Dates

• Existence: 10 May 1905 - 27 January 1986

Biography

Bernard Notley Mills was born on 10 May 1905, the youngest son of Bertram Mills and Ethel Notley.

Bernard and his brother Cyril had always been involved in the family business and both brothers received the same education at Harrow and Cambridge before joining the family business in 1925 for the 1925-1926 Christmas show at Olympia as Acting Manager.

Bernard inherited a love of horses from his father and was a member of the Coaching Club and judge at leading shows in Europe and the United States. This inclination to work with animals guided his role in the family business resourcing horses and other animal acts.

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. Bernard and Cyril were put in charge of this new venture and used the experience to learn as much as they could. A year later, the brothers 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.

Bernard and Cyril 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 Bernard served with the Royal Air and Cyril the Security Service. 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.

Bernard died on 27 January 1986, his older brother survived him six years, until he also died on 20 July 1991, at the age of eighty nine.