Ernestine Mills

Ernestine Mills (1871–1959) née Bell, was an English metalworker and enameller, known as an artist, and also as an author and suffrage activist.

She was the daughter of Thomas Evans Bell, who became involved in suffragist committees from the mid-1860s, and was born in Hastings. Her mother was Emily Magnus, another freethinker who was an actor and classical musician; she died in 1893. Ernestine was supported for a time by William Edward and Hertha Ayrton.

Ernestine Bell attended the Slade Art School, Finsbury Central Technical School, and South Kensington School of Art; an apprentice to Frederic Shields, she also studied enamelling under Alexander Fisher.

Mills joined the Women's Social and Political Union in 1907, and also belonged to the Fabian Women's Group. For the Society of Women Artists, she acted as vice-president for the Craft section for a period.

Mills created jewellery for the Women's Social and Political Union. She wrote The Domestic Problem, Past, Present, and Future (1925), on the nature of domestic work.The Life and Letters of Frederic Shields (1912) was a biography of her teacher.

Ernestine married the doctor Herbert Mills (1868–1947), who shared her Fabian views, and was physician to Sylvia Pankhurst. They had a daughter, Hermia.

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