Donald W Muggeridge Collection

Scope and Content

Photographs of exteriors and interiors of windmills in England.

Administrative / Biographical History

Donald W Muggeridge was one of the pioneer mill researchers of the 1930s. A Kentish Man, he was born in the early 20th century and inherited his father's (William Burrell Muggeridge) interest in windmills. Donald was married to Vera in 1936. He volunteered the month after WWII broke out and escaped from the Dunkirk beaches without injury. In 1943 he returned to Kent for officer training, and in the same year his only son, Derek, was born. In the final phase of the war, with an armoured division travelling from Normandy to Berlin, Donald still managed to take more than 400 photographs of mills. On a March 1945 letter to Rex Wailes, Donald, a Lieutenant, put his army details "502 Coy RASC (Indep. Armd. Gde) BLA" at the top. In 1956 Donald and Vera moved to Canada, and later to California, where he retired in 1983. He died in 2015.

Access Information

Higher-resolution copies of the images on the catalogue may be consulted free of charge at the Mills Archive; please email [visitors@millsarchive.org](mailto:visitors@millsarchive.org?subject=Request%20to%20consult%20collection%20DWMC) to arrange an appointment. Permission to reproduce the images should be addressed to the University of Kent.

Note

Donald W Muggeridge was one of the pioneer mill researchers of the 1930s. A Kentish Man, he was born in the early 20th century and inherited his father's (William Burrell Muggeridge) interest in windmills. Donald was married to Vera in 1936. He volunteered the month after WWII broke out and escaped from the Dunkirk beaches without injury. In 1943 he returned to Kent for officer training, and in the same year his only son, Derek, was born. In the final phase of the war, with an armoured division travelling from Normandy to Berlin, Donald still managed to take more than 400 photographs of mills. On a March 1945 letter to Rex Wailes, Donald, a Lieutenant, put his army details "502 Coy RASC (Indep. Armd. Gde) BLA" at the top. In 1956 Donald and Vera moved to Canada, and later to California, where he retired in 1983. He died in 2015.

Archivist's Note

Collection level description revised by Luke Bonwick and Nathanael Hodge, 2012; revised by Nathanael Hodge November 2017.

Custodial History

Scans of originals held by the Special Collections Library at the University of Kent were given to the Mills Archive in 2003. A collection of prints and negatives were given to the Mills Archive by Donald Muggeridge in 2014.

Location of Originals

Originals of the images on the catalogue are held by the Special Collections Library at the University of Kent.

Additional Information

Published