Dwelling

History/Notes
The land at 23 Upper Skene Street was offered for sale as lot 4 of the McQueen Estate in 1928. It was sold to Bruce Mills and he had this house built by J.R. Taylor in 1930, in anticipation of Mills' marriage to Miss Clarice Mabel Carson in the same year. Bruce Mills lived there until his death in 1936.

Lancelot Bruce Mills was born in 1901 in Geelong to James and Anabell (nee Paton) Mills. Mills trained and practised as an accountant. He was also a talented footballer, playing in the Geelong Football Club Reserves premiership team in 1923. In 1926 he played eight matches and kicked 10 goals in the Geelong Football Club's seniors team. He later played with the Newtown and Chilwell Football Club where he was senior coach in the early 1930s. Mills' life was cut short in October 1933, aged 33. The following year, 1937, the Newtown Football Club placed a memorial tablet in the training room in the Kardinia Park Oval to perpetuate the memory of their late secretary and coach.

The single storey, timber, interwar Bungalow styled dwelling presents several original design qualities including the main hipped roof form and the projecting, centrally located hipped roofed front porch. Other original features include the tiled roof cladding, brick chimney, broad eaves, brick porch piers, boxed timber framed double hung windows and the double timber and glazed entrance doors. The timber porch balustrade appears to have been introduced. There is an introduced low concrete block front fence.

References:
Victorian Births, Deaths & Marriages Indexes, Dept. of Justice.
Newtown Rate Books, 1931-1935, Geelong Library & Heritage Centre.
Newtown Building Permit, 1930, City of Greater Geelong.
Geelong Advertiser, 16 December 1933,
C. Hutchinson, 'Cat's Tales', Geelong Football Club.
The Argus, 17 April 1937.
Newtown & Chilwell Football Club 1934-1939, sportingpulse online, December 2015.
McQueen Estate subdivision plan, 14 April 1928, special collection, Alfred Deakin Library, Deakin University, SAMSS 333.337099452 Gre/Pos.

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

House