Lady Dorothy Mills

Lady Dorothy "Dolly" Rachel Melissa Mills (; 11 March 1889 – 4 December 1959) was a British explorer, travel writer and memoirist.

Early life and family Mills was born Dorothy Rachel Melissa Walpole on 11 March 1889 at 4 Queen's Gate Terrace, Kensington to Robert Walpole, a diplomat and former naval lieutenant, and Louise Melissa Walpole (née Corbin; 1866–1909). Mills' father was the son of Frederick Walpole, a politician and member of the Walpole family, and her mother was the daughter of the American mining and railway magnate Daniel Chase Corbin.

In 1894, following the death of her great-uncle Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, Mills' father became the 5th Earl of Orford.

After being severely injured in a car accident in 1929, she recovered and resolved to become the first to discover the source of the Orinoco River in 1931, leading to her book, The Country of the Orinoco (1931). While planning a trip to Egypt and the Middle East, her father, Lord Walpole, died in Manurewa, Auckland, New Zealand, on 27 September 1931.

She was a Soroptimist and a Founder Member of SI Greater London, which was chartered in 1923.

Personal life In 1916, Mills married Captain Arthur F. H. Mills of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry after he was wounded in the First World War, being presented at the ceremony with a wedding ring made from a bullet that had been surgically removed from his ankle after he was wounded in combat at La Bassée, France. Mills was also an author of both fiction and non-fiction titles. Mills' father disapproved of the match and disinherited her. The divorce was granted the following year