John Mills (encyclopedist)

John Mills (c. 1717 – c. 1794) was an English writer on agriculture, translator and editor. Mills and Gottfried Sellius are known for being the first to prepare a French edition of Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia for publication in 1745, which eventually resulted in the Encyclopédie published in France between 1751 and 1772.

As writer on agriculture, Mills is credited for publishing the earliest complete treatise on all branches of agriculture. His chief work, A New System of Practical Husbandry, in 5 volumes, appeared in 1767. It combines the results of the experience and observations of such writers as Evelyn, Duhamel, John Worlidge, and Jethro Tull, and was highly commended. Mills was a warm advocate of small farms.

John Mills was a person of considerable eminence in the 18th century, though little definite is known because no record exists of his life. From his manner of expression, it is possible he may have lived his early life in foreign countries along time, possibly in France, but he was not born there. In 1741 he was staying in London, where he had made preparations to go to Jamaica. He cancelled those plans because, as he wrote "having met with something more advantageous which engages me to stay in England" Mills married a French women, and they had two children; one baptised in Paris on 27 April 1742 and another born in May 1743.

In 1743 Mills was in Paris for the purpose of bringing out, in concert with Gottfried Sellius, a German historian, a French edition of Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopaedia; but Lebreton, the printer commissioned by him to manage the undertaking, cheated him out of the subscription money, assaulted him, and ultimately obtained a license in his own name. This was the origin of the famous Encyclopédie. Mills, unable to obtain redress, returned to England.

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