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Gunners Tales



A Biography of

Major John Brier Mills

Soldier, Laywer and Scholar

1870 - 1915

By Dr James Mills






  
         
         
         
 
 
         
         
         
         
    Introduction    
         
         
Major John Brier Mills was killed at Cape Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsula on 30 May 1915, aged 45 years, whilst serving with the Second Field Artillery Brigade, First Australian Division, Australian Imperial Force. A busy, energetic, ambitious, intelligent and scholarly man, and also a disciplinarian, John’s professional life was characterised by the successful pursuit of his two great interests, warfare and practicing law. John epitomised the Australian middle-class citizen soldier, serving in the colonial militia and the Commonwealth Military Forces on and off for over 20 years, beginning in 1883 as a bugler at age 12. John served one tour in South Africa during the Second Anglo-Boer War with the Second Western Australian Contingent, and subsequently represented the Contingent at the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902. Upon returning from South Africa, John joined the Perth Artillery Corps, in which he served continuously until World War I, receiving a commission in 1905 soon after being admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Western Australia in 1905. A talented lawyer and emerging legal scholar, by 1914 John had obtained a law degree from the University of Adelaide and had at least two legal publications to his name. At the outbreak of World War I, John enlisted with the Australian Imperial Force, and was placed in command of the Sixth Battery, Second Field Artillery Brigade in Victoria. John was survived by three children, but had been estranged from his wife since 1912.   
         
         
   

Upbringing in Sydney, 1870-1889

    
         
John Brier Mills was born on 23 May 1870 at St. Mary’s, South Creek, near Penrith in the colony of New South Wales (NSW), the first of seven children of George Alfred Mills, a school teacher with the NSW Council of Education and soldier in the colonial militia, and Maria Mills (née Kendall). John was named after his paternal grandfather, John Mills, a Wesleyan Methodist lay preacher, schoolmaster and yeoman farmer who emigrated to the colony in 1839, and his great-grandmother, Hannah Slade (formerly Hannah Mills), whose maiden name was Brier. John’s parents were both Protestants, George a Wesleyan Methodist and Maria a Presbyterian. At home, George and Maria were addressed as mother and father by their children not in English but in Latin, as ‘Mater’ and ‘Pater’, clear evidence that in common with many Victorians, John’s parents saw themselves as like Romans bringing civilisation to Australia. For the first thirteen years of John’s life, he and his siblings were raised where George taught primary school-age children – at St. Mary’s, South Creek from 1870 to 1876 and subsequently at Hornsby from 1876 to 1883. It is likely that John was educated by his father until he reached secondary school age.


In 1883, George retired from teaching to follow in the footsteps of his eldest brother, John Yelverton (J.Y.) Mills, who had become a wealthy and prominent auctioneer, estate agent and businessman in Sydney during the period of the real estate boom in Australia in the 1870s and 1880s. Towards the end of 1883 George moved the family to Parramatta, where he took up work as an auctioneer and local agent with his brother’s auctioneering firm, Mills & Pile (Battye 1912). Later,  George was also the Manager of the Parramatta Branch of the Permanent Mutual Benefit, Building and Investment Society on George Street (The Cumberland Mercury 1886). J.Y. Mills had previously worked in the same occupation from as early as 1870 (Evening News 1870). George was also the Parramatta Agent for the Australian Mutual Fire Insurance Society (The Cumberland Mercury 1884).

 


After John completed primary school, he likely attended St. John’s (Anglican) Grammar School in Parramatta before transferring to the Sydney High School in Castlereagh Street, Sydney, one of the first two public high schools in NSW (the other was a girls’ school on the same site), which was opened in October 1883 (Battye 1912). Whilst a student at the Sydney High School, John sat for and passed a NSW Civil Service Examination on 5 July 1886 (Australian Town and Country Journal 1886). His activities for the next almost three years are unknown, and it cannot be determined if John was subsequently employed in the NSW Civil Service. Meanwhile, in January 1883 John commenced his military career at the tender age of 12 years, when he joined his father’s unit, the Parramatta Volunteer Infantry Company, later the Parramatta Company of the 3rd NSW Infantry Regiment, as a bugler (Battye 1912). George had been a soldier in the NSW colonial militia since 1866, and would go on to serve for 23 years, the last three as a Second Lieutenant and Quartermaster in the 3rd NSW Infantry Regiment (Battye 1912). From early on, John was recognised as a talented marksman. By age 16, he was capable of winning shooting competitions against the men of the Parramatta Company, perhaps a negative reflection on the skills of his older comrades (The Cumberland Mercury 1886). John is recorded as having served 4.5 years in the Company (The West Australian 1900).



       
         
   

 

    
    Journalism in Broken Hill and Perth, Marriage, and Family, 1889-1899    
         


In April 1889 the family moved to the rapidly growing outback town of Broken Hill, 1,100 kilometres west of Sydney, where silver had been discovered in 1883. John’s parents possessed a pioneering and bourgeois spirit, and pursued wealth, opportunity and status. George acquired stakes in a number of concerns in and around Broken Hill, including silver mining syndicates and a part-proprietorship of a business that printed and published a local daily newspaper, the Barrier Miner, in 1889. The Barrier Miner was the first daily newspaper in Broken Hill, founded by Augustus Knight and Henry Fenton in 1888 (Barrier Miner 1890).After George joined the partnership, the business was henceforth carried on as ‘Fenton, Knight, and Mills’, and was located in a two-storey building on Argent Street near Sulphide Street (Barrier Miner 1889). John was employed by the business as a journalist.

 

John’s father became an active figure in Broken Hill with many interests. But life must have been difficult at first, for in November 1890 the newspaper partnership was dissolved when George and Fenton parted with Augustus Knight for reasons unknown (Barrier Miner 1890). Thereafter, George worked as an insurance agent in Broken Hill (Barrier Miner 1890). George was also a Justice of the Peace (JP) for NSW, and later also for Queensland and South Australia (Battye 1912). Having become established in the town for around 12 months, George was permitted to exercise the judicial functions of a JP, including in the roles of magistrate in the local courts (later the senior magistrate), Deputy-Sheriff, and member of the Licensing Bench (Battye 1912). George and John continued their military service in Broken Hill, albeit in a limited capacity, as members of the Broken Hill Reserve Rifle Company, George in the rank of Honorary Lieutenant (Barrier Miner 1891) and John a Corporal Bugler (Barrier Miner 1890). At the time, service in this unit was apparently not considered the equivalent of service in the colonial militia, and was not recognised as such, however this view probably changed at a later date. Besides military activities, John also liked to play chess, participating in local competitions (Barrier Miner 1894) , and like his father and uncle had an interest in real estate – in 1892 John is recorded on a list of persons permitted to purchase portions of improved land in NSW, at Albert Goldfield in the nearby Willyama district for £12 and 10 shillings (NSW Government Gazette 1892).


Soon after George left the newspaper business, John lost his job. He subsequently found work at another daily newspaper, the Silver Age, published at nearby Silverton,but that newspaper ceased publication at the beginning of October 1893 (Barrier Miner 1893). Afterwards, John worked for the Broken Hill Age, which began business at around the same time as the closure of the Silver Age (Barrier Miner 1893), but that paper too did not survive, ceasing publication on 2 June 1895 (South Australian Register 1895). During these years John met his future wife, Mary Blanche Robinson, step-daughter of George John Morgan, an alderman on the Broken Hill municipal council and former mayor, and daughter of Sarah Jane Morgan, all of whom had moved to Broken Hill from South Australia. John and Mary were married on 8 September 1894 in the Anglican Church of All Souls in St. Peter’s, then a residential town but now a suburb of Adelaide, Mary’s family being Anglican. On the topic of religion and spirituality, the evidence suggests that while John (and Mary) adhered to Christian values, he was not deeply religious and appears not to have had any strong views on church government, organisation or doctrine. John chose not to adhere to the Wesleyan Methodism of his father or the Presbyterianism of his mother, but rather to the Church of England. After moving to Perth, John’s family attended St. Alban’s Anglican Church on Beaufort Street in Highgate, where Mary played an active role in certain church events (The West Australian 1904).


 On 10 June 1895, two days past nine months since their wedding ceremony, Mary gave birth to the first of four children, a baby girl whom they named Florence Maude Mills after two of John’s sisters, Florence Beatrice Mills and Lillian Maud Mills. Their second child, Alfred John Mills, was born in Perth in 1903, but died the same year. Their third child, Arthur Brier Mills (known as ‘Brier’), was born on 22 March 1905, the day after John was admitted to the Western Australian Bar, followed by Jean Blanche Mills on 22 July 1907. When Florence was born, John and Mary had almost certainly decided not to remain in Broken Hill, and subsequently moved to Western Australia (WA), where gold was discovered in 1892 and 1893 near Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. Why they decided to move west is not clear, but the most likely reason was that John wished to remain in journalism after the Broken Hill Age ceased publication. The colony of WA was rapidly expanding as a direct consequence of the gold rush, which saw the colony’s population more than double from 46,290 people in December 1890 to 101,143 in December 1895, and almost double again in the next five years (The Handbook of Western Australia 1912). On 20 September 1895, John, Mary and Florence departed Broken Hill for Adelaide (Barrier Miner 1895), where Mary and Florence remained while John travelled on to WA aboard the steamer SS Adelaide, which sailed from Adelaide on 24 September 1895 and arrived at Fremantle on 29 September (The West Australian 1895). Mary and Florence joined John by the following year.


In Perth, John found employment with The West Australian newspaper, an old publication which has been in existence under several names since 1833. Little information is known about John’s work for the newspaper, except than he reported on parliamentary and legal matters (The Daily News 1905). There is no evidence that John joined the Western Australian colonial militia after moving to Perth. John’s brother William, who followed John to Perth in early 1897, did so, serving in the Perth Artillery Volunteers (subsequently redesignated the No. 1 Battery, Western Australian Field Artillery)  from March 1897 (Battye 1912).While working for The West Australian, John decided to practice law. There was a strong tradition of law and policing in John’s ancestry. The greatest influence was undoubtedly his father, who as a JP fulfilled several judicial functions in Broken Hill and the surroundings areas. John’s maternal grandfather, William Kendall, was a police officer in NSW who  served as a Constable (NSW Government Gazette 1838) and later the Chief Constable for Penrith (NSW Government Gazette 1852) until he was killed in 1855. John’s paternal grandmother, Helena Mills (née Checkley), was descended from several generations of lawyers in Ireland, one of whom, Thomas Checkley, John’s great-uncle, had been a judge in County Cork.


