By Roselyn Fauth

Margaret Left and and Alexander Mills right. Oil painting of Captain Mills c.1880s. Image courtesy of the South Canterbury Museum, item P0071. 

When reading the newspapers of nineteenth century Timaru, she appears only as “Mrs Mills”.

No first name. No maiden name... just a title that assumes her identity through her husband. She was attached to a man whose work placed him constantly in the public eye. Yet when Captain Alexander Mills died in May 1882, one of the most public deaths in Timaru’s early history, I imagine the person who bore the greatest weight of that loss, and everything that followed, was his wife.

Her name was Margaret.

Margaret Sinclair was born in 1836 in Tynemouth, England, the daughter of a mariner. She grew up in a family shaped by the sea, not as romance but as reality. Her father, Alexander Sinclair, held maritime indenture papers dating from 1812, suggesting a skilled seafaring apprenticeship. This was a household that understood tides, waiting and danger. Men left. Some did not return.

In March 1856, Margaret married Alexander Mills at Christ Church, North Shields. Alexander had been born in 1833 in Arbroath, Forfarshire, the youngest son of Robert and Elizabeth Mills. He went to sea at fourteen and served a six-year apprenticeship under Robert Hansell. The day after the wedding, he sailed again. From the beginning, their marriage was shaped by absence.

Their first child, Robert Alexander Mills, was born in November 1862 at Tynemouth. He lived just six weeks.

By then Alexander was already on the move again. In August 1862 he left London aboard the Claud Hamilton as second mate for the International Royal Mail Company, arriving in Sydney in October and Nelson shortly after. Between late October and early November, he disembarked to begin life in New Zealand. Margaret followed later, carrying grief with her.

A second child, Edward Kidney Mills, was born in December 1864 at Sandridge. He died in Melbourne in August 1865, not yet a year old.

Their third child, Elizabeth Helen Mills, known as Lily, was born in March 1866 in Arbroath. She was two years old when Margaret brought her to New Zealand. Lily would survive childhood, but not adulthood. She died of consumption at Sumner in May 1892, aged twenty-six, on the anniversary of her father’s death.

By 1868, Margaret was again pregnant and again moving. That year she and Alexander settled in Timaru, a place still inventing itself. There was no harbour. Ships anchored close to shore. Smaller boats ferried goods and people through heavy seas. That same year, Alexander received certification enabling him to act as a pilot, and on 29 June 1868 he was formally appointed Harbour Master of the Port of Timaru by Governor George Bowen.

Their daughter Marina Franklin Mills, known as Minnie, was born in February 1868. She would live a long life, dying in Dunedin in 1948. As a slight side quest, if you thought her name sounded random, its because when Marina was born, Captain Mills looked up the the ships log to see where he was sailing at that time. He was between the Franklin and Mariana Islands and so named his daughter after them.  

Timaru was a hard place to raise children. It was also a place built on risk. From their home on LeCren’s Terrace, perched on the cliff above the port, Margaret lived with the constant noise and pressure of a working harbour. Her husband was responsible for decisions that balanced safety against efficiency, lives against commerce. During his tenure, contemporary and later accounts refer to around twenty-eight shipping incidents involving vessels stranded, wrecked, or placed in grave danger. Some were refloated. Many were lost.

In January 1870, Margaret gave birth to David Alexander Gedge Mills in Timaru. He lived just five months. And then another son, Arthur Gibson Mills, was born in October 1871. He would grow to adulthood, marry, and have five children of his own before dying in 1906.

Alexander Sinclair Mills was born in July 1873, named for both parents’ families. He would live until 1957 and later recall witnessing Richard Pearse’s early flight over his farm at Monkey Gully in 1902.

But loss continued to punctuate Margaret’s life. Robert Angus Mills was born in June 1874 and died the following April, not yet a year old.

Edith Grene Mills arrived in September 1875. She would survive into adulthood, dying in Alexandra in 1951. School records later show Edith, Arthur and Alexander as prize-takers, and in 1884 Edith and Ernest received awards described as valuable and useful books. Even amid grief, education mattered.

Robert Ernest Mills was born in October 1876. He died at eighteen in 1895 after an accident involving a horse and buggy.

William Cooper Mills was born in February 1878 and died in 1897.

Their youngest, William Stewart Mills, was born in September 1880. By 1889 he was attending Main School, aged nine, his address listed as care of Mr John Thompson of LeCren’s Terrace, and was destined for Waimataitai School. Margaret did not live to see what became of him.

