second wife of George Horace Deakes
Also known as Dorothea or Thea
Birth date and location, marriage date and location and death date and location courtesy Brandon Deakes and Jenny Kendrick

India Select Marriages
Millicent Dorothy Grange=
Age 17
Birth Date 1895
Marriage Date 22 May 1912
Marriage Place Cawnpore, Bengal, India
Father E. E. Grange
Spouse George Horace Deakes, age 36


In the 1901 census 54 St. Johns Park, Greenwich London
Head Henry Hainworth, age 62, late principal War Office, born Crediton, Devon
his wife Laura, son William, daughter Gertrude, son Charles, daughter Lilian
Niece Mary E. Grange, married, age 32, born Calcutta, India
Great Niece Milicent D. Grange, age 6, born Assam, India
Great Niece Norah I. Grange, age 2, born Assam, India
2 servants
[Thus Henry Hainworth would be brother to Lilian’s father Franke Hainworth]

London Electoral Registers 1958
91 Geraldine Road, Wandworth, London
Millicent Deakes
Franke V. Hainworth
John V. Lee
Leonard V. Lee
[Millicent Deakes was the Grand neice of Franke Hainworth]

From The Andaman Islands Penal Colony: Race, Class,
Criminality, and the British Empire*
CLARE ANDERSON

At this time, a handful of other Anglo-Indians and country-born men and women travelled to the Islands too, and they were considerably more successful than this organized party. They included George and Dorothy Deakes who, three years after they first arrived in 1923, were granted a thirty-year licence for over fifty acres of land on Mount Harriet. They built a house, made improvements to the land, cleared the jungle, planted fruit and vegetable orchards, kept cows and poultry, and established betel as well as coconut plantations. By any measure, they seem to have made a good living; Dorothy Deakes later wrote that the couple had “gladly settled down as colonist planters”. Otherwise, though the government of India announced its willingness to consider applications for land grants, there were very few. Most, including Deakes, already had relatives or friends working for the Andamans administration, and thus had some knowledge of the Islands

end of entry

from https://www.meherbabatravels.com/his-close-ones/women/milicent-deakes/
I was There
by Mrs M.D. Deakes, age 65
3 Herndon Road
London S.W.16.
To be the only British woman taken by the Japs from the shores of India, (during the S.E.A. [South East Asia] War) is my singular experience. I lived with my family in the Andaman Islands; these Islands form a part of India, and are administered by the Government of India from Dehli; we had lived on he islands some 26 years, and had been private settlers leasing lands and Coconut Plantations. We had been awaiting evacuation to India, but after the last ship had sailed in Feby, carrying only the Military from our Islands, there had been no other vessels, so when the Islands were surrendered to the Jap Naval Forces on the 23rd March 1942, we, (my husband, son of 8 yrs, and self) became Civilian Internees, along with 20 other British Government servants.

Our awakening on the 23rd March 1942 was exceptional; We had removed from our plantation-house to the Quarters of our son-in-law who was an Operator with the Govt Radio Station at Fort Blair, Andamans; this was because should a ship arrive we could quickly get on board without delay; prior to their departure in Feby from the Islands the British troops had set 2 Mines under the Radio Station, with instructions that upon the arrival of the Japs in our Harbour these mines were to be set-off and the Radio Station destroyed; after the mines the Radio Station was worked from a Remote Control about a mile away. Thus, as the Japanese Navy entered the harbour at Fort Blair, the Order was carried-out, and we asleep at 4 A.M. in our son’s bedroom awoke to the shock of going up with the explosion; after the Military left my husband suffered a stroke and was not able to walk, so that after the explosion, and we found we had survived, it still meant some difficulty to get my husband out from the debris of the quarters, (these quarters had been right close to the Radio Station and so had suffered obliquely to the destruction,) but my husband who had once been a Military man (incidentally in the past and Colour Sergt [Sergeant] of the very Regt [Regiment] of British who had left for India in Feby) advised us not to panic; so although we were terribly shaken, we thanked God to be alive, and set about to remove my husband outside the building; we knotted a blanket at both ends, and placed my husband on it, then by dint of pulling the blanket over the debris-strewn floor to a bathroom that led down some steps to the back of the building, thus we achieved between my son, and myself, to reach comparative safety. Outside we could better see the extent of the damage, the explosion had ignited the gasses and acids, that burnt with a violence everything in the immediate vicinity; rolling billows of flame passed over the grass, and trees, and set alight as it went, so that there was a terrific heat, and the red glare made a red dawn redder; then we realised that we were alone in the Quarters, for the Radio Staff had left for the Remote Control in the night, and they had quite forgotten we were in our son’s rooms; at last we heard shouts, and realised we had been missed, and that some of the Operators were coming to our aid: as soon we could manage it, these men got out a chair from the building, and I returned within, and collected some items of clothing we needed; then without delay we started away for the Centre at Aberdeen (Fort Blair) where we had been instructed to meet in the event of surrender to the enemy.