But John’s interest in practicing law may have originated earlier in life, from two recorded events. The first event took place on 15 May 1883, in Hornsby (Newspaper article, no title, 1883). While John was playing with his brother and sisters in the roadway near the family residence, one of the neighbours shot and killed the family’s sheep dog for allegedly killing a sheep and earlier driving another off. George sued the neighbour for £10 damages and won the case in court after the bench determined that the shooting of the dog was illegal. This experience, no doubt emotional for John and the family, would have been educational and instructive for John. As a witness to the shooting, John provided a deposition, and during the court proceedings had to answer questions from the defendant’s lawyer. The second event took place in Broken Hill in 1891 (Barrier Miner 1891). After John lost his job at the Barrier Miner, he took his former employers (Augustus Knight and a new partner, Otto von Rieben) to the Small Debts Court claiming they owed him 10 shillings for work done and £1/10 shillings for dismissal without notice. Knight and Von Rieben paid 10 shillings into the court but for the remainder pleaded not indebted, claiming John left the firm by mutual consent and without finishing his work. What the final outcome was of this case is not known to the author.

 

 

To practice law in WA,the Barristers’ Board of WA had to firstly be satisfied that John was of good fame and character, and could pass an examination in general legal knowledge (Legal Practitioners Act 1893). John then had to serve a term of five years as an articled clerk, in other words a trainee solicitor, under a qualified legal practitioner, before sitting for a final examination that would qualify him to apply to become a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Western Australia (Legal Practitioners Act 1893). While employed by The West Australian, John became associated with a prominent Perth barrister and solicitor, Richard Septimus Haynes, KC (1857-1922), who was also a politician. Haynes was partner in a Perth law firm with W.M. Purkiss, formerly the Crown Prosecutor for New Zealand, and served two terms as a City of Perth councillor before being returned as the member for Central Province in the WA Legislative Council in June 1896 (Battye 1912). Haynes agreed to take on John as an articled clerk, and in 1899 John resigned from The West Australian to begin training for the Bar.
   
     
     
 

Military service in the Second Anglo-Boer War and at the Coronation of King Edward VII, 1899-1902

  
         
         
In late 1899 John volunteered for service in the Second Anglo-Boer War, fought between the British Empire and the Boer republics in South Africa from 11 October 1899 until the Peace of Pretoria was signed on 31 May 1902. Since the Napoleonic wars there had been tensions between the British and Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers in South Africa, and more recently since the 1850s between Britain and Transvaal. After the First Anglo-Boer War of 1880-1881 the British granted limited independence to Transvaal (also known as the South African Republic) with British suzerainty, embodied in the Pretoria Convention of 1881 and the London Convention of 1884. The causes of the Second Anglo-Boer War were an influx of British immigrants into Transvaal after gold was discovered there in 1886, the push by Transvaal for full independence from Britain, and the threat that Transvaal, supplied with arms by an increasingly powerful and belligerent Germany, posed to British supremacy in South Africa.

 


Western Australia sent six contingents to the war in South Africa, all mounted infantry, and after Federation also contributed one squadron, one company, and one half-company of mounted infantry to Commonwealth contingents. John volunteered for service in the Second Western Australian Contingent, sanctioned by the Western Australian Colonial Government on 20 December 1899, which was composed of 103 personnel in total, of whom six were officers and 97 were other ranks (Murray 1911). The Contingent’s commanding officer was Captain (later Major) H.L. Pilkington, who previously served as an officer in the 21st Lancers (formerly the 21st Hussars) and Commandant of Western Australian military forces for six months in the rank of Major (The West Australian1900). The Contingent was mostly composed of men from middle and lower-middle class professions, numerous miners and prospectors, some from the agricultural sector, and a few men from the working class. About two-thirds had previous military experience, in Australian, British, Indian, New Zealand, Rhodesian, and South African units. Notable figures included a member of the WA Legislative Assembly (Corporal John Conolly), a presbyterian minister with 18 months previous military service (Private Stanley Reid), and two former Royal Navy sub-lieutenants (Sergeant Spencer Oliver and Lance Corporal William Ayre) (The West Australian1900).

Before John volunteered, his brother William volunteered for service in the First Western Australian Contingent and would go on to serve three tours in South Africa, also with the Sixth Western Australian Contingent (during which he was seriously wounded) and the Eighth Battalion, Australian Commonwealth Horse. John had the desired attributes that the military authorities were seeking in the applicants – besides previous service in the colonial militia and being physically fit, he was a very good marksman and could ride a horse. However, a condition for enlistment was that volunteers had to be unmarried, but the relaxation of this condition allowed John to serve (The West Australian1900). Deciding to undertake military service did not mean the end of John’s legal studies – the Barristers’ Board of WA imposed an extension on the time required under articles. 