By the time Alexander died, Margaret had already buried five children.

On Sunday, 14 May 1882, the sea turned from calm to disaster under a blue sky.

Earlier that day, Captain Woollcombe, a former beach master said to his young daughter Laura that that something was wrong and if the ships did not move to open water, they would be in real trouble. As he predicted, that afternoon the Benvenue sailing ship lost her anchor and ran aground below the cliffs now named for her. The City of Perth followed. Under immense pressure to keep his job and prove he was worthy of reinstatement, Captain Mills launched a salvage attempt. Long story short, the small boats overturned throwing the crews into the boiling surf. At one point, around forty men were reported to be fighting for their lives, all while hundreds of the town folk watched from the cliffs above.

The Alexandra lifeboat was launched. Built in 1862 it was a special order from Britain, which was a state of the art vessel designed to right herself when overturned, she capsized repeatedly. Still, her crew persisted, saving dozens.

Captain Mills made it back to shore, exhausted and frozen. He was carried towards his home on the cliff and died soon after. His death certificate recorded exhaustion caused by immersion in the sea. He was forty-eight or forty-nine years old, he became one of ten to loose their lives from the Black Sunday disaster.

In the days that followed, the Harbour Board resolved to dismiss Mills from his position as part of assigning responsibility for the disaster. Even after he was dead, the politics continued. News spread rapidly by telegraph and was reported nationally and internationally. Margaret’s private loss became the news of the world.

Alexander’s burial was anything but quiet. Contemporary reports describe 700 parading with his coffin while thousands watched on. Hundreds stood at his graveside and listened to the Archdeacon Harper read the burial service and then initate the lowering of Alexander into the ground. The signal gun was fired. Civic organisations, Masonic lodges and volunteer brigades attended in force.  The harbour, which had demanded so much of him in life, marked his passing with sound, ceremony and popular numbers.

His death was far from private.

Two years later, when Margaret died, the palava was not there and the silence of her and her lifes legacy could almost be missed in the media. Despite searching the newspapers of the time, I could find no detailed account of her funeral. No description of a crowd. No mention of a procession. No signal gun. No public pause. Only a brief notice recording the death of “Mrs Mills”, relict of Captain Alexander Mills, noting that she had been ailing for many months and that her death was not unexpected.

And that was all.

Margaret survived her husband by just over two years. She died in July 1884, aged 48. She did not live to see which of her children would survive into adulthood. Two would later die young and be buried beside her. Others dispersed, marrying or moving away, absorbed into other households, as so often happened when colonial families fractured under pressure.

Today, there are more than three hundred descendants of the Mills family.

The Mills family plot in Timaru Cemetery holds seven burials.
Alexander Mills, Harbour Master.
Margaret Mills, his widow.
Three children who died young.
Two more who died as teenagers or young adults after both parents were gone.

It is a concentrated record of grief across 25 years.

Here is the grave of Captain Alexander Mills, the Timaru Harbour Master from 1867 to 1882, who witnessed most of the port’s early shipwrecks. He died from exposure following the Benvenue disaster. He rests here with his wife Margaret, three infant children and two teenage children.
Row 9, Plot 9, Timaru Cemetery.

Margaret Sinclair Mills lived a life shaped by the sea, but also by repetition, endurance and loss.

She raised children in a town still inventing itself. She buried sons and daughters. She became a public widow at the centre of one of Timaru’s defining maritime moments. She died young, leaving children behind.

Her story to me is not exceptional because it is dramatic... I think it is important to aknowledge because in many ways Margaret was typical.

When we read the old newspapers and see “Mrs Mills”, we should pause.

She was Margaret.
She was a Sinclair before she was a Mills.
She was a mother, again and again.
She was the person who held the household together on the cliff over looking a harbour which could shape the town’s future with prosperity or fate.

Her name deserves to be spoken.

Side Quest: Politics at the Edge of the Sea

The Mills family did not live at the edge of Timaru’s harbour by accident.

They lived there because Alexander Mills stood at the centre of one of the town’s most contested political problems: how to run a port without a harbour.

In the decades before Timaru’s breakwater was built, the port operated as an open roadstead. Ships anchored offshore. Cargo and passengers were ferried through heavy surf by smaller boats. It was dangerous, unpredictable work, but it was also the engine of the town’s economy. The closer ships anchored to shore, the faster goods could be moved. Speed meant profit. Distance meant delay.

