Background
Gerald Rusgrove Mills was born on 3 January 1877 in Stourbridge as the eldest son of Harry Mills, a solicitor.
Gerald Rusgrove Mills was born on 3 January 1877 in Stourbridge as the eldest son of Harry Mills, a solicitor.
University of Birmingham.
He had a comfortable childhood. After attending Mason Science College (which later became the University of Birmingham) and Caius College, Cambridge, Mills started his association with publishing industry by joining the educational publishers Whitaker & Company in London. He later joined the publisher Methuen & Company as educational manager where he met his future collaborator Charles Boon who was then working as a sales manager.
After working in Methuen & Company for about 10 years, Mills and Boon joined together and founded their own firm Mills & Boon in 1908 with an initial investment of £1000.
In its early days, Mills & Boon was not an exclusive publisher of romantic fiction. The firm published several high-quality educational non-fiction titles.
The company continued to publish such titles till the unexpected death of Mills in 1928. After Mills" death, Boon remade the company as a single-genre publishing house, publishing only romantic fiction.
Gerald Mills married Rose Shawood Anderson in 1912.
They had no children.