Philo L. Mills
Open-knowledge reference entry

Philo Laos Mills (1832, New York City - August 21, 1905) was the cofounder of the dry good house, Mills & Gibb. He had been partners with John Gibb for over 40 years. As a young man, he entered the employ of E. S. Jafiray & Company, and after several promotions, became buyer for the lace department. In 1865, with Gibb, he formed the firm of Mills & Gibb, incorporating in 1903. Mills then moved to England, became a British subject and took charge of all the foreign business of the concern. He resided in Ruddington and served as High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 1897. His home at Ruddington Hall included a noted stock farm. A generous local benefactor, he bred prize-winning pedigree cattle, pigs and shire horses. An article appeared in Country Life, 1903 in praise of 'Livestock at Ruddington Hall'. Game birds, large white Yorkshire pigs and rams were all kept at Home Farm in Landmere.
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This entry incorporates text from “Philo L. Mills” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.