Dates

• Existence: 27 February 1902 - 20 July 1991

Biography

Cyril Bertram Mills was born on 27 February 1902, the oldest son of Bertram Mills and Ethel Notley.

Cyril and his brother Bernard had always been involved in the family business, however after graduating as an engineer from Cambridge University Cyril worked in the oil industry for a two-year spell between 1923 and 1925. In 1925 he joined his father in the family business, which by now had expended from the circus at Olympia to various dancing halls around London. It was at one of such venues, the Convent Garden, Royal Opera House dance hall that Cyril started to work as an Assistant Manager. By the 1925-1926 winter season Cyril had been moved assist with the management of the Christmas circus show at Olympia with his father and brother Bernard, who joined as Acting Manager.

In 1929, the Mills circus started to flirt with the idea of forming a travelling branch of the circus and entered a partnership with Harry Cameron aka The Great Carmo to run a tenting circus for a season. Cyril and Bernard were put in charge of this new venture and used the experience to learn as much as they could. A year later, Cyril and Bernard established the Bertram Mills Circus tenting show, which travelled locations around the UK for the next thirty four years, until they folded this side of the business in 1964. The tenting circus was a prolongation of the static shows in Olympia and the brothers ensured they presented the same high quality standards and experience linked to the Bertram Mills Circus in every show.

Cyril and Bernard inherited the business with their mother when their father died in 1938 and formed the Cyril and Bernard Mills Ltd company. Cyril concentrated on the technical aspect and the booking of the programme and its artistic content, while Bernard was in charge of the company’s animal acts and trainers, and of the administrative side of the business.

During the Second World War the circus was put in storage while Cyril, who had a pilot’s licence and his own plane served with the Security Service on espionage missions and his brother served with the Royal Air Force. Business was resumed in 1946 after the war.

In 1947 Bernard and Cyril, launched Bertram Mills Circus as a public company, with a quotation on the London Stock Exchange, making them the first circus in the world with such status.

The brothers continued to run the Mills emporium until its decline in 1966, when they leased it to catering and hotel magnate Maxwell Joseph. This same year Cyril retired and the business was folded the following year.

Cyril died on 20 July 1991.

Found in 12 Collections and/or Records: