John Walpole Willis

John Walpole Willis (4 January 1793 – 10 September 1877) was an English-born judge, and a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

The second son of Captain William Willis (of the 13th Light Dragoons) and his wife Mary Hamilton Smyth, Willis was born at Holyhead, Anglesey, where his father was stationed. 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 (whence he was expelled) and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he took an M.A. 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.

In 1827, with his father-in-law's endorsement, Willis was appointed a puisne judge of the Court of King's bench in Upper Canada,with the expectation being that a Court of Chancery would be established shortly after at which he would be the judge. Willis and his family arrived in Canada on 17 September. Although at first he and his wife were welcomed into the social and legal life of the colony, within a few months Willis fell foul of the attorney-general, John Beverley Robinson, a very experienced official, and took the most unusual course of stating in court that Robinson had neglected his duty and that he would feel it necessary "to make a representation on the subject to his majesty's government". Willis had a low opinion of Robinson, having previously observed "that any proposition that did not originate with himself was not generally attended with his approbation". Willis allied himself with a group of lawyers who were chief opposition spokesmen: John Rolph, William Warren Baldwin and his son Robert, and Marshall Spring Bidwell. Another friend was the novelist- at that time Secretary of the Canada Company- John Galt. Willis also took a strong stand on the question of the legality of the court as then constituted, and this led in June 1828 to his being removed from his position by the lieutenant-governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, with whose wife, Lady Sarah, Willis's wife had had a disagreement regarding precedence.

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