Some Verisi-MILLS-itude!

Let's leave the domain of universities, colleges, and preparatory school and return to the internet. Since I last searched for George Mills, we've come up with middle initials: R. A. We've subsequently discovered that they stand for "Ramsay Acland".

Running a search using his full name revealed far more than I expected!

From ancestry.com: George Ramsay A. Mills died in Devonshire in 1972. He'd have been approximately 76 years old.

From thepeerage.com: George Ramsey Acland Mills was born in 1896. He is the son of Reverend Barton Reginald Vaughan Mills. He married Vera Louise Beauclerk, daughter of William Nelthorpe Beauclerk and Evelyn Amy Hart, on 28 April 1926.

So! "Miss Vera Beauclerc" is actually Vera Louise Beauclerk! This is where it really starts to get interesting! Here's the same site's information for Miss Beauclerk:

Vera Louise Beauclerk was born on 21 September 1893 at China. She was the daughter of William Nelthorpe Beauclerk and Evelyn Amy Hart. She married George Ramsey Acland Mills, son of Reverend Barton Reginald Vaughan Mills, on 28 April 1926. She died on 5 January 1942 at age 48. Her married name became Mills.

I soon realized that the real gold mine was in searching for Vera! From geneall.net and william1.co.uk, we find that Miss Beauclerk is listed as a descendant of William the Conqueror and the Dukes of St. Albans!

Here's a bit of information about her descent from the first Duke of St. Albans from cracroftspeerage.co.uk:

Mr William Nelthorpe Beauclerk mar. (2) 5 Sep 1892 Evelyn Amy Hart (d. 10 Jun 1933), 1st dau. of Sir Robert Hart, 1st Bt., GCMG, Inspector-General of Customs, China, and had further issue:

4b. Vera Louise Beauclerk (b. 21 Sep 1893; dsp. 5 Jan 1942), mar. 23 Apr 1925 George Ramsay Acland Mills (b. 1 Oct 1896; d. 1972), only son of Rev Barton Reginald Vaughan Mills, Vicar of Bude Haven, co. Cornwall, 1891-1901 and Assistant Chaplain of Royal Chapel of the Savoy 1901-08 (by his second wife Elizabeth Edith Ramsay, only dau. of Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay CB), 2nd but 1st surv. son of Arthur Mills MP, of Efford Down, Bude Haven, co. Cornwall, by his wife Agnes Lucy Acland, 2nd dau. of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Bt.

5b. Hilda de Vere Beauclerk (b. 21 Jan 1895; d. 16 Sep 1964), mar. 21 Jun 1933 Miles Malcolm Acheson, Chinese Maritime Customs Service, son of guy Francis Hamilton Acheson, and had issue.

Apparently, Mills and Vera Beauclerk "had no issue" and were childless at the time of her death in 1942.

From familysearch.org, we find exactly where Miss Beauclerk was born:

Gender: Female Birth: 21 SEP 1892 Chefoo,British Consulate, Chefoo, Shan-Tung, China

The date here would be just 16 days after the wedding date listed for William Nelthorpe Beauclerk and Evelyn Amy Hart above. Most sites list her birth year as 1893, over a year later—far more appropriate! There is also some issue above as to when Mills married Vera, 1925 or 1926. From the information provided by Dr. Houston, I had assumed he'd meant 1925, and that they had bought a house in Portslade at the same time. I'll choose to go with Dr. Houston's time line and stick with 1925 as the wedding year.

Be it either in 1925 or 1926, however, George Mills seems to have married into a line of royal blood dating back to William I. It seems that, unfortunately, it ended there with him. No descendants for the couple, George and Vera Mills are listed.

As an American, I'm uncertain as to what advantages that might have brought to George. I've seen BBC comedies in which, for example, a cousin of the Queen, born in Russia and 20 times removed, is delivered to a locale via limousine and provided with advance CID security. Of course, that's just television.

It's odd, but I don't envision Mills driving up to Windlesham House or Warren Hill in a Rolls Royce to teach English every morning.

In fact, I wonder how a fellow who didn't graduate Oxford, served as a private and lance corporal in the First World War, taught in a prep school as a "junior appointment", and authored slang-filled children's books ended up listed on the rolls whose intent is calculating one's nearness royalty.

Finally, how would his 17 years or so as an in-law of the Duke of St. Albans have affected the unknown portion of his life, from then until his death in 1972? Excuse me for wondering, but without children to relate him to the Beauclerks, how close might he have been? And how financially sound might his marriage to a woman of royal blood have left him?

These links all tie him to Vera Beauclerk. Might he have remarried, though? Might there be descendants of Mills after all?

Again, as seen above, it's been far easier to find information about the history of George Mills and his lineage than about his life after the publications of his books from 1933 to 1939.

What Mills did in the 30 years is wife's passing in 1942 and his own demise in 1972 is the beginning of the real mystery of his life.