For a week we remained at this Centre, whilst daily we were interregated by Jap Naval Officers to whom our Chief Commissioner had surrendered the Islands, for we had no defence, and were but a handful of British. On the 1st April we were removed on a Mine-sweeper to Ross Island, (once the capital-island of the Andaman islands, but after a series of severe earthquakes in 1941, it was decided to evacuate everyone from Ross Island) hence as an abdandoned Island, Ross could provide secure Interneeship for us Civilian Prisoners. We were all housed on arrival at Ross Island, in a building which had once been used as a Guest House; but within the next week my husband grew very ill, and the Jap Medical Officer advised, that we as a family be removed to an empty cottage near the Guest House, so to enable me to nurse my husband; this cottage, and the Guest House, had no beds, just the bare boards and two cupboards; the Guest House had had a large table, and some benches to seat the Internees at meal-times, or for resting on. We had been told to take any portable item we may need during Internment from the Centre at Aberdeen, so we had, as a family, a small carpet to sleep on, three cushions for pillows, and a solitary cotton blanket with which to cover; I had also a large double-bed Mosquito Net which was brand new, this was even more essential than a bed for us, and we were able to sleep more sequre from the Mosquitoes that were as bad as the Japanese, invading our lives; where, from now on, held for us no privacy whatsoever, every action was performed in full view of sentries, and ourselves. Our food came from the Jap Kitchen, and was the same as that eaten by the Jap sentries who were put in charge of us; soon after out arrival my husband became too ill to eat this food, which was mainly rice and barley and steamed together, “Mechi”, the Japs called it, and with it we received a cup of soup, made from Bamboo shoots, or fish, or any vegetable obtainable; even the soup was too much for my husband so under the Jap Medical authority I was provided with tinned Milk and such food as barley, oxe, bovril etc. which they got from a store from which we the British had been supplied in the past; they also arranged a series of Injections, in the hope that my husband may return to health; at first this treatment looked as if it would kill him, but after some thirty days when at the lowest ebb, my husband fell into a good sleep, and after mere weeks of care, he began to mend; eventually he recovered the power to walk, but there were certain functions beyond his control, and I learnt how to help him in this matter;

Once my husband became almost well, the Japs said I must now do work, so everyday for two hours I was expected to go out into the abandoned house and bring back to the Jap Kitchen any sizeable timber so they had a stock of firewood; so armed with a matchet [Machete?] and a crow-bar, and clothed in a gunny-sack which had many purposes (and could be a coverall, or a cloak or a protection from sun or rain, whilst smaller pieces cut and made into a kind of sock and bound to my feet with some lengths of electric wire helped provide footwear as my shoes had by the end of six months wear become useless for walking in,) and so you may imagine me, as a shadow of my buxom self going out daily to provide firewood; this I did by hacking and ripping up timbered walls and floors of many of the houses, then into another gunny sack to place these lengths, and carry the sack to the kitchens, where one seldom met a clothed Jap; here, in huge Military-type “Hebachis” or Fire-boxes the food for the sentries and ourselves was cooked; Once after a storm I found the fore-shore at Ross Island cluttered with great quantities of drift-wood, and not realising the uselesness of collecting this, but thinking here was a God-send, and it would save me much work, I gathered as much as I could, and placed it to dry in the godowns attached to the Kitchen, where it would be at hand for the cooks; but, as I ought to have known, this wood would be of little use to give heat; and it was no end of fright the day I got called to the Kitchens to see a demonstration of the lovely Fireworks I had provided. But after a few shouted words, in which I was labelled all the Fools, the headcook relented, and said “Please Madam, no more Fireworks but Firewoods” I realised that perhaps the Japs had a sense of humour as well.

