir from the BBC's archive, "WW2 People's War," this one written by Leonard Francis Cuthbert Knight (1912 — 1991, pictured, left), who began in the Pay Corps on 5 November 1940 at the age of 27, less than a month after George Mills had returned to the service as a paymaster himself.

Enough of me telling the story, however! Here are L. F. C. Knight's own words:

"I had reached the age of 27 when hostilities commenced, a clerk at the Birmingham Electric Supply Department. The future in the expanding business looked good but prospects were denied over the war period, which lasted until demobilisation in 1946, at my age of 33. A fresh start had to be made.

Many of our staff were members of the Territorial Army. These were immediately posted to the Forces. Although a no volunteering rule was imposed several left for the R.A.F. Official requests for R.A.O.C personnel resulted in several departing for that branch of the forces. With myself working on civilian pay duties the R.A.P.C. (Royal Army Pay Corps) became my destination.

From the 5th Nov 1940 for over five years I was a member of the Armed Forces. Shrewsbury was the first depot, where a detachment of the R.A.P.C. was stationed. It was real November weather, bleak and dreary, with the town almost surrounded by floods from the swollen River Severn. In keeping with the weather it was personally a dreary time with several inoculations and vaccinations which did not help. We were billeted with civilian families, myself with a household near to the Abbey Church, containing husband, wife and young children. His trade was that of a farm wagon maker. The skill of his craft was displayed by an example on his premises. Farm wagons have ever since gone up in my estimation for I learnt of the skill which went into their construction.

For a while acclimatization to the new conditions became the main concern. I remember our first assembly in civilian clothes, a motley crowd with cardboard boxes containing our gas masks. We sat at long tables for our first meal, the majority wearing spectacles, one humorist remarking that we looked more like an opticians re-union than an Army intake. Those responsible seemed to be at a loss to know what to do with us and found all sorts of odds and ends to occupy our time. We went around clearing up litter and marched around suburbs to fill in time. Visits to stores were made, where civilian clothes were replaced by Army Uniform. Little did we know this was to be our everyday wear for many years. Very little Pay Office work was done in those first weeks. Lectures and so on were attended. After duty we had opportunity to get to know Shrewsbury, a fascinating small provincial town. After about six weeks we were considered fit and attuned for more serious and useful duties. We were then dispersed to those Pay Offices rapidly expanding and needing more personnel."


From this, we can gather that the closer one was assigned to Leicester, the more difficult the initial training and workload. Yesterday, we learned that an unnamed recruit in Leicester worked 9 am to 7 pm every day except Sunday [when the office closed at 4] in 1939.

We don't know where Mills was assigned for his initial RAPC training, but perhaps Knight's experiences can be instructive. Here is an excerpt about how he spent his time after a transfer to Ilfracombe:

"Wives could live with their husbands and several including myself enjoyed this occasion. Our honeymoon, the 17th Jan 1941 was at Ilfracombe whilst a member of the Pay Corps. We travelled down from Birmingham in complete pitch dark conditions by rail and on arriving at Ilfracombe were greeted by the sight of the monster fires from enemy air raids across the Bristol channel in South Wales. I was at first billeted with about fifteen others in a terraced house off High Street which in peace time was a smaller type of guest house. Newcomers were always allocated to the front bedroom down. I thought this excellent until I found it was an arrangement to answer the front door to let in others any time up to well after midnight…

As better weather conditions approached on off duty occasions we enjoyed a Spring time in Devon, walking many miles in the surrounding valleys and exploring the sea coast, together with my wife who had joined me in Ilfracombe lodgings. "

In the text, Knight mentions family members visiting, taking taxis from Exeter to Ilfracombe. George Mills certainly had Acland kin in Devon, both in Exmoor and southern Devon, near Broad Clyst, as it was primarily Acland land.

We also found out that a telephone listing for a "Mrs G Mills" does crop up in the "Portsmouth / Southampton / Bournemouth / Exeter / Plymouth / Taunton / Bristol / Gloucester / South Wales (East) / Swansea" telephone directory in February 1941, bearing a number in the Credition exchange [Crediton 112]. Crediton is seemingly a stone's throw from Broad Clyst, and just about 35 miles south of Ilfracombe.

Had George Mills been originally stationed in south Devon and transferred to Ilfracombe [as Knight had been transferred from Shrewsbury], Vera would likely have followed him north to the sea, near Exmoor, since accommodations for men with wives were clearly being made available.

A quick check of Google Maps shows Ilfracombe being slightly west of the lands of Exmoor—and Exmoor is the location of the death of George's wife, Vera Mills, in January 1942. We don't know any of the circumstances of her passing. She may have been ill. She may have been injured and passed away in a hospital later. She may have been pronounced dead at the scene of her death. Nonetheless, it must have been somewhere in that vicinity: Today's maps show Ilfracombe being located just 5 km from what is now the western tip of Exmoor National Forest.

