Company Quarter Master Sergeant George Mills MSM
7071 Sherwood Foresters (Notts & Derby Regiment)
George Mills was born in 1890 at Jacksdale, son of Owen Mills an iron works labourer born Derby and his wife Mary(nee Swain) born Jacksdale, Notts. His father previously lived in West Leake, Notts and was an agricultural labourer, but the 1871 Census notes that he was ‘out of work’. Owen obviously seized the chance of employment at the Butterley Company’s Codnor Park Forge and moved to the Jacksdale area in the early 1870’s. In 1874 he married local girl Mary Swain and set up home at Stone Row, Jacksdale, cottages built to house iron works employees. Their first child Frances was born in about 1878 and children Thomas, Mary Anne, Joseph, Leslie, Edith Nellie and George followed.
From the mid 1870’s the family continued to live at Stone Row. In 1903 Leslie’s father Owen died, aged only 53 so his widow Mary and family left their tied cottage moving to Main Road, Jacksdale. In 1909 his mother Mary also died, aged 57. Both of his parents are buried at Westwood, St. Mary’s.
On the 1911 Census George was employed as a shop assistant and living with his brothers and sisters at Main Road. Older brother Thomas was listed as the head of the household and his elder sister Annie (Mary Anne) was keeping house.
George’s service record has not survived but his Medal Rolls Index Card records that he embarked for France on 2nd May 1915 and was a recipient of the 1914-15 Star, Victory and British War Medals. He was transferred to the ‘Z’ Reserve on 23rd March 1919 prior to discharge. He achieved the rank of Company Quarter Master Sergeant, obviously an adept store keeper, perhaps a skill he had acquired as a shop assistant. At the unveiling of the Jacksdale War Memorial in July 1921 the newspaper account of the day makes mention of G. Mills: ‘ A presentation was made to C.Q.M.S. G Mills, MSM of a purse containing £7’.
It is possible that George married Hannah Holmes in 1919 and that they had a son named George in 1921.