WAREHOUSE TO BENCH.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 53, 17 October 1911, Page 6

WAREHOUSE TO BENCH.

THINGS JUDGE WILLIS NEVER DID.

Judge Willis, one of the best known of London County Court Judges, died on August 22nd, at bis residence at Lee, in his seventy-seventh year. Like-;-his colleague, the late Judge B/icon,! who died only in June last, Judge Willis was noted for his unconventional remarks on the Bench, and also for telling witnesses and others of the tilings lie never did. Ho said , on different occasions that he Never used a telephone Never read a Sunday newspaper ' Never rode in a tube railway

Never rode in a motor car Never watched a horse race Never gambled a penny Never entered a place of amusenent when a lad Never ran into debt Never borrowed money Never read anything of the Crippon rial

Never looked at the price of Consols.

Born at Dunstable, the son of a ■braw hat. manufacturer, Judge Willis carved out his own career. As he once told a public audience, instead of being ’reared in the lap of luxury and sent to Oxford or Cambridge, lie had passed six years in business before ue was 21 years of age in a millinery establishment in St. Paul’s Church Yard. At the ago of 15, after a difference of opinion with his father, he left Luton to go to Australia, but finding on his arrival in London that he had several days to wait for a vessel, lie obtained the situation in the City. In those days ho was keeping himself on £4O a year, and it was one of his maxims that a single man can live comfortably on that sum. In his spare hours he studied Latin and Greek, and matriculated at London University in 1857. Scorning delights, and living laborious days over nis text books, ho did brilliantly in bis . legal examinations and got Ids first footing in the courts. There while his fervid disposition sometimes brought him into conflict with the Bench, his energy and thoroughness won him much favour with clients, and ho acquired a very large practice. Judge Willis possessed an unsurpassed knowledge of Milton’s works, cn which he lectured in many parts of the country. He was a pillar of the Baptist community, and on one occasion appeared before the magistrates as a passive resister. His recreation ho described as follows;—“Collecting books, both old and new; walking by the side of brook and river; speaking to everyone I. meet, and seeing how much there is in others to he admired and loved.”