Knight stayed at Ilfracombe until he was transferred to Reading in 1941. Presumably, Mills would have stayed in Devon since Vera Mills was still at the very least near Exmoor in January of 1942.

What happened to George afterwards and where it would have happened would be purely speculation, just as it would be as to the cause of Vera's death. Although Ilfracombe was not completely isolated from the war [pictured, left, is a Luftwaffe aerial reconnaissance photograph of the area, labeled "Zum Verbrauch! Mitnahme von Ausschnitten des Bildteiles zum Feindflug gestattet" ("To be used! You are allowed to take these photographs with you on raids")], the memoir of a child of that time reads:

"My father was a Baptist minister and in about 1944 my father took a church in Ilfracombe. They had virtually never heard of the war there: they had rationing of course, but no bombs. One of the mines blew up in the harbour and that was all they had of bombs."

Does she mean for the entire war, or from 1944 on? Either way, I can find no records of bombing or attacks any closer to Ilfracombe than South Wales, across the waters near the mouth of the Severn, or in Braunton [a good 10 miles to the south].

Vera's death, whether war-related or not, certainly seems to pin George Mills to the Ilfracombe area, working in the RAPC offices at the Ilfracombe Hotel and St Petroc's.

The next gap in the record of George Mills occurs between Vera's passing on 5 January 1942 and 3 November 1943, when he relinquished his commission and assumed the honorary rank of lieutenant. The bestowal of the 'honorary rank' would seem to imply that whatever circumstances of his health that caused George to leave his post during a global conflict during which England was fighting for her life, they must have been deemed sympathetic and acceptable to the brass.

What occurred in the life and career of George Mills during that 22-month span is uncertain. We do know that a young friend from Kensington, Terence Hadow, aged 21, had been killed in action during the Burma campaign against the Japanese on 18 March 1943. It's likely that a fellow as sensitive as Mills felt another metaphorical shell burst against his hull, although not nearly as devastating an impact as Vera's passing must have had on him.

L. F. C. Knight eventually embarked for the RAPC installation in Malta with a contingent of other RAPC men for the duration of the war [a photograph from his stay is pictured, right]. We know that, at some point, there were enough females to "man" RAPC offices in the British Isles, and that from 1941-1942 most males were then shipped overseas. George Mills would have been an officer, not an enlisted man, and an aging one at that, approaching 46. It's difficult to know if Mills would have been shipped abroad.

Was George Mills among those RAPC men who ended up on Malta? I can't say, but I do know that he had a cousin, Mordaunt Mills, son of George's uncle, Dudley Mills. Mordaunt, apparently a woodworking artisan who eventually opened a factory in London that produced wooden-handled cutlery, never married and apparently retired to Malta. Why Malta? Is it possible he'd heard his elder cousin's stories about the beauty of the Mediterranean on Malta, situated between the southernmost tip of Sicily and Tunisia on the North African coast? Is it possible he'd later vacationed there and decided to stay?

Is most of this evidence circumstantial? Certainly. Could much of it be dismissed as mere coincidence? Absolutely!

On the other hand, until I see possibilities that offer far more certainty, I'm disposed to pencil much of this in on my "George Mills Time Line." Well, maybe not the Malta part, but I'm sticking with the Ilfracombe supposition right now!

Do you agree or disagree? I'd love to hear your thoughts, ideas, and speculation! And for more chronological information and wonderful images of the life and adventures of L. F. C. Knight of the R.A.P.C. during the Second World War, please visit the family's website at http://website.lineone.net/~glb1/war/index.html.

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…

1916: For the Duration of the War, with the Colours, and in the Army Reserve

Still sifting through "piles" of documents and messages on my computer, I think that I'll post this one today: The "Short Service" enlistment form of George Mills, dated 15 January 1916 [the duplicate copy is pictured, left; click to enlarge]. It notes that the service would be "For the Duration of the War, with the Colours, and in the Army Reserve."

Mills, a self-proclaimed student—although he hadn't attended a school at this point since 1912—entered the Rifle Depot as a private. Fast-forwarding three years, Mills would leave the service in 1919 as a lance corporal. After "The War to End All Wars," it must have seemed as if his days 'with the Colours' were behind him.

I wasn't exactly sure what this 1916 enlistment and the term "Army Reserve" might've entailed entirely, so I checked the British Army's website and found this: "When a member of the Regular Army leaves the service, he or she remains liable to be recalled in times of need, and this group of ex-Regular personnel is known as the Regular Reserve," and "All male (but not female) soldiers who enlisted before 1 Apr 97 have a statutory liability for service in the Long Term Reserve until their 45th birthday."

Perhaps Mills wasn't quite as patriotic as I might have thought when, on 13 October 1940, George was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Army Pay Corps. George had just turned 44 years of age and had less than one year to go until, at 45, the army would seem to have been unable to recall him as a "regular reserve." But diud they actually recall him to duty.