 

In South Africa John also served as a war correspondent for The West Australian, writing numerous articles for the newspaper. John also wrote accounts of the Contingent’s engagements and battles with the Boers in letters to his parents in Broken Hill, some of which were subsequently published in Australian newspapers, including the Barrier Miner. John was given the rank of Corporal and assigned as orderly room clerk to Captain Pilkington. In the course of this duty John kept a notebook, which has partially survived, that contains entries dating from March 1900 to August 1900 recording orders issued by Pilkington to the Contingent and by camp commandants to combined British and colonial units, and records the Contingent’s movements. After arriving in South Africa in  February 1900, from around mid-March 1900 the Contingent was attached to the Carnarvon Field Force in Cape Colony, well away from the fighting, and then proceeded to Bloemfontein in Orange Free State, arriving there on 30 April 1900 (J.B. Mills notebook). At Bloemfontein, the Empire forces were reorganised into four divisions for the march north through Orange Free State and Transvaal. All of the Australian troops with the exception of the Second Contingent formed part of the First Mounted   Infantry Division, under the command of Major General (later Sir) Edward Hutton, who was subsequently appointed the post-Federation commander-in-chief of the Commonwealth Military Forces. The Second Contingent was attached to the Eleventh Division under the command of Major General Reginald Pole-Carew, and marched out of Bloemfontein on 1 May. The Australians were tasked with scouting in advance of the main body of the Division, a duty in which John was eager to distinguish himself, and in this role John first experienced fighting against the enemy.The most significant engagements with the Boers were at Vet River on 5 May (where six men from the Contingent were wounded), near Johannesburg from 28 to 30 May, the Battle of Diamond Hill on 11 and 12 June, and the Battle of Belfast on 27 August. Victories over the Boers resulted in Orange Free State and Transvaal being proclaimed British territories, but thereafter the Boers waged a bitter guerrilla war.


By the first week of November 1900, the Second Contingent were encamped in Pretoria and preparing to leave for Cape Town to return to WA. Members of the Contingent were offered the opportunity to extend their service in South Africa for several months by assisting the British against the Boers’ guerrilla warfare campaign. John volunteered, even though this entailed the Barrister’s Board of WA further extending the required time training under articles. John had a sense of patriotism, duty and sacrifice, but also appears to have been an opportunist. Personal and professional benefits were derived from additional service, notably further battlefield experience and promotion with the commensurate increase in pay and status. On 7 November 1900, the bulk of the Second Contingent departed Cape Town aboard the transport Woolloomooloo, and arrived at Fremantle on 8 December (Murray 1911). Meanwhile, John had unfortunately contracted dysentery, which was prevalent among the troops in South Africa, and the day after the Contingent departed Pretoria he had to go into hospital (J.B. Mills to G.A Mills November 1900). As a result, John was out of action until around the end of November 1900. After recovering, John served another four months in South Africa. Before departing for home, he received a promotion to Sergeant on 30 March 1901, on the same day that several other members of the Contingent also received promotions (Murray 1911). John arrived back in WA at the end of April. For his service in South Africa, John earned the Queen’s South Africa Medal with six clasps, namely Johannesburg, Diamond Hill, Belfast, Orange Free State, Cape Colony, and South Africa 1901.

 


While the fighting was going on in South Africa, in July 1900 the Secretary of State for War, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, communicated to Field Marshal Frederick  Roberts, commander of the Empire forces in South Africa, that Queen Victoria wished that before each contingent returned to their respective colonies, representative contingents from each colony should visit England, probably to be reviewed by her, to receive a banner to be held in future by the corps to which they would belong (J.B. Mills notebook 1900). An invitation was made to soldiers who wished to avail themselves of the opportunity (J.B. Mills notebook 1900). John put his name forward, for in a letter he wrote to his parents from hospital in Pretoria in November 1900 he alluded to plans to travel to England (J.B. Mills to G.A. Mills, November 1900).The proposition was not immediately realised, probably because Queen Victoria died six months later on 22 January 1901, after being on the throne for 63 years, until then the longest reign by any British monarch. The plan did eventuate in a different setting, at the coronation of King Edward VII. For the coronation, each state of the Commonwealth sent representatives from their colonial contingents, calculated on a population basis. The Australian Coronation Contingent was headed by  Lieutenant Colonel Cyril St. Clair Cameron, CB, a senator from Tasmania, and totalled 134 men (The West Australian 1902). The WA detachment consisted of seven soldiers, headed by Sergeant John Bullock, a member of the Second Contingent who subsequently received a commission and served in a South African unit (The West Australian 1902, Murray 1911). The First WA Contingent was represented by Private Robert Corkhill, who was mentioned in despatches and received the  Distinguished Conduct Medal; John represented the Second WA Contingent, and had the additional distinction of being appointed aide-de-camp of the Governor of Western Australia, Sir Arthur Lawley, who also travelled to England for the coronation; the Third and Fourth WA Contingents were represented by Buglers William Wallis and Edward Arundell respectively; the Fifth by Regimental Sergeant Major Philip Allen; and the Sixth by Company Sergeant Major James Morrison, who was also mentioned in despatches (The West Australian 1902, Murray 1911). John was away with the Coronation Contingent for four-and-a-half months, from their departure from Fremantle on the RMS Rome on 12 May 1902 (The West Australian 1902) until arriving back at Fremantle aboard the RMS Arcadia on 24 September 1902 (The West Australian 1902). For representing WA at the coronation, John added the King Edward VII Coronation Medal to his Queen’s South Africa Medal.

