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
History of trade and industry in Birmingham area of the manor of Birmingham to the west of the town, is more suited to pastoral than arable agriculture and excavated animal bones indicate that cattle are the dominant livestock, with some sheep but very few pigs. Trade through Birmingham diversifies as a merchant class arises. While most manufactured goods in Birmingham are produced for a local market, there is some evidence that the town is already a specialised and widely-recognised centre of the jewellery trade during the medieval period. An inventory of the personal possessions of the Master of the Knights Templar in England at the time of