I witnessed a funny scene one day whilst out on my firewood job; a Jap sentry (they were Marines) had taken out a work party of our Internees, and after they had finished he thought it might be possible to get one of our men to climb up a Coconut tree and cut down some green nuts, so that he, and they could drink, as none of our men could climb a tree the sentry who was also a Marine, realised that the only thing was to go up th tree himself, so he handed his rifle to one of our men, and shinned up the tree with a matchet, and began to hack away the nuts which rolled near our men and they retreived them; whilst up the tree a Jap officer passed by, and of course soon shouting loudly at the sentry to descend, then began the funniest episode I witnessed at Ross, taking the rifle from the Internee, the officer ran the sentry round and round the tree all the time shouting at the sentry in English “Now I am British Internee” and the chase went on, in the meantime the officer had got the sentry at bay with his hands raised above his head, and his back to the tree; then dropping the gun the Officer began shouting in Japanese, and belabouring the sentry; after some moments he at last desisted, and he asked the sentry, why he had been so great an ass to leave his rifle with a Prisoner; and as we now understood a little Jap we heard the sentry say, “the British would not hurt him because we were a docile lot”, but the Officer did not only flay the sentry with tongue and beating, the end was that the sentry was never seen again, and one can only surmise the end.

To those reading this, do not think I had it “easy”, if I may coin a phrase, “I got all that was coming, to all those women who were able to get away”, I was spared no offense, and was at last allowed to plead to the Japs, after a brutal beating, to be sent to a Camp where there were other women and children; thus to spare your minds from the terrible events that came to be my share as the only woman taken from India; I have tried to pass over these sad events, and after 10 months in Ross Island on the 2nd Dec 1942, we My husband, son and self were transferred by the S.S. Kunito Maru to Singapore, by a devious route via Sabang and Penag, during the voyage we dossed on mats on the Coal; surrounded by Japs who slept on bunks in the hold; we, on 13 Dec, (my son’s 9th Birthday) reached Johore Baru, and eventually were taken to Changi Prison Camp, where for the first time we were separated, my husband to the Men’s Dept, and my son and I to the Women’s side of this great prison; I recall, that on seeing above the Great Gateway of Changi, the Coat of Arms of His Majesty, that I became hysterical, for the thought flashed across my mind that, like Bairnsfather’s Old Bill, here were we brought from one great Penal Place (The Andamans had been the Prison for all Indian Prisoners,) and here we were at His Majesty’s Prison on Changi, Would this prove a Better “Ole?” In many ways it did so prove, for both my husband and I received in the Hospitals at Changi, (staffed by British Doctors and nurses) much needed attention, it was some weeks before I was living with other inmates, but my husband never left the Hospital, and was when in 1944 we were all transferred to Syme Rd Camp, Singapore a patient in the Camp Heart Hospital and Died there of an accident on the 13th July 1945 just a matter of 28 days before we were released by the British on August 15th 1945.

My son and I remained together for another year at Changi then on his tenth Birthday he was removed to stay in the Men’s side, for, under Jap-Law a boy becomes a man at the age of ten, hence we were parted and only met on Visiting Days.

