Mills, Miss Mary

Mills, Miss Mary, Teendaria, 11 Osney Crescent, Paignton

 Mary Madeline Mills[1] (1882 – 1941) was born in Ryde on the Isle of Wight on 11 June 1882 and christened on 2 October  She was the daughter of Henry Nicholas and Ellen Viscina Mills and had one older brother, Ronald. Henry was a bookseller and stationer. The family were still in Ryde in 1891, also accommodating two nieces and employing a cook and a housemaid.

Henry, described as ‘of Willow Lodge, Ryde’, died on 10 August 1896 at the age of 50, leaving effects worth over £2400. By 1901 Mary was living at 20 Cavendish Road Streatham with her mother and brother. Ronald was described as a motor engineer. In the 1911 census Mary and her mother were living at 11 Osney Crescent Paignton, with one resident servant.

Mary Mills appears to have become involved in the work of the Women’s Social and Political Union during 1908. She is listed with Miss Potter of Dartmouth (q.v.) as trying to hold a meeting in Newton Abbot in November 1908, when they were shouted down by the audience ‘mostly of working women’.[2] Later that month she supported a meeting at the Labour Club in Newton Abbot where Amy Montague (q.v.) spoke.[3]  In December Votes for Women recorded her with Elsie Howey at an At Home in the Masonic Hall in Paignton; presiding at a meeting at the Bath Saloons in Torquay; and at an outdoor meeting on Paignton Green.[4]

In 1909 Mills continued the same level of activity, supported by Elsie Ball and Elsie Howey. In Torquay and Paignton, there were open-air meetings on Paignton Green, monthly At Homes at the Gerston Hotel, and fortnightly At Homes at the Swiss Café, Victoria Parade, Torquay.[5] Mrs Mills, presumably Mary’s mother, and a Mrs Layton hosted drawing-room meetings.[6] Howey describes Mills as ‘devoting a great deal of her time to selling the paper in the streets and helping me with meetings, etc.’[7]

Mills is noted in March 1909 as having been away at the bye-elections.[8] She also undertook a considerable amount of outreach work. She spoke at the Fish Market in Brixham in January (with Elsie Ball) where they were surrounded by ‘a good 350 fishermen’, and also in Dawlish.[9] She accompanied Elsie Howey to meetings during the Easter holidays in Brixham, Dartmouth and Teignmouth.[10] With Mrs Pilsbury she held an open air meeting at Totnes in July 1909 at which she delivered a ‘long address’ making the case for women’s suffrage on the same terms as men had it.[11] In the summer holidays she was helped by two visitors, Mrs Hoff d’Greux and Miss East, who had decided to devote their holidays to the cause.[12]

In 1910, however, her pace seems to have slowed. There is reference only to a series of drawing room meetings and a comment that the May meeting in Torquay had been successful in attracting more subscribers to the paper.[13] The last reference to Mary Mills as Hon Secretary for Paignton is at the end of August 1910.[14] There are no references to her suffrage activity in 1911, in spite of the fact that the census shows both Mary and her mother as resident in Osney Crescent. The final reference to Mills’s suffrage activism is at the end of September 1912, when she chaired an open-air meeting on Paignton Green .[15]

After 1912, at some point, Mary and her mother moved to 1 New North Road in Exeter, where they are listed on the 1939 Household Register. Mary died in March 1941.

 

 

Entry created by Marilyn Smee, November 2018


[1] Family and census information from www.ancestry.co.uk.

[2] WT, 6 Nov 1908.

[3] WT, 18 Nov 1908.

[4] Votes for Women (VfW) 10 & 17 Dec 1908.

[5] VfW, 28 Jan & 19 Mar 1909.

[6] VfW, 19 Mar 1909.

[7] VfW, 14 May 1909.

[8] VfW, 19 Mar 1909.

[9] VfW, 21 Jan 1909.

[10] VfW, 9 & 30 Apr 1909.

[11] WT, 3 Jul 1909.

[12] VfW, 20 Aug 1909.

[13] VfW, 4 Mar & 6 May 1910.

[14] VfW, 26 Aug 1910.

[15] VfW, 4 Oct 1912.

 

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