Author: Mills, John
Biography:
MILLS, John (1800-33: ancestry.co.uk)
He was probably the John Mills born on 5 May 1800 and baptised on 22 Dec. 1802 at St Mary Newington, South London, the son of Charles Mills (1765-1825) of Walworth, later of Brockley and Somerton, and his wife Ann Haste (1765-1824), who had married at St. Mary Woolnoth, City of London, in 1788. Four sisters were baptised at St. Giles, Cripplegate, and St. Sepulchre, City of London. Nothing is known of his education. The Buds of Fancy (1828), his only known work, contains the only clues to his identity, with the verse Preface, dated Halsted [Halstead], June 1828, and the title-page also describing him as “late of Brockley and Nayland, Suffolk”--locations linked to his father. His poems recorded the death of his mother (“My Mother”), two were signed Somerton (1819-22), and a late series of poems on Welsh locations establishes a link with Wales. Shortly after publication, he moved to Pwllheli, North Wales, where according to his obituary notice, he lived for five years. It is not known why he went there. At some point in 1833 he moved to Dublin and became a student at the Royal Hibernian Academy. He died of cholera on 11 Aug. 1833 at St. Andrew’s, Dublin. His obituary described him as “promissory to all who were acquainted with his genius, of his soon becoming one of the first Limners of the age” (Chelmsford Chronicle). (ancestry.co.uk 17 Jan. 2023; Dublin Evening Post 15 Aug. 1833; Chelmsford Chronicle 30 Aug. 1833; Bury and Norwich Post 1 Dec. 1824, 9 Mar. 1825; Copsey, 1: 346) AA