 

 

 
   
   
Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Western Australia, 1905-1914  
         

In the interval of approximately 12 months between his return from South Africa and departure with the Coronation Contingent, John continued with his legal training, and resumed again in the last quarter of 1902. In November 1904, John passed his final examination, and was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Western Australia on 21 March 1905. John had an office in McNeil Chambers on Barrack Street (since demolished) across the road from Stirling Gardens   and the Supreme Court, which he occupied from as early as October 1906 until May 1913, and thereafter until World War I at another location on Barrack Street. John was appointed a Commissioner for Affidavits in April 1906 and a notary public in July 1909 (Battye 1912).

By 1909 John had decided to take a further step in his legal career by studying at university to obtain a law degree. Since WA did not have a university until the University of Western Australia was founded in 1912, in 1909 John enrolled in the Bachelor of Laws degree at the University of Adelaide, and commenced studies in 1910 (Official Academic Transcript). John did not have to travel to South Australia to attend lectures because the University provided an extension lecture service where lectures were held in Perth by visiting academics from Adelaide and elsewhere (Alexander 1963). Precisely why John sought a law degree is not known. Perhaps his training and experience did not equip him with sufficient legal knowledge in certain subjects to advance into higher positions in the Australian legal establishment – the subjects that John studied during his degree included International Law, Roman Law, Latin, and English History (Official Academic Transcript). John  completed the degree, which was conferred in May 1914 (Official Academic Transcript). Less than three months later, on 29 July 1914, John was admitted to the Bachelor of Laws degree at the University of Western Australia ad uendem gradum (UWA Senate minutes 1914).

John has at least three scholarly publications to his name. Before leaving Broken Hill for WA, John published an article in The Cosmos Magazine entitled ‘The New South Wales Silver Province in  1895’. In this piece, John discusses the transition that was taking place in mining at Broken Hill, from mining oxidised silver ores, which were approaching exhaustion, to mining silver sulphide ores, while having a lower concentration of silver contain other useful constituents including zinc and lead, which subject to the availability of economical processes to treat the ores could secure the future of the  mining industry in Broken Hill. For several years John was the assistant editor of The Western Australian Law Reports, first published in 1898, a position, noted by the editor Thomas Draper in 1915, that John filled with some distinction by publishing and editing a Digest of cases reported in the Western Australian Law Reports, Volumes I to XIII in 1912 (Draper 1915). In 1914 John published The Stamp Act, 1882 (46 Vic. No. 6) and amending acts to December 31st, 1913: with proclamations, etc., relating to stamp duties and index, and according to Draper also edited ‘other useful textbooks’, but the titles of these are not known to the author (Draper 1915).

 

       
         
    Commonwealth Military Forces, 1901-1914    
         
         

From the date he volunteered for service in South Africa, John continually served in the military forces of Australia. Although a skilled marksman, John developed an interest in artillery, and after returning from South Africa joined his younger brother William’s old unit, the No. 1 Battery, Western Australian Field Artillery (Battye 1912), one of two batteries of field artillery in WA, the other being the No. 2 Battery (in July 1903, these batteries were redesignated Nos. 1 and 2 Western Australian Batteries, Australian Field Artillery (AFA) (Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (hereafter CAG) 1903)). To became an artillery soldier, John had to waive his rank. At a reunion of the Second Contingent held at the Melbourne Hotel in Perth on 4 January 1902, John was still a Sergeant (The West Australian 1902). Four months later, he is recorded as a Private serving in the Perth Artillery Corps (The West Australian 1902).


The Western Australian field artillery had been equipped with obsolete weaponry prior to the Boer War, namely the 9-pounder muzzle-loading gun, which was superseded by breech-loading (BL) guns, such as the 15-pounder. In 1906, the British Government began to equip each Australian field artillery battery with the latest technology, the recently-introduced Ordnance Quick-Firing (QF) 18-pounder field gun, although the 15-pounder BL gun remained in service with the CMF (CAG 1907). The QF 18-pounder gun had a calibre of 84mm, and could fire an 8.4-kilogram round to a range of almost six kilometres at a maximum rate of fire of 20 rounds per minute. By 1909, the CMF also had a battery of four 5-inch BL howitzers and a heavy artillery battery equipped with four 4.7-inch QF guns (CAG 1909). In 1911 the CMF possessed 16 batteries of field artillery, five each in NSW and Victoria, two each in Queensland and Tasmania, one in South Australia, and one battery in WA (No. 1) instead of two. A reorganisation of Australia’s field artillery in February 1911 saw the state designations of the  batteries removed – Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 NSW Batteries, AFA were redesignated Nos. 1, 2,  3, 4 and 5 Batteries, AFA; Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Victorian Batteries became Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 Batteries; Nos. 1 and 2 Queensland Batteries became Nos. 11 and 12 Batteries; No. 1 South Australian Battery became No. 13 Battery; No. 1 Western Australian Battery became No. 14 Battery; and Nos. 1 and 2 Tasmanian Batteries became Nos. 15 and 16 Batteries respectively (CAG 1911).


Rank and promotion in the Citizen Forces were determined by civil status and occupation as well as ability. Following acceptance to the WA Bar, on 21 July 1905 John was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant with the No. 1 Western Australian Battery, AFA (Battye 1912). John proved to be a competent and able officer, and rose up the ranks rapidly, being promoted to Lieutenant on 7 May 1907 and Captain on 1 October 1908 (Battye 1912). In March 1911 John was awarded the Colonial Auxiliary Forces Long Service Medal, for 20 years’ service in the colonial or voluntary militia in the colonies and dominions of the British Empire, the same medal awarded to his father for 23 years’ service in the NSW colonial militia (Battye 1912).

