James Mill

James Mill, co-claimant as owner of Grand Bay Estate, Grenada, most likely inherited via John Mill of Fearn (q.v.) from David Mill of Montrose. Possibly the Lt Col. James Mill late of the Fishery Solesbridge, Herts. who died 01/01/1868 leaving £4000 'in England.'

1. The connection has not been definitively established (although see No. 4 below) between this James Mill and the will of David Mill ‘native of Montrose... having acquired a considerable fortune in the West Indies’ who died in December 1804. The will [made in 1791] and codicils mention David’s brothers, John, George and Hercules, and ‘his cousin James Mill of Camberwell in the county of Surrey’ [whose own will was proved in 1807], and left via a codicil his estate in Grenada to his brother John Mill and his friend George Gavin Browne. George Gavin Browne (q.v.), James’ co-claimant, at the request of David Mill added Mill to his surname in order to claim the inheritance. (See the notes on George Gavin Browne Mill.)

2. There is a baptism for a Hercules Mill, a possible brother to David Mill, in Montrose on 11/05/1734, parents James Mill and Elizabeth Scott, but siblings don’t match the siblings mentioned in the will and there is no David amongst them either. However, one of the siblings is James Mill, baptised 20/07/1735. It seems more likely, though, that all the people mentioned in the will, including David Mill, are of the next generation and there are no records which make an obvious link between the names involved in the later years.

3. The only James Mill, born Scotland, of around a likely age in the 1841 census is a Soldier in the 74th Regiment stationed in Forehouse Barracks, Portsea Island, Hampshire. Later censuses don’t seem to have a matching entry. There is no obvious James Mill of around a likely age born in England who could be a son of the ‘cousin James Mill of Camberwell’, and the latter's will makes no reference to a son, making his brother Hercules his main heir.

4. Major James Mill, a 'kinsman' of John Mill of Fearn, inherited from him. 'Major Mill is now (1855) settled on his reversionary ancestral estate in the West Indies (Jamaica, I think.) His eldest son is with him.'

T71/880: Grenada claim no. 981.

1. Reports of cases argued and determined in the High Court of Chancery Volume 1 at http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nG4DAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA333&lpg=PA333&dq=george+gavin+browne+mill+james+mill&source=bl&ots=fDKPWJ_pEy&sig=pFPN2ELhEj3b9xVCDEZBeVdDv_0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jewWT6D6G8K6hAePk5mMAw&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=george%20gavin%20browne%20mill%20james%20mill&f=false.

2. Scotland’s People at www.scotlandpeople.gov.uk.

3. 1841 and subsequent censuses online.

4. D. M. Peter, The baronage of Angus and Mearns (1856).