Mills Brothers
89, Ellesmere Road, Sheffield, Model Railway and Commercial Model Builders, Makers of Milbro model buildings and trains.
Initially the business was referred to as Mills Bros. - they were dealers in models made by others and manufactured track for model trains; they also owned a general model shop in High Holborn, London.
c.1931 Mills began to publicise locomotive models of their own manufacture
From 1935-36 until the late 1940s, the company was Mills Brothers (Model Engineers) Ltd.
Post-WWII Arnold Lewis Hardinge (formerly Neumiester) was in charge of engine manufacture at the Mills Bros. factory. Mills Brothers became famous for their diesel engines used to power model aircraft.
1946 Patent to Mills Brother Model Engineers and Arnold Lewis Hardinge for Improvements in or relating to miniature compression ignition engines
Following ownership changes and what seems to have been a division of functions between model railway work and model aero-engine production, the model railway activities were continued through the 1950s under the name of Mills Brothers (Sheffield) Ltd.
The model engine part of the business was sold to Arnold Lewis Hardinge and moved to 143, Goldsworth Road, Woking as Mills Brothers (Model Engineers) Limited, where it concentrated on the production of compression-ignition engines.
The factory manufactured high-precision components for companies such as Vickers, the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, and for the Ministry of Defence. Many of these projects were one-off, experimental prototypes, which had to be manufactured to a very high specification, often using metals with inherent machining problems.