Family :

Education & Career :

Mills was educated at New Beacon preparatory school, Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. While at university he was a keen sportsman, representing Oxford in the varsity golf matches, 1907 and 1908. He took his degree in 1908.

The Hon Charles Thomas Mills (13 March 1887 - 6 October 1915) was Conservative MP for the Uxbridge Division of Middlesex elected in 1910.

Mills entered parliament with a resounding majority, as the conservative member representing Uxbridge. For his first two years in that office, he was the youngest member, known as the ‘Baby of the House’.

He was an active parliamentarian, speaking frequently on varied matters, including women’s suffrage, which he staunchly opposed in a speech in 1910. When asked how he managed to juggle his duties as a politician and a banker, he explained that he worked 14-hour days; all day at the bank and then all evening in parliament.
He continued to represent Uxbridge until his death.

The Mills family business was banking. Since 1793, members of the family – including Charles Thomas Mills’ father, grandfather and great-grandfather – had been partners in the London banking firm Glyn, Mills & Co.

In 1907 Charles Thomas Mills’ father was forced to retire from the business due to ill health. At that time 20-year-old Charles Thomas was still pursuing his education, but soon afterwards, in 1910, he continued the family tradition by going to work for Glyn, Mills & Co (now RBS/NatWest).

Despite onerous outside commitments he was actively involved in day-to-day business at the bank. One account fondly recalled the renown he had won with the bank’s clerks in an incident in which he had chased a thief out of the bank, finally stopping him by dragging him to the pavement in Lombard Street.

Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

"The Battle of Loos (25 September to 18 October 1915) was the major battle on the Western Front in 1915, surpassing in every respect all that had gone before in terms of numbers of men and materiel committed to battle. The preliminary bombardment was the most violent to date and the battle was charaterised by the committment of Regular and Territorial battalions on a large scale, in which the Territorials performed just as well as the Regulars. As the battles on the Western Front in 1915 increased in size and violence, so the casualties increased in proportion: Neuve Chapelle 12,000, Aubers Ridge/Festubert 29,000 , Loos 60,000. 1916 was to take the casualty cost to another level. Loos was intended as a minor role in support of French efforts around Arras but circumstances reduced the French effort. It marked the first use of poison gas by the British. Once the initial assualt had failed the battle continued in a series of actions mostly focused on the northern sector around the tactically important Hohenzollern Redoubt."

Detail :

On 6 October 1915, during the Battle of Loos, he was struck in the head and killed by a piece of shrapnel.

Charles Thomas Mills was the sixth member of parliament to die on active service during the First World War, and one of four who died in a single fortnight. He is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, France; the Private Banks Cricket and Athletic Club war memorial, Catford, London; the Glyn, Mills & Co war memorial, London; and in the book of remembrance in the House of Commons Library.

Masonic :

Initiate of Apollo Lodge No. 357 in 1908. He is shown as "Killed in Action 1915." He joined Royal Union Lodge No. 382 at Uxbridge where his war service is recorded together with the end comment "Killed in action Sept 1915." Further joined the Hillingdon Lodge No. 3174 in 1910, where he is listed as a Member of Parliament resident at Uxbridge.

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley
• Researcher : Tom Hawley