This created a constant tug of war.

Merchants and members of the Harbour Board wanted ships in close for efficiency. Shipmasters and boatmen knew that if a sudden sea rose, vessels anchored too near the beach could be trapped with no room to manoeuvre. Anchors dragged. Cables snapped. Ships wrecked.

As Harbour Master from 1867 to 1882, Alexander Mills was the person who had to hold that line. He was responsible for advising captains, managing the Government Landing Service, coordinating rescues, and making judgement calls that could not satisfy everyone. During his tenure, contemporary and later accounts refer to around twenty-eight shipping incidents involving vessels stranded, wrecked, or placed in grave danger. Some were refloated. Many were lost.

Each incident sharpened criticism.

Timaru gained a reputation as a ship’s graveyard. Insurance rates rose. Pressure mounted. Mills was accused by some of keeping vessels too close, and by others of being overly cautious. There were public arguments, counter-arguments, letters of support and complaints. At one point he was dismissed from his role, only to fight for reinstatement. Twelve candidates were considered for the position. A petition signed by shipmasters was read in his support. He was reappointed, but the scrutiny did not ease.

All of this played out while Margaret raised children in a house perched directly above the working port.

Every wreck was not just a headline or a boardroom debate. It was a sound in the night. A signal gun. A rush of men past the house. A reminder that Alexander’s decisions were being watched, judged and second-guessed, often by people who would never have to face the sea themselves.

When Black Sunday came in May 1882, the politics did not stop at the water’s edge.

In the days following Alexander’s death, the Harbour Board resolved to dismiss him from his position as part of determining responsibility for the disaster. That decision, made after he had already given his life, hardened lines and deepened wounds. For the Mills family, grief unfolded in the middle of public blame, official process and relentless scrutiny.

Margaret did not just lose her husband. She lost him in the full glare of civic conflict.

The harbour that fed the town also consumed its Harbour Master. And the politics that shaped Timaru’s future flowed straight through the Mills household, leaving little space for private mourning.

Side Quest: The Sinclair Millions

Tucked into Margaret Sinclair’s story is a persistent family belief that she was owed money. I found this while reading a family history book. This was not a small money.... it was Millions.

Across Britain and the wider empire, newspapers periodically carried stories of what became known as the “Sinclair Millions”. One such account, published in the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch and later reprinted overseas, described a lost fortune left by a Major Sinclair of Caithness. He had made his wealth in the East Indies through tea planting, amassing what was then an extraordinary sum, estimated at close to £100,000. He had one daughter, sent back to Scotland as a child. Though the fortune was left to her by will, she never received a penny.

The mystery deepened over time. The daughter died without ever benefiting from the inheritance. Decades later, Edinburgh law agents were still pursuing enquiries on behalf of supposed heirs. Scores of Scottish claimants came forward. Meetings were held. Hope circulated.

After a papers past hunt, I found out this kind of story was not unusual. Across the British world, families followed rumours of fortunes said to be tied up in courts, trusts or unclaimed estates. In New Zealand newspapers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, similar tales appear again and again. They promised redemption but they rarely delivered it.

Within Margaret’s own family, there was belief that money connected to the Sinclair name was held in Britain, possibly entangled in legal processes. One of her children later attempted to trace it, only to discover that the person entrusted with Margaret’s estate had allegedly embezzled the funds. Whether this money was part of the same Sinclair fortune described in the newspapers, or a different inheritance altogether, remains unresolved.

What interested me wasn't so much whether the millions were ever real... I think it was more about the hope that endured, a hope for a change of fortune.

For a woman who had buried children, lost her husband publicly, and lived her final years under financial and emotional strain, the idea that something owed might one day be made right was powerful. It offered the possibility that loss could be balanced, that justice might arrive late but still arrive.

It never did.

Like so many women of her time, Margaret carried both grief and hope in private. 

Side Quest: I wonder what Margaret Mills was like

One of Margaret’s granddaughters, Mariana Franklin Dixon (née Mills), later recalled her vividly. She was eighteen when her grandmother died. She was tiny, not quite five feet tall, with size two shoes, very upright and never stooped. She was, she said, the most gentle, kind and loving person she had ever known, and they loved her dearly. Margaret often spoke to the children about her early life and the sea that shaped it. She told stories of Captain Mills’ voyages to the South China Sea and the presents he brought back, once even a baby monkey.

