William Mills (inventor) William Mills (inventor) Sir William Mills (24 April 1856 - 1932) of Sunderland was an English engineer, who invented the Mills bomb which was developed and manufactured at his factory in Birmingham, England. The Mills bomb was the hand grenade most widely used by British and Imperial forces during the First World War. He was knighted in 1922. William Mills was born on 26 April 1856 in Wear Street, Southwick, Sunderland. He was the son of David Mills, a shipbuilder, and his wife Sarah Ann Kirkaldy. The Sunderland historian James Watson Corder recorded that David Mills had an interest in
Nigger in the woodpile Nigger in the woodpile A nigger in the woodpile or fence is a figure of speech originating in the United States meaning "some fact of considerable importance that is not disclosed—something suspicious or wrong". Commonly used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, usage has declined since then, and use of the phrase by public figures has often been followed by criticism over the racism of the term "nigger". Thus, the phrase has been supplanted by the similar (though not entirely synonymous) phrase "skeletons in the closet" which carries no such connotations. Both the "fence" and "woodpile" variants developed