James Shaw Willes

Sir James Shaw Willes (1814 – 2 October 1872) was a Judge of the English Court of Common Pleas.

Willes was born in

Home Circuit

.

In 1850, he was appointed to the

maritime law

were especially lucid and convincing.

He presided at the trial in 1865 of Constance Kent for the murder of her young half-brother, Saville Kent at Road Hill House, Wiltshire in 1860, a case which had received massive publicity.

He killed himself, at his residence near

Watford, Hertfordshire while suffering under temporary aberration of mind, the result of suppressed gout, aged about 58.^[2]

Willes is arguably most famous as the judge in Phillips v Eyre (1870) LR 6 QB and for the double actionability rule which arose from that case.

Arms

Coat of arms of James Shaw Willes
Crest A demi-lion rampant Or.^[3] Escutcheon Quarterly 1st & 4th Argent per fess Gules and Argent three lions rampant counterchanged within a single tressure flory counterflory Azure 2nd & 3rd Argent a chevron between three lozenges Ermine.

References

^ ^a ^b "The Late Mr. Justice Willes". Law Magazine and Review; for Both Branches of the Legal Profession at Home and Abroad. 1 (10): 889–896. November 1872.
^ ^a ^b Webb, Alfred (1878). A Compendium of Irish Biography. Dublin: M. H. Gill & son. p. 565. Retrieved 21 April 2010.
^ Debrett's Judicial Bench. 1869.

[:0-1] "The Late Mr. Justice Willes". Law Magazine and Review; for Both Branches of the Legal Profession at Home and Abroad. 1 (10): 889–896. November 1872.

[bio-2] Webb, Alfred (1878). A Compendium of Irish Biography. Dublin: M. H. Gill & son. p. 565. Retrieved 21 April 2010.

[3] Debrett's Judicial Bench. 1869.

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