William Downes Willis

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

William Downes Willis (9 September 1790 – 22 October 1871) was a British clergyman, theologian, and author on religious subjects.

Early life and education

Willis was the son of William Willis and Mary, daughter of landowner Robert Hamilton Smyth, of Lismore, Co. Down, of the family of the Viscounts Strangford.[1][2] He was born at Dublin, where his father, an Army Captain, was then stationed. His middle name came from his paternal grandmother; the Downes family, of Rotherham, were wool merchants and yeoman landowners who married into the landed gentry Kent family of Kimberworth.[3][4]

Willis was educated at

MA in 1819.[6]

Career

Ordained a deacon in 1813, and a priest in 1814, by Edward Venables-Vernon-Harcourt, Archbishop of York, Willis was curate- later priest- at Pontefract, Yorkshire until 1816. In 1817 he was appointed curate of Seamer, Yorkshire, and was then made vicar of Kirkby-in-Cleveland, Yorkshire, holding this position until 1841; additionally, in 1827, he was made a stipendiary curate at Walcot, Bath, Somerset. His next position was as rector of Elsted with Treyford and Didling, Sussex, which he held from 1841[7] until his death.[8][9][10]

During his time working in Somerset, Willis became friendly with his colleague, the curate of Holy Trinity Church, Bath; following a murder that took place in 1828, where a maidservant had discovered the thefts committed by a male servant of the same household and was killed by him, Willis gave nine sermons denouncing, in 'forthright and vigorous' terms, such dishonesty and sinful conduct on the part of domestics; he was subsequently mobbed in the streets by servants who took exception to his words. Learning that his next sermon was to be interrupted, Willis took as his text Galatians 4.16: "Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" In response to this, the congregation quietly left the church with no further trouble. Attendance increased to a new high following these events- on Christmas Day, 1829, 413 people (most working-class) received Communion, a number unequalled before or since.[11] These sermons were published as 'Sermons for Servants' in 1829. He additionally wrote a volume on 'Simony, together with some account of the Puritan Feoffees, A.D. 1626', published in 1836 and reprinted in 1842. On a reprinting of this volume in 1865, The Ecclesiastic magazine considered in its review that Willis had 'done good service to the Church in seizing this opportunity for a renewed protest against one of the greatest evils that is eating out her vitality'.[12] The Journal of Sacred Literature and Biblical Record considered that the book "ought to be read by every clergyman", concluding that despite "on sundry points" disagreeing with Willis, "his whole book shews (sic) that he is fearless, honest, and has the cause of real religion at heart", and that they were able to "earnestly recommend this able treatise".[13]

From 1831, Willis was founder and Honorary Secretary of the Bath

Friendly Society, an organisation aiming to 'encourage thrift and care in the way members ran their lives', maintaining strong links with Holy Trinity church. Other clubs, medical organisations and societies came into existence under the influence of the Bath Friendly Society, benefiting the local community.[14]

Willis additionally served as

Roman Catholicism) on subjects including the increase of control of church property by the Evangelicals through purchase of advowsons.[15][16]

Personal life

Willis died 22 October 1871.

Tunbridge Wells, along with Julia Budd (1800-1877), "for 50 years the faithful and devoted nurse and friend in the family".[21] Willis's brother, John Walpole Willis, was a colonial judge and author of legal texts.[22] His brother's descendants include Frederick Smythe Willis, Mayor of Willoughby, New South Wales, and the politician and historian John William Willis-Bund
.

Writings

Sermons for Servants (1829)
Suggestions for the regulation of church patronage, preferment, &c, in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury (1835)
Simony, together with some account of the History of the Puritan Feoffees, A.D. 1626 (1836)
God the supreme disposer of kingdoms: a sermon on Dan. iv. 32. on the day of the coronation of Queen Victoria (1838)[23]
Outlines of proposals for the adjustment of the education question between the Church and the Committee of Privy Council (1848)[24]

References

  1. ^ Public Record Office for Northern Ireland, PRONI Ref. D607/C/151, Title: R. H. Smyth, Dunsford, near Downpatrick, Dated: 9 October 1795
  2. ^ Burke's Landed Gentry (A genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, Sir Bernard Burke, eighth edition, Harrison and Sons, 1894, vol. II, pg 2227
  3. ^ Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, vol. III, third series, ed. Joseph Jackson Howard, Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1900, pg 258–259
  4. ^ Burke's Landed Gentry (A genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, Sir Bernard Burke, eighth edition, Harrison and Sons, 1894, vol. II, pg 2227
  5. ^ The Meteor, edited by members of Rugby School, no. 55, November 4, 1871, p. 201
  6. ^ "CCED: Persons Index".
  7. ^ "CCED: Persons Index".
  8. ^ Crockford's Clerical Directory, Horace Cox publishers, 1868, fourth issue, pg 721 URL- https://archive.org/details/crockfordscleri00commgoog Date accessed- 13 January 2018
  9. ^ Alumni Cantabrigienses URL-http://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/Documents/acad/2016/search-2016.html Date accessed- 13 January 2018
  10. ^ Modern English Biography, vol. VI, Frederic Boase, Netherton & Worth, 1921, pg 2320
  11. ^ URL-https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.holytrinitybath.org.uk/History/HT%20History1.html Date accessed- 13 January 2018
  12. ^ The Ecclesiastic, vol. XXVII, 1865, Joseph Masters, Aldersgate Street publishers
  13. ^ The Journal of Sacred Literature and Biblical Record, collected vol. VIII (New Series), ed. B. Harris Cowper, Williams & Norgate, 1866, p. 231
  14. ^ URL-https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.holytrinitybath.org.uk/History/HT%20History1.html Date accessed- 13 January 2018
  15. ^ 'Ethos' and the Oxford Movement, James Pereiro, Oxford University Press, 2008, pg 17
  16. ^ The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, vol. VIII, ed. Birmingham Oratory, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1999, pg 643
  17. ^ Rugby School Register, from April 1675 to April 1842, Arthur Thompson Mitchell and George Higginbotham, 1901, pg 140
  18. ^ Alumni Cantabrigienses URL-http://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/Documents/acad/2016/search-2016.html Date accessed- 13 January 2018
  19. ^ Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, vol. 1, 1981, pp. 815-816
  20. ^ URL- http://www.edenlinks.co.uk/EASTWARD/WARCOP/WARCOP_HISTORY.HTM Date accessed- 13 January 2018
  21. ^ Faithful Servants: Being Epitaphs and Obituaries recording their names and services, ed. Arthur J. Munby, Reeves & Turner, 1891, p. 353
  22. ^ Burke's Landed Gentry (A genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, Sir Bernard Burke, eighth edition, Harrison and Sons, 1894, vol. II, pg 2227
  23. ^ Catalogus Librorum Impressorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae, vol. 4, Bodleian Library, Oxford University Press, 1851, p. 1002
  24. ^ Outlines of proposals for the adjustment of the education question between the Church and the Committee of Privy Council, Rev. W. Downes Willis, William Hayley Mason (Chichester), 1848, p. 1
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Downes_Willis&oldid=1119555551"