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René Millet

1910–1978

Born
15 Aug 1910, London
Country of birth
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, today United Kingdom
Died
9 Apr 1978, 7th arrondissement of Paris
facts
9
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

  • Birth15 Aug 1910, LondonProbable1 source
  • Titleambassador of France to Chad, 1962–1963Confirmed2 competing claims1 source
  • Titleambassador of France to Myanmar, 1965–1970Confirmed2 competing claims1 source
  • Titleambassador of France to Kenya, 1969–1972Confirmed2 competing claims1 source
  • Death9 Apr 1978, 7th arrondissement of ParisProbable1 source
  • ParentPhilippe MilletConfirmed1 source
  • UnionNadejda de BragançaConfirmed1 source

A life in time

  1. Born · London

    Birth, London

  2. Event · ambassador of France to Chad

    Event

  3. Event · ambassador of France to Myanmar

    Event

  4. Event · ambassador of France to Kenya

    Event

  5. Died · 7th arrondissement of Paris

    Death, 7th arrondissement of Paris

What was it like?

The world around London, 1910: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

René was born the same year as Dorothy Hodgkin, William Shockley, and Mother Teresa.

Known for

Titles held

  • ambassador of France to Chad1962–1963
  • ambassador of France to Myanmar1965–1970
  • ambassador of France to Kenya1969–1972
Born the same year

  • Dorothy Hodgkin

    British chemist

  • William Shockley

    American physicist and inventor (1910–1989)

  • Mother Teresa

    Albanian-Indian Catholic nun and missionary (1910–1997)

  • Akira Kurosawa

    Japanese filmmaker (1910–1998)

  • Jacques Cousteau

    French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author (1910-1997)

  • Giuseppe Meazza

    Italian association football player and manager (1910-1979)

Fashion

Domestic servants' uniform requirements

Female domestic servants were required to purchase their own uniforms, which consisted of striped cotton dresses for morning chores and a black dress with a white cap and apron for afternoon duties.

Working-class menswear habits

Working-class men often wore their father's old suits for manual labor, leading to common sights of mismatched coats and trousers.

Music

Affordable dance halls in the 1920s

During the 1920s in Glasgow, young people flocked to dance halls where they could dance for six hours for the price of sixpence. These halls were known for being fiercely respectable, and participants focused on skill and style.

Concertina music at village festivals

In the early 20th century, concertinas were widely used at house dances, village festivals, and in pubs, where dancers might even perform on farm wagons. Collectors sometimes had to be stationed at doors to ensure dancers paid the musicians, as collecting fees became harder with the popularity of round dances.

Getting around

Horses ruled the early 1900s streets

Before World War One, horses dominated town streets, pulling everything from carriages and taxicabs to delivery carts and buses.

Daily life

Lighting in the home was rarely electric

Most late-Victorian and Edwardian families lacked electricity and relied on gas, or in rural areas, oil lamps and homemade rushlights.

Water was often collected from outside taps

Many homes lacked running water, requiring families to collect it from an outside tap shared with neighbours and heat it on the stove for bathing.

Food

Buying Meat for Home Cooking

Because many working-class homes lacked ovens, families often bought 3/4 pound of leg of beef and 1/2 pound of beef suet for meat puddings or rissoles.

Common Drink Adulteration and Reuse

Tea was frequently re-used until all flavour was extracted, and milk was sometimes adulterated with chalk and water.

Prices and wages
Around 1914–1915

Rising food costs for families in 1915

A standard family's weekly supply of food, which cost 19s 8d in July 1914, rose to 24s 5½d by March 1915 due to wartime price inflation.

Around 1875–1900

Bread prices at the century's end

By the late 19th century, bread prices declined to just above 1 penny per pound, a staple item for a subsistence-level family.

Work

Common Jobs and Uncertain Labour

Common jobs included agricultural labourers, coal miners, domestic servants, and factory workers, as the economy shifted from agriculture to manufacturing and service industries. Many unskilled workers were simply classified as labourers, relying on uncertain daily work at docks or quarries.

Early Morning Child Labour

In the early 1900s, some young boys rose as early as 3:00 a.m. to deliver newspapers or wake up workers before attending school. By 1918, new regulations and compulsory education to age fourteen made such extreme juvenile employment practices virtually impossible.

During their lifetime

  1. 1918

    Women Won the Right to Vote

    In 1918, a limited number of women were allowed to vote, and by 1927 all women over 21 were granted the right to vote.

  2. 1919

    Council Housing Construction Began in 1919

    Following the 1919 Housing Act, local authorities began building council houses to replace slums, with over 1 million built by 1939.

  3. 1921

    Public radio broadcasting starts in 1921

    Public radio broadcasting officially began in France in 1921, with regular programs transmitted from an antenna atop the Eiffel Tower.

  4. 1944

    Women gain voting rights in 1944

    In October 1944, a government ordinance finally granted women the right to vote in France.

  5. 1948

    Creation of the NHS in 1948

    In 1948, the National Health Service (NHS) was created to provide healthcare, following the 1942 Beveridge Report.

  6. 1950

    Creation of the minimum wage

    In 1950, the government established the minimum wage (SMIG) to improve workers' purchasing power.

Family

Parents

Spouses

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.