emily mills
Subject: Emily Mills (b 1844 – d 1916)
Researcher: Jo Patrick
Compton sisters together at the end
Emily Mills was from Compton, Surrey, working as a domestic servant in Eashing and Islington, before spending much of her adult life as an inmate of the Guildford Union Workhouse and then the Brentford Union Workhouse, most probably because of ill-health. Emily did live for a time out of the Workhouse, in Twickenham with her elder sister Emma, both under the watchful eye of Emma’s only daughter, Emily Hammon.
Emily was born on 9th June 1844 in Compton, Surrey, the youngest of nine known children for George and Elizabeth Mills, although two of Emily’s siblings had died before she was born. She was baptised at the village’s St Nicholas Church on 25th August 1, 2, 3.
The 1851 Census, just three days before Emily’s seventh birthday, showed her living in Compton with her father George, 51, mother Elizabeth, 50, and three siblings – Henry (21), George (16) and Emma (10) 4. All of them, except Emily and her sister, were noted as ‘ag labs’ (agricultural labourers).
Ten years later, Emily had moved out of the family home and was living and working in nearby Eashing where she was a housemaid for a farmer and his young family 5. By 1871, Emily, 27, was in central London, a domestic servant for 87-year-old widow Mary Palmer at 13 Halliford Street, Islington 6.
Mary Palmer passed away at home in April 1879, aged 95 7. Although the witness to her death on the certificate appears to be an ‘M Hill’ who was living at the same address, it could be that this was Emily Mills. What is certain is that two years later, Emily was back in her home area as an inmate of the Guildford Union Workhouse, recorded as an unmarried domestic servant 8.
Emily was still only in her mid-thirties, but why she was in the Workhouse and unemployed is not known. Both of her parents had recently died in the Guildford Union Workhouse – her mother Elizabeth in December 1873, and her father George in September 1878 9, 10. Her three remaining brothers, Henry, Charles and George, were still living in the area, but it was unlikely that they would have been able to support Emily on their meagre wages. Henry, 51, a general labourer, had a wife and family in Godalming, 49-year-old Charles was an ‘ag lab’ living with his wife and daughter in a Guildford farm cottage, while unmarried George, 46, was similarly employed, lodging at The Cricketers pub in Shalford 11, 12, 13. Emily’s sister Emma was about 20 miles (32km) away in Twickenham, Middlesex, with her husband and daughter 14.
Emily was a Guildford Workhouse inmate in the 1891 Census, still an unmarried general domestic servant 15. It is not known whether she had been living there for all the previous 10 years, although it seems very likely that, for whatever reason, Emily was unable to work. Little had changed in the lives of her siblings – Henry, Charles and George were all as they had been ten years earlier, while Emma was now a ‘laundress’ in Twickenham, living with her ‘farm labourer’ husband and their daughter, with two boarders to help make ends meet 16-19.
Emily has not been traced on the 1901 Census, but by 1911, she was again in a Workhouse, although this time it was the Brentford Union Workhouse in Isleworth, west London 20, 21. Like the Guildford Workhouse, there are no admission records available, with nothing on the 1911 Census giving any indication of 66-year-old Emily’s condition.
The reason for her being there and not in Guildford was that Emily had been staying with her widowed sister Emma at 3 Albert Road, Twickenham, in the Brentford Poor Law Union area 22. Also living there were Emma’s only child Emily Hammon and husband Edwin.
Emma was Emily’s last remaining sibling as their three brothers had passed away – Henry in 1893 in Guildford Workhouse, George in Hambledon Workhouse nine years later, and Charles, who had also been living in Twickenham, died there in 1906 23-25.
Seven years later, Emma died in the Brentford Union Workhouse, probably in the Infirmary, in December 1913, aged 72 26. Her 
daughter, who had still been living with Emma in Albert Road, was by her side. ‘Senile decay’ was noted as one of the causes of Emma’s death, and when Emily died on 22nd September 1916, also in the Brentford Union Workhouse and aged 72, ‘senility’ was, along with ‘lobar pneumonia’, noted as a cause of death 27. Her sister’s daughter Emily Hammon was also present, so it seems likely that, without children of her own, she had been looking after both her mother and her aunt in Albert Road.
September 2022, updated September 2026
Edited by Mike Brock
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Sources and References
Surrey parish and Guildford Union records are available at the Surrey History Centre, Woking. Digitised records were sourced through Ancestry.co.uk. A complete list of references may be found at Emily Mills references
Spike Lives is a Heritage project that chronicles the lives of inmates, staff and the Board of Guardians of the Guildford Union Workhouse at the time of the 1881 Census. The Spike Heritage Museum in Guildford offers guided tours which present a unique opportunity to discover what life was like in the Casual/Vagrant ward of a Workhouse. More information can be found here