The children kept turtles, and the housemaid would take them down to Caroline Bay, the turtles leashed on long strings so they could swim in the shallows. Margaret also spoke of a terrible storm that had taken her father and other men. She remembered standing on a point, watching the raging sea. Captain Mills had a black Labrador named Sailor who went everywhere with him. After Alexander’s funeral, Sailor would take one of his master’s boots or belongings, go to the grave, and sit there.

Wise’s Directory lists “Mrs Mills” living on LeCren’s Terrace after Alexander’s death.

Margaret was described in the Timaru Herald as having been ailing for many months before her death.

Arial Photo by Whites Aviation - National Library PA Group 00080 WA 71959 F

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/.../timar.../1928/07/13/25

- Source 

Captain Alexander James Mills (1833-1882) - Catalogue Number 2011/169.01 https://timdc.pastperfectonline.com/library/80C95C38-D80F-4A62-80C4-581962264094

Captain Alexander James Mills (1833-1882)
By Susan Mary Bound 2011 - 9780473191672 (pbk.)
South Canterbury Museum 2011/169.01

THE SINCLAIR MILLIONS. (1904, August 20). Kalgoorlie Miner (WA : 1895 - 1954), p. 9. Retrieved January 27, 2026, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article89174624

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/STEP19230830.2.11

Images are from the collections at Te Papa and Illustrated Australian News - Melbourne Vic -1876-1889 Saturday 10 June 1882

The large painting (about four feet in length) of the wreck of 'City of Perth' and 'Ben Venue' at Timaru hung for many years in the Farmers tearooms and now the painting is at the Port Company Offices, Timaru located along Marine Parade which is located near the distal end of the Port Loop Road a route to Caroline Bay and the harbour. The plate below the painting reads "Wreck of the Ben Venue and City of Perth on 14 May 1882, Presented to: The Port of Timaru Ltd. by Arthur Bradley. Last surviving son of Issac Bradley, A member of the rescue craft's crew." Photo by Roselyn Fauth with permission of PrimePort Timaru.

A lifeboat crew rowing to rescue shipwrecked sailors. published 1893-02-11 The New Zealand Graphic and Ladies Journal, 11 February 1893, p.121 - New Zealand Graphic; Wright, Henry Charles Seppings, 1849-1937 -  Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZG-18930211-0121-01

Crowds assembled at the Benvenue Wreck Memorial, Timaru, for the 50th jubilee of the event in May 1932. The crowd appears to be being addressed by dignitaries from on the lifeboat 'Alexandra'. 
Handwritten on verso "14th May Jubilee 1932" - South Canterbury Museum

Timeline: Margaret Sinclair Mills and Family

Early life and marriage

1812
Alexander Sinclair (Margaret’s father) holds maritime indenture papers, indicating a formal seafaring apprenticeship.
This establishes the Sinclair family as part of Britain’s skilled maritime world.

3 October 1833
Alexander James Mills is born in Arbroath, Forfarshire, Scotland, the youngest son of Robert and Elizabeth Mills.

c. 1847
Alexander Mills goes to sea aged 14 and begins a six-year apprenticeship under Robert Hansell, Esq.

1836
Margaret Sinclair is born in Tynemouth, Northumberland, England, the daughter of a mariner.

16 March 1856
Margaret Sinclair marries Alexander Mills at Christ Church, North Shields, Tynemouth.
Alexander goes to sea the following day.

Early family life in Britain and Australia

15 November 1862
Robert Alexander Mills is born in Tynemouth.
He dies on 28 December 1862, aged six weeks.

31 August 1862
Alexander Mills leaves London aboard the Claud Hamilton as second mate for the International Royal Mail Company.

16 October 1862
The Claud Hamilton arrives in Sydney.

27 October 1862
The ship arrives in Nelson, New Zealand.

28 October – 3 November 1862
Alexander disembarks and begins his life in New Zealand.

26 December 1864
Edward Kidney Mills is born at Sandridge, Victoria.

9 August 1865
Edward Kidney Mills dies in Melbourne, aged seven months.

14 March 1866
Elizabeth Helen Mills (known as Lily) is born in Arbroath, Angus, Scotland.

Migration to New Zealand and settlement in Timaru

1867
Alexander Mills begins his role as Harbour Master at the Port of Timaru.

c. 1867–1868
Margaret travels to New Zealand with young Elizabeth Helen (Lily), aged about two.

