OBITUARY
Mr. H. O. Wills
The death occurred yesterday morning of Mr. Henry Overton Wills, of Kelston Knott, near Bath.
He was the son of the late Henry Overton Wills, who with William Day Wills formed the original firm of W. D. and H. O. Wills, tobacco manufacturers, of Bristol and London.
He was born at Bristol in 1828, entered the firm in 1846, and retired from active association with the business in 1880, owing to reasons of health.
Since that time he lived largely in retirement, and for several years he had a summer residence in Norway.
Mr. Wills was one of the oldest magistrates for Bristol, and was formerly on the directorate of several local commercial concerns.
A generous supporter of local institutions in Bristol and Bath, he was especially interested in music and painting.
He gave £2,000 in order to complete the Bristol Cathedral organ fund a few years ago, and made gifts of pictures to the Bristol Art Gallery, which his cousin, the late Lord Winterstoke, had presented to the city.
At the time when his brother, the late Sir Edward Wills, and other Bristol citizens were promoting the foundation of a convalescent home as a memorial to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee Mr. Wills subscribed to £10,000.
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In 1908, his son, Mr. George Alfred Wills, deputy chairman of the Imperial Tobacco Company, was president of the Bristol University College Colston Society, founded to promote higher education and with the aim of building up a fund towards the endowment of a university for Bristol.
At the annual dinner of the Society a letter was read from Mr. H. O. Wills promising £100,000 to the fund if a charter were obtained within two years.
This gave great impetus to the movement.
The late King Edward, on the occasion of his visit to Bristol in the same year, expressed interest in the proposal; other members of the Wills family gave large sums, and the citizens generally responded so generously that a charter was obtained well within the time and Mr. Wills was elected first Chancellor.
It was a keen disappointment to him that the state of his health prevented him from doing much personal work for the University, but he followed it's proceedings with the deepest interest.
Two years ago the honorary freedom of Bristol was conferred upon Mr. Wills and at the same time upon Mr. Joseph Storrs Fry.
Mr. Wills took no part in the formation or conduct of the Imperial Tobacco Company, but three of his sons, Mr. George Alfred Wills, Mr. H. H. Wills, and Mr. W. Melville Wills, are directors.
A fourth son, Mr. Stanley Wills, is a member of the Bar, and is attached to the Western Circuit.
Mr H. O. Wills was of Nonconformist stock and was a Liberal until Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill, when he joined the Liberal Unionist Party.
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