 
       
         
   
Captain John Brier Mills, wearing the Queen’s South Africa Medal, the King Edward VII Coronation Medal, and the Colonial Auxiliary Forces Long Service Medal, circa 1911-1912. Source: Mills Family History Collection.
       
       
   
John must have qualified for the medal on account of being recognised for his service with the Broken Hill Reserve Rifle Company in addition to the 4.5 years served in the Parramatta Volunteer Infantry Company and 11 years served since enlisting for service in South Africa. By 1911 John was second in command of the No. 14 Battery, AFA under Major (later Brigadier) Alfred Bessell-Browne, DSO (Battye 1912), and in October of that year was placed in temporary command for three months when Bessell-Browne went on leave (The West Australian 1911). In 1912, another reorganisation of the CMF saw WA again have two batteries of field artillery, when the No. 14 Battery, AFA was split into two batteries, designated the 14th and 20th Batteries (CAG 1912). John appears to have been periodically in command of the 14th until being promoted to Major. To be promoted, towards the end of 1912 John had to travel to Sydney with another artillery officer from WA to attend a course of lectures under the auspices of the Royal Australian Artillery (The Daily Telegraph 1912, The West Australian 18/12/1912), and passed a half-yearly theoretical examination for the promotion of officers of the CMF (The West Australian 21/12/1912). After the 14th and 20th Batteries were redesignated the 37th and 38th Batteries, Field Artillery, respectively in mid-1913, John was  promoted to Major effective 1 September 1913 and placed in command of the 38th Battery (Bessell-Browne was in command of the 37th), where he remained until enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force in August 1914 (CAG 7/1913, CAG 10/1913).

 

 
       
         
 
    First Australian Division, Australian Imperial Force, 1914-1915    
         
 

On 28 June 1914, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, was assassinated at Sarajevo in Bosnia by a Serbian nationalist, igniting the tinderbox of European imperial alliances which resulted in a chain of declarations of war over the space of two weeks beginning on 28 July 1914, when Austria-Hungary, with German encouragement, declared war on Serbia. Three days later, on 1 August 1914, Germany declared war on Russia, followed by Germany declaring war on France on 3 August, Britain declaring war on Germany on 4 August after the Germans invaded neutral Belgium, Austria-Hungary declaring war on Russia on 6 August, and Britain and France declaring war on Austria-Hungary on 12 August.

Following Britain’s declaration of war on Germany, the Commonwealth Government made a commitment to the British Government to send a division to Europe. On 15 August 1914, the First Australian Division, Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was officially raised. The Division comprised three brigades with all the components of an army except cavalry, each brigade having a brigade of field artillery consisting of three batteries with four guns per battery. The First Field Artillery Brigade was from NSW, the Second from Victoria, and the Third was drawn from all the other states. Each Field Artillery Brigade was commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and each battery commanded by a major.  Commander Divisional Artillery was Colonel (later Major General Sir) Joseph Talbot Hobbs, who was appointed to the position on 11 August 1914. Hobbs resided in Perth, and at the time of his appointment was the officer commanding the 22nd Infantry Brigade. What is particularly interesting about Hobbs’ career in relation to John’s was that in addition to his many duties and interests, Hobbs was the commanding officer of the No. 1 Battery from 1897 until 1908; he had chaired a Royal Commission in connection with the construction of the Supreme Court of WA; he was the President    of the Naval and Military Club of Perth, of which John’s younger brother William was the Secretary; and had served as aide-de-camp to the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, Lord   Dudley (Battye 1912). As the bulk of Hobbs’ command had to be raised in the eastern states, soon   after his appointment he travelled to Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane to inspect batteries of artillery (Stevenson 2013).


John promptly volunteered for service in the AIF, as did many of his fellow officers. John was ordered to Victoria to command a battery there, along with Captain Cyril Spurge, his second-in-command, while Bessell-Browne remained in Perth to form the Eighth Battery of the Third Field Artillery Brigade. John’s posting to Victoria suggests there were either not enough officers in the eastern states to fill the commands of the field artillery batteries there or WA had an excess of qualified officers. John belonged to a small group of experienced Australian Army officers in the AIF who had continuously served in the CMF and previously served in a theatre of war. Of the 631 original officers in the AIF, only 104 had previous active service, mostly in South Africa, and sixty-eight were or had been officers of the Australian permanent forces, 23 of whom were recent graduates of new the Duntroon military college (Stevenson 2013). John departed Fremantle for Melbourne onboard the SS Dimboola on 26 August 1914 (The West Australian 1914). The administrative tasks of enlistment were completed at sea, and on 28 August John was officially appointed as a Major in the AIF (CAG 1/9/1914).   
       
         
  Artillery Officers, First Australian Division, AIF, 1914. Major John Brier Mills is seated in the second row, third from right. Source: Mills Family History Collection.
           

