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 smiths are mentioned on a poll tax return of 1379 and seven more are documented in the following century. Although fifteen to twenty weavers, dyers and fullers have been identified in Birmingham up to 1347, this is not a significantly greater number of cloth-workers than that found in surrounding villages and at least some of the cloth sold on the Birmingham market had rural origins. This was the first local industry to benefit from mechanisation, however, and nearly a dozen fulling mills exist in the Birmingham area by the end of the 14th century, many converted from corn mills, but