At Changi there were many institutions, and we had not so much to fear if we did not inflate ourselves; there was a daily feature at Changi that was called “Dust-bin Parade”; this was a well-planned opportunity for those married couples, or engaged ones to meet for the length of time it takes to transfer a Dust-bin heavily laden, to the opposite and if hands touched hands, and a slip of paper transferred to the other’s hand quicker than the sentry could note, then with an official Kow-tow to return to the Women’s section, with someone else’s empty Dust-bin; all this effort was characterised by the fact that for such an occasion one must prank out in one’s best bib and tucker, and take one’s position in the queue, and endeaver to contact the husband or lover as the Bins were handed over to the men for emptying into big lorries, that took the refuse for burning. Few failed to take up their correct positions, but if there were a mistake, the recriminations soon became vocal, and one was named a silly spoil-sport; then as I said we had much anticipated, but not always realised Visiting Days; when about once a week, if the Japs considered we deserved this treat, we could for one hour meet our loved ones in the Court Yards of the Women’s side at Changi; here sitting close together, we could ply everyone for any news, and tell of those things that had befallen us in the days between; seldom was there a woman who did not attend these Meetings, for even, if they were not married, they were nearly all provided with a male-friend, who posing as the betrothed was allowed to call on this Changi-fiance; I do not think any romances resulted, but it was one way to give happiness and friendship to otherwise lonely souls.

The food problem was not as acute as in the Andamans, but after we were removed to Syme Rd Camp in May 1944 the food arrangements grew steadily worse, till in Feby 1945 to August 1945, our daily ration was a quarter lb. of cooked rice, or sweet Potato or yam, with a soup of all manner of edible vegetation, you may note I did not say vegetables, sometimes it really was leaves, and even we ate a ration of 4 Rubber seeds per day, and only those with funds could ever hope to get more food, which could be bought from a small Camp-shop at a high price, and of the crudest kinds of foods. The Giant snail that became a pest in the Camp Gardens was now eaten, and we learnt to enjoy these.

After my son was sent to the Men’s side at Changi I was rather lost and lonely, but God sent me the most sweet thing that ever happened to me, always I have found happiness in the love and care of others but no reward of love can even equal what now was my joy; a small infant (male) was born to an Internee, the father was not her husband but a Jap Officer, and she did not even know whom he really was; however the Mother was brought into Changi after the baby was a month old, and there this poor child was often the innocent receiptant of the hate of others, till the Mother became desirous to die, and let her child die too; thus I was enabled to save both Mother and child by taking upon myself the day and night care of both; despite the nasty things that we learnt to expect, the little one at last recovered, and was a lovely faced child, he looked to me for everything he needed in life, and he was not treated by the Japs as one of themselves, but as a Eurasian Internee with a No number[?] like ourselves, it can only be the love we bore each the other that saved him from death, and me the halls of mental agony; My husband too wished to adopt this wee mite as a son, and though my husband died before the Release, I was given this happiness, legally to adopt the little one, so after the Internment was ended, and I regretfully had to leave my husband to lie in a distant grave, we three returned to India, I for two more years of Hospitalisation, for by the end I was just a skeleton and now have to live by daily injections, and am to some extent a cripple with [austeo?] arthitris; After two years we returned to the Islands where I found a ruined Estate, no House nor shelter even; then I sent my son to school, and took a clerical post with the Gov’t, but in 1949 I resigned as after 55 a woman may not work in a gov’t of India job; A great sorrow struck us when on the 26th of July 1948 we lost our little adopted son, he was drowned; We felt life had dealt us the worst we could get; so we decided to take our chance and return to U.K. that I had last seen in 1919 after World War I, when I had been an Auxiliary Nurse. We, my son, and I arrived here in March 1950.

Soon we were employed, and earning; my son is {????] married and I have a lovely grandson; as an Old Age Pension, on this Late Age Sub-normal Pension I exist in moderate comfort, achieved with carefull economy, but I lost all the Estates-valuations etc, but am still alive and loving and living.

M. D. Deakes

end of entry

Excerpts from another letter written to her cousin Doris Dimmock (nee Webster)
(Letter from ancestry kindly shared by Jenny Kendrick)

Full name, birth date and location, marriage dates and locations and death date and location courtesy Brandon Deakes and Jenny Kendrick

Lived on the Andaman Islands with his wife and family for 26 years.

UK World War II Civilian deaths
Malaya
George Horace Deakes died age 74, 13 July 1945 at Singapore