My maternal ancestors
Great uncle: Archibald John Mills
Archibald John Mills, ‘Archie’, was born on 2 November 1882. He was
the third son of the Dockyard shipwright, James and his wife, Rose
Mills.
He was baptised at the Garrison Church, Southsea, Hants (shown
right) on 7 March 1886. This church can be seen from the esplanade
and is well known because it has no roof, having suffered bomb
damage during WW2
In 1891, the Mills family was living at 7 Great Southsea Street, Portsmouth.
Archie passed a Maths exam at Portsmouth Technical Institute in 1899 and
received a second-class, freehand drawing award in 1901. In that year he
was also a pupil teacher. By then, the Mills family was living at 51 Lawrence
Road, Southsea.
Archie was a teacher all his working life. He trained at Winchester Diocesan
Training College and then, like his older brother, Charlie, he learned his
profession at St. Lukes School, Southsea where he was an assistant master
from 1903-05. While there, he passed a Kings Scholarship Examination in
March 1905. He was appointed to the Beneficial School at Kent Street,
Portsea on 26 August 1907.
Eight men met in 1754 and formed the Beneficial Society which was a
mutual aid organisation devoted to providing free education for the poor
children of Portsea. The Beneficial School was built in 1784. It was a red
brick building of two stories (shown right). The ground floor was one large
classroom and the upper storey was the headquarters and meeting room of
the Society. The school is remembered affectionately as ‘Old Bene’
When WW1 broke out, Archie escaped military service because of his
varicose veins. He was appointed Headmaster of the school on 8 March 1917.
Two conditions of his appointment were that ‘he lived in the District of Portsea
and consented to form an Evening Commercial and Dockyard Examination
Class’. In view of his father’s trade, this was hardly an imposition.
Archie, seated far left, with a group of footballing students.
In July 1909,’the boys performed some drill exercises especially well under the direction of A J Mills’
After browsing to this page, John Stockwell from Brisbane, Australia e-mailed to say that his father,
Rupert Smith attended the Beneficial School and that he had a class photograph from 1925 which
included Archie Mills, the form master, Mr Lush and Rupert (ringed) which is shown above.
Archie (aged 36), who was then living at 39 Lawrence Road, married Annie Ellen Oates, ‘Nellie’
(shown below, right) in the late summer of 1919 at Edmonton, London. Nellie was born on 1 August
1889 at Yatton Keynell, which is near Chippenham in Wiltshire. Nellie’s parents were schoolteachers.
Archie and Nellie had two children: Laurence John Mills (link L J
Mills) was born 1 October 1920 and Sylvia Joy Mills, born in 1925.
Sylvia died, aged fifteen months, on 15 March 1927 and was buried
at Highland Road Cemetery, Southsea. A memorial pillar was
inscribed, ‘Darling Joy’.
By 1921, the couple were renting 64 Lawrence Road, Southsea. After Archie’s
mother died, his father moved in from across the road.
I sometimes visited my great uncle on my own - but never early in the morning as
they were notorious late risers. There was a bell-pull on the door jamb and, when
yanked, a jangling bell could be heard deep inside the house. I remember the
house being dark with a peculiar smell. I discovered ‘bubble and squeak’ when
lunching at Uncle Archie’s home. Red currant bushes grew in the back garden.
Nellie had lost an arm. She was a philatelist and designed a postage stamp
series which was used by the GPO. She had a valuable stamp collection which
included a ‘Penny Black’ and an even rarer, but less famous, ‘Tuppenny Blue’. I
think Archie and Nellie made me welcome otherwise I wouldn’t have visited them
alone - nor would I have such clear memories of them.
There were tensions in the family. Nellie and my grand-mother, Eadie, ‘hated each other’. Archie
and his nephew, Patrick Mills didn’t ‘get along’.
Archie was a Freemason (which may have smoothed the way of his appointment as Headmaster)
and was a Grand-master of the Lodge. His brother, my grandfather, Charlie, had no time for
masons. Archie was tall, outgoing and made friends easily.
In photographs, he appears autocratic and domineering to my eye, while my grandfather, Charlie
seems laid back. Patrick, Charlie’s son, recalls hearing them talking in another room and being
unable to distinguish between their voices.
Over the decades, the name, “A J Mills”, featured several scores of times in local newspapers. This
was because of his interest and activities in several organisations, at least one of which he had a
large part in establishing. He served many as President, Chairman or Secretary at various times.
The meetings of these bodies were punctuated by speeches, many of which were delivered by
Archie. They were also social events at which dancing was organized. Whist drives were another
popular way of promoting the organisations. The following paragraphs encapsulate Archie’s public
activities.
In 1912, Archie, his sister-in-law and my grandmother, Mrs C Mills, and presumably my grandfather
were at a function which demonstrated their interest in a branch of the Territorial Army - the Military
Cyclists:
For several years in the 1920s, Archie took the lead in the activities of the Portsmouth Winton Club
(which was the local branch of the Winchester Training College Club - he having been trained there as
mentioned earlier). He was its President for a few years, from which position he resigned in 1929.
Archie was baptised in the Royal Garrison Church at Southsea and in adult life he continued his
association with the Church as illustrated by him being a sidesman there in the 1930s and also
organising church social activities during this decade.
That he was a Free-mason has been reported above. Archie’s work for the Prince Edward of Saxe-
Weimar Lodge was featured in news cuttings between 1910 and 1939.
In the 1950s, Archie was active in the Havelock Ward of Portsmouth South Conservative Association,
being its assistant secretary for a time.
He was most frequently mentioned in newspapers which reported the activities of the Beneficial Old
Boys Association which was established in 1923, Archie being the driving force behind its
inauguration and its first President. In 1927, the annual dinner was attended by more than a hundred
members of what was described as a ‘young and virile Association’. His speeches to the body were
often reported and two sample reports are shown next:
There were occasional press references to Archie and Charlie being together at various functions and
a news photograph was taken at one which shows them and their wives together in the foreground:
Archie appears to have been a royalist. In 1939 he wrote to Buckingham Palace to have pictures of
the King and Queen signed. These were unveiled at the school on 28 July 1939. Also, the school log
book, written by Archie notes the following:
During the schools Speech Day in July 1939, Archie was congratulated for the ‘excellent work done in
the school. After a Governmental inspection, he was said to be ‘an alert man’. Archie responded
saying that they tried to make to school something more than a place of education - a place to which
the boys liked coming’.
A couple of months later, in September after the outbreak of War, Archie wrote to the Portsmouth
Evening News to inform parents of how their children (who had been evacuated to Basingstoke) were
being settled down. He reported that they were in ‘really good homes…..in the best part of the
town…..and are being kindly treated by the people with whom they are staying’.
When Archie retired in July 1947, he was still working at the ‘Old Bene’ which was now known as St
George’s Beneficial Church of England Junior School.
Archie died on 14 February 1963 at St Mary’s Hospital, Portsmouth where his brother, Charlie, had
died nine years earlier.
After her husband’s death, Nellie was evidently cared for by her son, Laurence Mills, and was living
with his family in a three-bedroomed, detached house - 18 Thorp Arch Park. Wetherby, Yorkshire.
Finally, this is Archie’s the entry in my grandmother’s autograph book which was written in 1904: