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New Mills No 23
- Thread starter Millsman
- Start date
sounds good... where you get? i want one 
Here's the photos. I bought a collection of mainly aviation stuff from a local guy. In the bottom of a box was this Mills.
I think it must be my lucky week. Today a woman came into the shop with an old biscuit tin, dropped it on the counter and said 'there a bullet in there' and rushed out. It turned out to be the best Princess Mary (1914) bullet pencil I'd ever seen. On Tuesday I saw some old 'Lord of the Rings' books in a local house clearance shop. I went and bought them for 9 the set. They were an limited edition set from 1960 worth 800. I must buy a lottery ticket next week.
John
I think it must be my lucky week. Today a woman came into the shop with an old biscuit tin, dropped it on the counter and said 'there a bullet in there' and rushed out. It turned out to be the best Princess Mary (1914) bullet pencil I'd ever seen. On Tuesday I saw some old 'Lord of the Rings' books in a local house clearance shop. I went and bought them for 9 the set. They were an limited edition set from 1960 worth 800. I must buy a lottery ticket next week.
John
Hi john . .very nice mills . .you jammy git
Totally agree! It's been that sort of week. John
paul the grenade
Well-Known Member
a great find, well done. just goes to show there's still gems out there waiting to be found.
Especially if it is a Hearn plug for a No 23 Mark I
Cannot quite make out if the plug reads 23 M I or 23 M II, which is it John?
Hi Mike. It's one definately staying in my collection. I can't fault it really. The material the plug's made of is interesting. It could be grey iron as cast but may be an alloy. It looks a bit light for just iron.
John
John & Mike,
Exceptionally unusual especially since it is of the D&B embossed type. Hearn devised this plug design in about October 1916 and his company in Luton made a batch (500 I think) for shipment to J Allen Senior & Sons Ltd at their Twickenham works; plugs are marked JAS 10 16 No23 M I. As afar as I am aware this is the first notification of a D&B 23 MI plug of the Hearn style.
Tom and I corresponded about these a while back and hopefull he will pick up on this since my memory is pretty bad nowadays.
Exceptionally unusual especially since it is of the D&B embossed type. Hearn devised this plug design in about October 1916 and his company in Luton made a batch (500 I think) for shipment to J Allen Senior & Sons Ltd at their Twickenham works; plugs are marked JAS 10 16 No23 M I. As afar as I am aware this is the first notification of a D&B 23 MI plug of the Hearn style.
Tom and I corresponded about these a while back and hopefull he will pick up on this since my memory is pretty bad nowadays.
In July 1916 Trench Warfare Dept requested approval for the use of cast iron instead of steel for Mills base plugs. In September 1916 TWD met a representative of Messrs Dobson & Barlow to discuss the manufacture of plugs in CI, and both the firms of Dobson & Barlow, Bolton, and Brown & Green, Luton, were invited to submit samples.
The D&B samples were made from machined, malleable CI (basically heat treated white CI) bar, which was not what was required - cast plugs were the requirement. For interest, attached is a scan of the letter from D&B to TWD that accompanied the first machined-from-bar samples.
Brown & Green (for whom Hearn worked) produced 500 samples of a two-winged design, of which some went to James Allen Senior in Twickenham, and were marked with the latter's monogram. Hearn took out a patent on the plug design and the rest is history regarding the No.23 MkII and MkIII base plugs.
John's plug is likely a revised sample version based on the successful B&G submission, before large scale manufacture kicked in. Very quickly other contractors produced the Hearn design plug, and also Brown and Green "executed large orders as sub-contractors for other firms".
Tom
The D&B samples were made from machined, malleable CI (basically heat treated white CI) bar, which was not what was required - cast plugs were the requirement. For interest, attached is a scan of the letter from D&B to TWD that accompanied the first machined-from-bar samples.
Brown & Green (for whom Hearn worked) produced 500 samples of a two-winged design, of which some went to James Allen Senior in Twickenham, and were marked with the latter's monogram. Hearn took out a patent on the plug design and the rest is history regarding the No.23 MkII and MkIII base plugs.
John's plug is likely a revised sample version based on the successful B&G submission, before large scale manufacture kicked in. Very quickly other contractors produced the Hearn design plug, and also Brown and Green "executed large orders as sub-contractors for other firms".
Tom
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Cast iron samples were asked for, as the idea of TWD was to reduce both cost of the base plugs, and consumption of brass. Had either B&G or D&B supplied a brass sample, TWD might have been a tad irritated.
Mike,
I have somewhere a photo of a mini Mills held by the RE museum, Chatham, totally stripped of its components and including a launching rod. It indeed had a No.23 MkI cast iron Hearn plug dated 10/16 (or maybe 11/16).
Tom.