Now, in 1941, my father [pictured, right, circa 1942] joined the Navy at the age of 24 because he knew the government was drafting every young man in sight into the army. The whole idea of marching through mud and sleeping on the ground wasn't all that appealing to him. "How far can they march you on a boat?" he said. Certainly not the ten miles or more he'd been hearing about! And he never heard of any sailors sleeping outside on the deck, so he dashed to the enlistment office to sign up for the United States Navy before he could have been drafted.

Is it possible George Mills was simply recalled as a regular reserve and plopped into a position as a lieutenant in the RAPC? Or is it more likely that, after clearly seeing that the Second World War wasn't going to be just a skirmish, he volunteered to return to the military in a more self-selected position he might've been able to negotitate as a "volunteer," much like my Dad?

Perhaps it's simpy a coincidence, but I went into George's enlistment papers with Adobe Photoshop and pulled out something interesting. Amid all of the scrawling, cross-outs and number changes, and remnants of departmental stamps on this duplicate copy, the ghost of one bit of writing became easier to see as I tweaked the brightness and contrast of the document.

You can see it, reading "MY PAY CORPS" in block letters above the handwritten assignment to the "Rifle Depot Res" on the "Corps" [pictured, left]. Presumably, those typed block letters in their entirety would have spelled out "Army Pay Corps."

Maybe it's unrelated to the fact that Mills later became a paymaster in that very same corps. Harrow School's archivist, Luke Meadows, has already told us that according to the school's records, after leaving Harrow, "we know that he was in the Rifle Brigade and then transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps (R.A.S.C.) during the First World War between 1916-1919." Oxford's Anabel Peacock affirms George's rank in the RASC as having begun as a private and concluded as lance corporal.

That's the only documentation of George's WW I service that I can find short of spending the £30 or more to acquire his entire service record, and, as a schoolteacher, that would be a frill I simply can't afford. Since there's only a 40% chance George's military record wasn't at least partially destroyed by bombing, it simply doesn't seem a good financial risk for me right now.

Might George, during the First World War, have transferred into the R.A.P.C. instead of the R.A.S.C.? It certainly wouldn't have been the first typographical error we've run into in our study of George Mills and family—RAPC possibly having been misinterpreted as RASC!

The skimpy Wikipedia article [just 3 sentences] on the RAPC isn't much help, but includes one useful sentence, a sentence that would be even more useful if its reference wasn't unrelated to its content. It reads: "Before the Second World War, the RAPC did not accept recruits directly from civilian life, but only transfers from serving soldiers who had been in the Army for at least six months."

What's difficult to determine is the meaning of "before the Second World War." Mills, still a regular reserve in 1940, indeed may have been able to transfer into the RAPC [the Reading barracks from 1942 is pictured, right] without having been serving currently. Rules, at the time, seemed to changing quickly as the conflict escalated.

More information about the situation at the time is be found in the following memory of a WW II paymaster archived by the BBC and dated 21 October 2004:

"I was born into the Army and, when young, lived in married quarters. Therefore when war was declared in 1939, I enlisted in the Army Territorial Service (A.T.S.). Before Christmas I received orders to join the Royal Army Pay Corps at Leicester.

"Factories, some two or three storeys high, had been taken over by the army to store all the pay records. Regular soldiers of the Royal Army Pay Corps were training both newly enlisted men and women and we were all housed in guesthouses or the homes of local people. We worked from 9 a.m. until 7p.m every day except Sunday, when we were allowed to finish at 4 p.m. It was a few months before we were able to have a half-day on Sunday, and, later, we did appreciate having the full day off. As more people enlisted, in addition to some local people being employed as civil servants, we were able to work normal office hours.

Gradually, the regular soldiers were transferred overseas. Then, when women were called up to register for war work, the enlisted men, except for a few on special work, were also sent abroad. When I joined up in 1939, there was one woman to about 30 men. By 1941-42, the position had gradually changed to the women outnumbering the men."

It's likely the gentleman who wrote this memoir was somewhat younger than George Mills, but he also had apparently returned to the service at the onset on World War II, much like Mills himself.

Perhaps George was trained by this fellow. Perhaps George had previous experience in the RAPC that I can't verify and quickly became a fellow trainer.

One thing is for sure: This part of the military experience of George Mills has been kept under wraps. Both Harrow and Oxford have records of Mills' WW I service, but I can't find any authorities boasting of George's WW II service.

Did George Mills spend time overseas during the Second World War? Or was he involved in some "special work" that kept him from being deployed abroad? How did the death of his wife, Vera, in Exmoor in January of 1942 affect George and his military career? Did the "ill-health" that forced Mills to relinquish his commission in 1943, retaining an honorary rank of lieutenant, occur in Great Britain, or had he been assigned overseas when his health declined at age 46?

I invite you to weigh in on these questions with any information, ideas, or informed speculation you may have—and many thanks!