Alfred Wills
Encyclopedia
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High Court judge
A High Court judge is a judge of the High Court of Justice, and represents the third highest level of judge in the courts of England and Wales. High Court judges are referred to as puisne judges...
and a well-known mountaineer
Mountaineering
Mountaineering or mountain climbing is the sport, hobby or profession of hiking, skiing, and climbing mountains. While mountaineering began as attempts to reach the highest point of unclimbed mountains it has branched into specialisations that address different aspects of the mountain and consists...
. He was the third President of the Alpine Club
Alpine Club
The first Alpine Club, founded in London in 1857, was once described as:Today, Alpine clubs stage climbing competitions, operate alpine huts and paths, and are active in protecting the Alpine environment...
from 1863 to 1865.
Early life
Wills was the second son of William Wills, JPJustice of the Peace
A justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...
, of Edgbaston
Edgbaston
Edgbaston is an area in the city of Birmingham in England. It is also a formal district, managed by its own district committee. The constituency includes the smaller Edgbaston ward and the wards of Bartley Green, Harborne and Quinton....
, Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, and of his wife Sarah Wills, a daughter of Jeremiah Ridout. He was educated at a school in Edgbaston and at University College London
University College London Law Faculty
The UCL Faculty of Laws is one of the 10 constituent faculties of University College London . It is one of the world’s premier law schools, renowned for the quality of its teaching and its cutting-edge legal research...
, where he held exhibitions
Exhibition (scholarship)
-United Kingdom and Ireland:At the universities of Dublin, Oxford and Cambridge, and at Westminster School, Eton College and Winchester College, and various other UK educational establishments, an exhibition is a financial award or grant to an individual student, normally on grounds of merit. The...
and scholarships in Mathematics, Classics and Law, graduating BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in 1849 and LLB
Bachelor of Laws
The Bachelor of Laws is an undergraduate, or bachelor, degree in law originating in England and offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree...
in 1851.
Legal career
Wills became a barristerBarrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
from Middle Temple
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...
in 1851 and was appointed Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
in 1872. He was first Recorder of Sheffield, 1881–84; a Judge of the Queen's and King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, 1884–1905, President of the Railway and Canal Commission, 1888–1893, and Treasurer of the Middle Temple, 1892-1893.
During his career as a judge, Alfred Wills notably presided over the trial in which Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
was convicted for "committing acts of gross indecency
Sodomy law
A sodomy law is a law that defines certain sexual acts as crimes. The precise sexual acts meant by the term sodomy are rarely spelled out in the law, but are typically understood by courts to include any sexual act deemed unnatural. It also has a range of similar euphemisms...
with other male persons".
With his father William Wills
William Wills
William Wills may refer to:*William John Wills , English explorer and second-in-command of the Burke and Wills expedition*William Henry Wills , United States politician and Governor of Vermont...
, he co-authored An essay on the principles of circumstantial evidence : illustrated by numerous cases (1905), still a standard text often cited.
Mountaineer
The ascent of the WetterhornWetterhorn
The Wetterhorn is a mountain in the Swiss Alps close to the village of Grindelwald. First climbed in 1844, the 1854 ascent by Alfred Wills and party is more celebrated and is generally regarded to have marked the beginning of the golden age of alpinism.The mountain is composed of three distinct...
by Wills and his party during 1854, which Wills mistakenly believed was the first (it was actually first climbed during 1844) was the beginning of the so-called golden age of alpinism
Golden age of alpinism
The golden age of alpinism was the period between Alfred Wills's ascent of the Wetterhorn in 1854 and Edward Whymper's ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865, during which many major peaks in the Alps saw their first ascents....
. From that time on, climbing mountains as sport became fashionable.
He was the third President of the Alpine Club
Alpine Club
The first Alpine Club, founded in London in 1857, was once described as:Today, Alpine clubs stage climbing competitions, operate alpine huts and paths, and are active in protecting the Alpine environment...
from 1863 to 1865.
A mountain refuge near Chamonix still bears his name.
Publications
- Wanderings among the High Alps
- The Eagle's Nest
- Wills on Circumstantial Evidence (ed.)
- Rendu's Théorie des Glaciers de la Savioe (translation)
Honours
- KnightKnightA knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
ed, 1884 - Privy Councillor, 1905
Family
In 1854 Wills married Lucy, daughter of George Martineau. She died in 1860, and in 1861 he married Bertha, daughter of Thomas Lombe Taylor, of StarstonStarston
Starston is a small village in Norfolk. It covers an area of and had a population of 321 in 123 households as of the 2001 census.The Starston sign features a wind pump that was used to transport water from the Beck river up to Starston Place, which was demolished during the early 1900's...
, Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
. His second wife died in 1906. He had three sons and two daughters.