William Henry Wills (journalist)

William Henry Wills JP (13 January 1810 – 1 September 1880) was a British journalist, playwright, a newspaper editor and a close friend and confidant of the author Charles Dickens, who entrusted Wills with the task of forwarding his letters to his mistress Ellen Ternan.

Born in Plymouth in 1810, his father, at one time a wealthy ship-owner and prize-agent, met with misfortunes, and the family moved to London in 1819. On the death of his father the responsibility of supporting his mother and brother and sister fell on William Henry, or Harry Wills as he was always called. After leaving school he became a wood-engraver in the office of J. H. Vizetelly before becoming a journalist, contributing to periodicals such as the Penny Magazine and Saturday Magazine, John Ramsay McCulloch's A Dictionary, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical before being appointed sub-editor of The Monthly Magazine. His play The Law of the Land was produced at the Surrey Theatre in 1837. In the same year he first met Charles Dickens who was then the editor of Bentley's Miscellany.

He was one of the original writers on Punch, and had some share in the composition of the draft prospectus. He contributed to the first number (17 July 1841) the satiric verse on Lord Cardigan called To the Blackballed of the United Service Club. He was for some time the regular drama critic, in which capacity he ridiculed Louis Antoine Jullien, the introducer of the promenade concerts at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and severely criticised the acting of Charles Kean. Among his other contributions in prose and verse were Punch's Natural History of Courtship (illustrated by Sir John Gilbert), Punch's Comic Mythology, Information for the People, and skits such as The Burst Boiler and the Broken Heart, and The Uncles of England, in praise of pawnbrokers. From 1842 to 1845 Wills was in Edinburgh where he was assistant editor of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal; in April 1846 he married Janet Chambers (1812–1892), the youngest sister of William and Robert Chambers, the Edinburgh publishers for whom he had been working.

...
Wikipedia