Early Life
Willis was born in Holyhead, Anglesey, the second son of Captain William Willis (of the 13th Light Dragoons) and his wife Mary Hamilton Smyth. He was a descendant of the Willises of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire- from whom descended the Willys baronets of Fen Ditton- through his grandfather, Joseph Willis of Wakefield, Yorkshire, where the family had been settled since the seventeenth century. Willis was educated at Rugby, Charterhouse (where he was expelled) and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was called to the English bar and practised as a chancery barrister. In 1820-1 he published his Pleadings in Equity, and in 1827 A Practical Treatise on the Duties and Responsibilities of Trustees. In 1823, the Earl of Strathmore applied to Willis for legal advice; while a frequent guest in the Earl's household, Willis met his daughter, Lady Mary Isabella. They married the following year, and settled with Willis's widowed mother and his sister at Hendon. Their son, Robert Bruce Willis, was born in 1826.
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