 

 

In Melbourne, John was appointed to command the Sixth Battery, Second Field Artillery Brigade. While in camp at Broadmeadows, he sent a postcard to his son, Brier, then aged nine years (J.B. Mills to A.B. Mills, September 1914):

 
         
 

Dear Brier,

I am sending you a souvenir postcard from our camp, which is about 14 miles from Melbourne. I was writing it in ink but the ink ran dry in the fountain pen and I have to finish with a pencil. I hope you will be able to read it. We do not know yet when we are going, but hope it will not be long. Be sure and attend to your lessons while I am away, because you have not much time as you have to go into the Naval College before you are 13.

 

                                                                                                Your affectionate father,

                                                                                                J.B. Mills
In the convoy of ships that transported the First Australian Division overseas, which were diverted to Egypt, John was aboard the transport HMAT Shropshire (A9) that sailed from Melbourne on 20 October 1914. The ship was at sea for six weeks before docking at Alexandria at the beginning of December 1914. Whilst the First Division spent encamped in Egypt, John experienced what must have been both a personal and professional loss, when Captain and Brevet Major F.M.W. Parker, the Crown Prosecutor for WA and second in command of the Eighth Battery, died of cerebrospinal meningitis (The West Australian 4/1915). John posted a number of items of interest back to Perth, including four ‘worked flakes’ from the pyramids at Giza to the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery in Perth, which were added to the collection in February 1915 (The West Australian 3/1915). John took some photographs of the troops in training and certain sights in Alexandria, and sent the negatives back to Perth after the ANZACs departed Alexandria for Lemnos for exercises prior to the amphibious landing at Gallipoli (Mills Family History Collection). In a note to his sister Lillian that accompanied the negatives (J.B. Mills to Lillian Mills, April 1915), in what almost certainly was the last correspondence with his family, John wrote:   
         
 
           

Dear Lil,

     I have sent you a bundle of photos by this mail, and so as not to have all the eggs in one basket, I have sent the films herewith in a separate letter. Will send more from time to time. I suppose you have [illegible] time to act on my previous suggestion, but no doubt you could get Pater to do it. Censorship is on now.

                                                                                                                Yours,

                                                                                                                J.B.M.      16.4.15
         
At Anzac, the Sixth Field Artillery Battery was not landed, and John remained onboard the transport vessel. A large proportion of the Australian and New Zealand artillery were not landed because the artillery staffs could not find suitable gun positions in the rugged Anzac area (Bean 1941). On 3 or 4 May 1915 Lieutenant General Birdwood, the commanding officer of ANZAC, after meeting with General Sir Ian Hamilton, the commander of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, ordered the Sixth Battery, the First Field Artillery Brigade, and the Third New Zealand Battery to Cape Helles to reinforce the British artillery in the Allies’ advance north from the Cape to capture the peak of Achi Baba (Bean 1941). Whilst making an observation of Turkish positions, John was killed at Cape Helles on 30 May 1915. The circumstances of his death were painfully recounted in a letter by Captain W.G. Stevenson of the Sixth Battery to John’s sister Lillian, which was published in The West Australian on 20 August 1915:  
         
         
 

 

 

On the morning of May 30, the Turks commenced shelling very persistently some infantry rest trenches nearly 1,000 yards directly in the rear of the position of the Major’s observation station, and the Major,  in his endeavour to locate the Turkish battery the better, came out of his trench and lay down in the  open a short distance to the left of his trench. He remained there for some time, about half an hour, during which period at least twenty shells passed over him and burst several hundred yards in the rear of him. He was lying down resting on his elbows, while looking through his field glasses, when suddenly an obviously short pitched shell landed right between his elbows, and burst on percussion right under him. He received two wounds, one a jagged one on the right side of his chest, and the other in the region of the abdomen, the latter much more serious of the two. The explosion lifted him about two feet from the ground, and was seen by one of the men (Kimpton) of the Battery . The Major was in great  pain when assistance reached him, and he received medical attendance at once and on the spot. He was then carried to a place of safety, where he received further medical attention. After about an hour the doctor ordered his removal to the Field Ambulance, which was done. He was quite conscious all the time, but in some pain. The Major received every possible attention at the Field Ambulance ,but unfortunately, he never rallied, and passed peacefully away about 4pm on May 30, having survived only five hours after receiving his injuries.

 

His servant (Gunner Lyall) and the Chaplain (Rev. Mr. Chaplin) were with him in his last moments. The medical officer informed me that the cause of his death was severe internal bleeding. He was conscious to the last, and, considering the severity of his wounds bore his pain bravely and uncomplainingly. We thought in the Battery that his wounds, though severe, would not prove fatal, and every member of the Battery was grievously shocked to hear of our Major’s death. He was liked and respected by everyone, and his death is a loss to the Force, which will be difficult to repair. On behalf of the Battery and the Brigade I beg to tender to you and to his family our most sincere sympathy with you all in your sad bereavement, which we trust will be mollified to some extent by the knowledge that he gave his life in a glorious cause and in serving his King, and for the honour of the Empire. His remains were interred at 7 pm on May 30, in a little cemetery on a hill overlooking the Aegean Sea, in the direction of the island of Imbros. The exact spot is officially known here as Y Beach Cemetery. I have had a cross erected over the grave with the following inscription thereon: - ‘In loving memory of Major John Brier Mills, of Perth, Western Australia, Commanding 6th Battery F.A., who died of wounds 30th May, 1915. Aged 45. Erected by Officers, N.C.O.’s and Men of his Battery.’ (The West Australian 1915).

