Frederick Mills
MILLS, Frederick, MIEAust MILocE MASME (1897–1949)
Frederick Mills was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, on 15th August 1897. His parents were James and Annie Mills. Frederick was educated at the Elswick Technical Institute in Newcastle, and at the Rutherford Technical College, before serving in the Royal Air Force as an Engine Instructor during World War I. He joined Armstrong Whitworth as a Leading Draftsman in 1920.
Mills joined the WA Government Railways as a senior locomotive design draftsman on 27th April, 1926, on the very the same day that he had arrived in Fremantle on the “Chitral”. The WAGR paid for Mills’ voyage to Fremantle, and he was indentured for three years to refund the fare should he resign from the WAGR within that time.
On 19th October, 1929 Frederick Mills married Alice Maud (Pat) Nossiter in St Georges Cathedral, Perth. Alice was the only daughter of astronomer/public servant Clive Nossiter, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and his wife Florence Nossiter née Williams.
Working for Ernest Evans, who became Deputy Commissioner for Railways in 1926, Mills designed the Garratt 2 6 0 0 6 2 locomotive in 1928, and was promoted to Chief Draftsman in 1931. He won first prize (£1,000) in the “railroad locomotive section” of an international competition sponsored by the James F Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation in 1938. Mills won the prize for his design of a welded engine frame. Mills succeeded John Broadfoot as the WAGR’s Chief Mechanical Engineer in 1940. A report of Mills's appointment appears in the Mirror (newspaper), 20 January 1940, p11 (available via Trove). He was then seconded to the Land Transport Board in Melbourne as its Chief Mechanical Engineer, to contribute to the Australia wide war effort during World War II.
Mills’s work with the Land Transport Board was controversial, in that he designed the Australian Standard Garratt (ASG) locomotive (the 4 8 2 2 8 4) to increase locomotive power on narrow gauge railway systems, but some states, particularly Queensland, resisted the introduction of this locomotive. The ASG design was necessarily a compromise, as each of the states had differing standards for loading gauges (clearances), axle loading and curvature (sharpness of curves). The leading wheels of the locomotive had to be flangeless so as to negotiate tight curves, which led to derailments on curves and points. The locomotive design unfortunately maximised radiant heat in the crew compartment, which led to crew strikes, and a Royal Commission in WA into injuries and deaths of crew when taking the ASG locomotives through the state's only tunnel. A report of Mills's testimony to the Royal Commission, in the West Australian newspaper, 29 November, 1945, p5 is available via Trove. Ultimately the ASG was not successful, and most were retired by the mid 1950s. The Queensland drivers’ union banned the locomotive in September 1945; subsequent attempts to modify them, to meet the drivers’ demands, were unsuccessful and all of Queensland's 23 ASGs were written off in 1948. Nine of these locomotives were eventually sold, but the remainder were scrapped in 1954/55. WA withdrew all of its ASG locomotives from service by 1957.
Over more than a decade Mills developed the design of a new 4 8 2 locomotive for Western Australia, the “S Class”, finally introduced to the WAGR system in 1943. This was the only locomotive to be completely conceived, designed and built in WA, at the Midland Railway Workshops. As the war came to an end Mills managed the rebuilding of the WAGR's older D Class 4 6 4 locomotives. In 1946 he purchased oil burning U Class locomotives from the British Locomotive Company for WA. He also arranged for the WAGR to acquire the P and Pr Class 4 6 2 locomotives from North British, and prepared the preliminary specifications for the W Class locomotives.
Mills died suddenly, on 22nd June 1949, while having dinner with his wife in a restaurant in Perth, at the age of 51. A report of Mills's death in the West Australian, 23 June 1949, p2 is available via Trove. He had been Chairman of the Perth Division of the Institution of Engineers Australia in 1945.
Mills’s published papers include:
• “The railway locomotive problem in Western Australia”, JIEA 5, 1933, p397;
• “The fabrication of the locomotive frame by arc welding”, JILocE 153, Jan Feb 1940, p13;
• “Some notes on railway mechanical engineering”, JIEA 18, 1946, p162.
References:
“RRC Australian Standard Garratt Locomotive”, V&P WA 1946, 11;
WWA 1947, p603;
“RRC … WA Government Railway”, V&P WA 1948, 10;
“RSC … purchase of Landliner and Cheetah Omnibuses”, V&P WA 1948, A1;
“Second interim report … coal to … Government Railway”, V&P WA 1949, 6;
WWA 1947 p603;
Burke, D, “Kings of the Iron Horse”, Methuen Aiustralia, pp113, 199 200;
OBERG p156, etc;
M T Morley, personal communication to D Cumming, 1989;
FITCH pp35 39;
HAIEA;
Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Mills_(engineer) accessed 15 March 2020.
