Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Willis, John Walpole
WILLIS, JOHN WALPOLE (1793–1877), justice of the king's bench, Upper Canada, born on 4 Jan. 1793, was the second son of William Willis (d. 1809), captain in the 13th light dragoons, by his wife Mary (d. 1831), only daughter and heiress of Robert Hamilton Smith of Lismore, co. Down. He entered Gray's Inn on 4 Nov. 1811, was called to the bar, and joined the northern circuit in 1817. Shortly afterwards his first published work, a book on the law of evidence, appeared. There came out in 1820 ‘Willis's Equity Pleading,’ for many years a standard work on the subject, and in 1827 a valuable treatise on the ‘Duties and Responsibilities of Trustees.’ The colonial office at this time intended to establish a court of equity in Upper Canada, and to make Willis its chief. As an interim appointment he received a puisne judgeship in the king's bench. On 18 Sept. 1827 he presented his warrant to the lieutenant-governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland [q. v.], but soon found that neither the governor nor the council, neither the assembly nor the bar, was disposed to assist him in organising a court of chancery. His chief opponent was (Sir) John Beverley Robinson [q. v.], afterwards chief justice, then attorney-general and practical leader of the government. There arose differences between the judge and the law officer as to the conduct of crown business which waxed keen with time, and were plainly expressed on both sides. The judge was evidently the more hasty, for within a year of his appointment he declined to sit in banco, and declared his reasons openly. They were that the act constituting the court directs that ‘a chief justice, with two puisne judges, shall preside’ in it; that the chief justice was absent from the province on leave, and not likely to return; and that, till his successor was instituted, the court could not legally sit in banco. The lieutenant-governor took no step to fill the vacancy, but at once amoved Willis under 22 George III, c. 75, and nominated Mr. Justice Hagerman in his place. Thereupon there was an appeal to the privy council on the ground that the amoval order was ‘unwarranted, illegal, and ought to be void.’ The assembly sided with the judge, chiefly because it was at that time struggling to make the executive responsible, and to change the tenure of judicial office from a holding ‘at pleasure’ to a holding ‘during good conduct;’ and in an address to the king it characterised the governor's action as ‘violent, precipitate, and unjustifiable.’ The excitement in the province grew more intense when it was known that no positive neglect of duty, no actual malfeasance in office, was or could be established against Willis. The imperial government, on report from the privy council, dismissed the appeal, confirmed the amotion order, and refused to reinstate the judge, as the assembly had requested. But on reconsideration afterwards the order of amotion was set aside, because the appellant had no opportunity of a hearing before the order was issued. Willis was then given a judicial appointment in Demerara, and afterwards in New South Wales (1841). He displeased the governor of this colony also, Sir George Gipps [q. v.]; and he was again amoved in 1842 without notice. Appeal proceedings lasted three years, but finally the order was quashed for the same reason as in the Upper Canada case. Arrears of salary and costs, amounting to near 6,000l., were awarded to Willis, but he did not return to the colony, neither did he receive any other office in the gift of the colonial department. He died in September 1877.
On 8 Aug. 1824 he married Mary Isabella, elder daughter of Thomas Lyon-Bowes, eleventh earl Strathmore. By her he had one son, Robert Bruce Willis (1826–1897). The union was an unhappy one, and was dissolved by act of parliament in 1833. Willis married, secondly, on 15 Sept. 1836, Ann Susanna Kent (d. 1891), eldest daughter of Colonel Thomas Henry Bund of Wick Episcopi in Worcestershire. By her he had a son, Mr. John William Willis-Bund, and two daughters.
Willis is sometimes said to have had an imperious temper. There can be little question as to his ability, industry, or the energy with which he carried his ideas into practice. The true reason for his unfortunate experience ‘over sea’ may be found in his conception of what an English colony is or should be. His latest work, ‘On the Government of the British Colonies’ (1850), gives his idea. A colony is to be dealt with as an English county, presided over by a lord lieutenant; on the one side possessing certain powers of internal taxation, on the other being represented in the imperial parliament—a conception of self-government that no colonial party could adopt, and one which, if carried out in days when the judge's sphere was not confined strictly to matters legal, could scarcely fail to bring him into conflict with the local authorities for the time being.
[Foster's Reg. of Admissions to Gray's Inn, 1889, p. 414; Burke's Landed Gentry, s.v. ‘Bund;’ Read's Lives of the Judges of Upper Canada, pp. 107–20; Dent's Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, pp. 162–94; Mirror of Parliament (House of Lords), 14 May 1829, pp. 1610–11; Hansard, new ser. xxiv. 551–5; Accounts and Papers relating to the Colonies (5), xxxii. 51; Blue Book, Papers relating to the Amoval of the Hon. J. W. Willis, 1829; Blackwood's Mag. (‘Cabot’), 1829, pp. 334–7; App. to Journals of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, 1st sess., 10th parl.; Therry's Reminiscences of New South Wales 1863, pp. 341–5; 5 Moore's Reports (Privy Council), p. 379; Kingsford's Hist. of Canada, x. 258–79.]