 

John’s remains were later exhumed from Gully Beach Cemetery, Cape Helles, and reinterred at Pink Farm Cemetery, about 2.5 miles north by north-east of Cape Helles, plot 4, row A, grave 13 (J.B. Mills AIF personnel dossier).
           
           
           
           
References      
 Alexander, F 1963, Campus at Crawley, F.W. Cheshire, Melbourne.

     

‘Australian Imperial Force, Appointments, Etc.’ Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 1 September 1914, no. 66, p. 2120, viewed 19 January 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.

 

Australian Imperial Forces personnel dossier,John Brier Mills.National Archives of Australia.

 

Australian Town and Country Journal 1886, ‘Civil Service Examination.’ Australian Town and Country Journal, 24 July, p. 10, viewed 31 December 2021, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.

 

Barrier Miner 1889, ‘Partnership Notice.’ Barrier Miner, 5 April, p. 3, viewed 3 June 2020, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.

 

Barrier Miner 1890, ‘Rifle Reserve Company.’ Barrier Miner, 17 October, p. 2, viewed 1 February 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.   

 

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Barrier Miner 1890, 3 December, Barrier Miner, p. 3; viewed 23 January 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.

 

Barrier Miner 1891, ‘Small Debts Court.’ Barrier Miner, 31 March, p. 3, viewed 16 January 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.

 

Barrier Miner 1891, ‘The Rifle Corps. To the Editor of the Barrier Miner.’ Barrier Miner, 27 May, p. 2, viewed 1 February 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.  

  

Barrier Miner 1893, ‘An Old Friend Gone. A Substitute Offered.’ Barrier Miner, 3 October, p. 3, viewed 25 January 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.

 

Barrier Miner 1894, ‘Broken Hill Chess Club.’ Barrier Miner, 3 March, p. 2, viewed 1 February 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.

  

Barrier Miner 1895, Barrier Miner, 21 September, p. 4, viewed 1 February 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.   

 

Battye, JS 1912, eds., The Cyclopedia of Western Australia, Volume I, Hussey and Gillingham Limited, Adelaide.

 

Bean, C 1941, The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, Volume II, The Story of ANZAC: From 4 May, 1915 to the Evacuation, Angus and Robertson, Sydney.

 

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‘Commonwealth Military Forces. Conversion, Disbandment, and Re-organisation of Corps.’ Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 25 July 1903, no. 35, pp. 396-403, viewed 26 January 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.

  

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Evening News 1870, ‘Permanent Mutual Benefit Building and Investment Society.’ Evening News, 5 May, p. 4, viewed 4 February 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au. 

 

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Legal Practitioners Act 1893, Western Australian Legislation, viewed 15 January 2022,

https://www.legislation.wa.gov.au/legislation/statutes.nsf/law_a447.html.

 

Letter from J.B. Mills to G.A. Mills, Pretoria, November 1900, transcribed by Lillian Mills. Mills Family History Collection.

 

‘Military Forces of the Commonwealth.’ Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 15 June 1907, no. 33, pp. 869-885, viewed 24 January 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.

 

‘Military Forces of the Commonwealth.’ Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 13 February 1909, no. 9, pp. 558-575, viewed 24 January 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.

 

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Mills, JB 1895, ‘The New South Wales Silver Province in 1895.’ The Cosmos Magazine, pp. 599-603.  

 

 

Mills, JB 1912, eds., Digest of cases reported in the Western Australian Law Reports, Volumes I to XIII, including appeals to the Privy Council and High Court of Australia during the same period, and a selection of earlier Western Australian appeals to the Privy Council, from the commencement of 1898 to 1911 inclusive, Law Book Co. of WA, Perth.  

 

Mills, JB 1914, The Stamp Act, 1882 (46 Vic. No. 6) and amending acts to December 31st, 1913: with proclamations, etc., relating to stamp duties and index, Law Book Co. of WA, Perth.  

 

Murray, PL 1911, Official records of the Australian military contingents to the war in South Africa, Albert A. Mullet, Melbourne.

  

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New South Wales Government Gazette 1892, ‘Applications to purchase land in virtue of improvements.’ New South Wales Government Gazette, 15 July, no. 515, p. 5672, viewed 16 January 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.

 

Newspaper article 1883, no title, no date. Mills Family History Collection.

 

Newspaper cutting, Artillery Officers, First Australian Division, Australian Imperial Force, 1914. Mills Family History Collection.

 

Note from J.B. Mills to Lillian Mills, 16 April 1915. Mills Family History Collection.

  

Official Academic Transcript, John Brier Mills. The University of Adelaide Archives.

 

Photograph, Captain John Brier Mills, circa 1911-1912. Mills Family History Collection.

   

Postcard from J.B. Mills to Arthur Brier Mills, Melbourne, 6 September 1914. Mills Family History Collection.

 

South Australian Register 1895, ‘Broken Hill.’ South Australian Register, 3 June, p. 5, viewed 23 January 2022, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.   

 

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The West Australian 1915, ‘The Late Major Mills. Particulars of his Death.’ The West Australian, 20 August, p. 7, viewed 31 May 2020, https://www.trove.nla.gov.au.

 
       
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

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