19 February 1868
Marina Franklin Mills (Minnie) is born.

30 April 1868
Alexander Mills receives certification enabling him to act as a pilot for the ports of Sydney and Newcastle for any vessel he is master of.

29 June 1868
Alexander Mills is formally appointed Harbour Master of the Port of Timaru by Governor George Fergus Bowen.

1868
The Mills family settles in Timaru and takes up residence on LeCren’s Terrace, overlooking the harbour.

Family life in Timaru

18 January 1870
David Alexander Gedge Mills is born in Timaru.

16 June 1870
David Alexander Gedge Mills dies, aged five months.

28 October 1871
Arthur Gibson Mills is born in Timaru.

5 July 1873
Alexander Sinclair Mills is born in Timaru.

15 June 1874
Robert Angus Mills is born in Timaru.

6 April 1875
Robert Angus Mills dies, aged nine months.

13 September 1875
Edith Grene Mills is born in Timaru.

26 October 1876
Robert Ernest Mills is born in Timaru.

3 February 1878
William Cooper Mills is born in Timaru.

20 September 1880
William Stewart Mills is born in Timaru.

Harbour Master years and maritime context

1867–1882
Alexander Mills serves as Harbour Master of Timaru during the most dangerous period of the port’s history as an open roadstead.

• Around 28 shipping incidents are recorded during this period.

• Ships are stranded, wrecked, or placed in grave danger.

• Some vessels are refloated, many are lost.

• Mills operates under constant political pressure to balance trade efficiency with maritime safety.

Black Sunday and its aftermath

13–14 May 1882
The sea worsens overnight.

14 May 1882 – Black Sunday

• The Benvenue drags anchor and wrecks below the cliffs later named Benvenue Cliffs.

• The City of Perth follows.

• Multiple rescue attempts are launched.

• Around forty men are thrown into the sea.

• The Alexandra lifeboat is launched and capsizes repeatedly, saving dozens.

14 May 1882
Alexander Mills makes it back to shore but collapses from exhaustion and exposure.
He dies shortly after.
Cause of death: exhaustion caused by immersion in the sea.
He is aged 48 or 49.

May 1882

• The Harbour Board resolves to dismiss Mills from his position as part of assigning responsibility for the disaster.

• News of the wreck spreads rapidly by telegraph across New Zealand and overseas.

Mid–May 1882
Alexander Mills’ funeral:

• Nearly 700 people take part in the procession.

• Hundreds gather at the graveside.

• The signal gun is fired.

• Civic organisations, Masonic lodges and volunteer brigades attend.

• Businesses close.

• Archdeacon Harper conducts the burial service.

Margaret’s widowhood and death

1882–1884
Margaret lives as a widow on LeCren’s Terrace, caring for her surviving children.

1872 (earlier)
Alexander Mills’ will, valued at approximately £2000, is signed, leaving his estate to Margaret.

c. 1882–1884
Family belief persists that Margaret may be entitled to money connected to the “Sinclair Millions”, a reputed lost inheritance tied up in British legal processes.

July 1884
Margaret Sinclair Mills dies, aged 48, after a long illness.

22 July 1884
The Timaru Herald publishes a brief death notice for “Mrs Mills”, relict of Captain Alexander Mills.
No detailed account of her funeral appears in the newspapers.

After Margaret’s death

1884 onwards
The Mills children disperse, as was common in colonial families after parental death.

14 May 1892
Elizabeth Helen (Lily) Mills dies of consumption at Sumner, aged 26, on the tenth anniversary of her father’s death.

15 January 1895
Robert Ernest Mills dies aged 18 after a horse and buggy accident.

27 September 1897
William Cooper Mills dies in Timaru.

1902 (31 March)
Alexander Sinclair Mills witnesses Richard Pearse’s early flight at Monkey Gully.

2 June 1906
Arthur Gibson Mills dies, leaving a widow and five young children.

30 July 1948
Marina Franklin (Minnie) Mills dies in Dunedin.

16 September 1957
Alexander Sinclair Mills dies in Dunedin.

Legacy

Timaru Cemetery
The Mills family plot contains seven burials:

• Alexander Mills

• Margaret Mills

• Three infant children

• Two teenage or young adult children

Today
There are over 300 descendants of the Mills family.

Margaret Sinclair Mills’ life, once reduced in print to “Mrs Mills”, is now visible again through the record of her children, her losses, and the harbour that shaped her days.