John William Willis-Bund

John William Bund Willis-Bund CBE JP (8 August 1843 – 7 June 1928) was a British historian and local Worcestershire politician.[1]

Biography

Willis-Bund was born in 1843 at Wick Episcopi, Worcestershire, the son of John Walpole Willis and his second wife Ann Susanna Kent Bund. The adoption of his mother's surname (in 1864)[2] was necessary in order to inherit from his maternal grandfather. He was educated at Eton and Caius College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1865 with first-class honours in Law.[3] He was also awarded an LL.B. (1865) and an M.A. (1868).[2] He was called to the Bar from Lincoln's Inn.[1] In the course of his legal career he was appointed King's Counsel.[4] Willis-Bund was Professor of Constitutional Law and History at King's College London from 1869 to 1882, and Lecturer in Law at the University of Bristol from 1877 to 1879.[2]

Robert Thomas Jenkins noted that Willis-Bund wrote extensively about the history of the church in Wales but that some of his views were not generally held to be those of other academics writing in the field. Jenkins commented:

"Black Book of St. Davids (1902) — the work was but indifferently done". He also published a book, The Celtic Church of Wales, 1897, which propounded a theory of his own and was judged by Louis Gougaud to be "dubious and prejudiced," and by Sir J. E. Lloyd to be "very haphazard".[1][5]

He served as chairman of the Worcestershire County Council, the Worcestershire Appeal Tribunal, and the Worcestershire National Relief Fund during the First World War. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1918 New Year Honours.[6] In 1927 he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Law from the University of Birmingham.[7]

Willis-Bund was appointed Vice-Lieutenant of the County of Worcester in November 1924. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.[2]

On his death in 1928, it was stated in Country Life that 'a finer old man, with a more dominating personality, than the late Mr. Willis Bund would be hard to find, even in this country'.[8]

Personal life

Willis-Bund married firstly (in 1872) Harriette Penelope Temple, the daughter (by his second wife) of Richard Temple. Temple's eldest son, also named Richard, became the first baronet Temple of the Nash. The Willis-Bunds had six children. His surviving son and heir, Henry, MRCP LRCS, died, unmarried, nine months after his father, having received the Military Cross whilst serving in the R.A.M.C.[9] Willis-Bund's daughter Margaret married John Henry Milward, of the Redditch needle-manufacturing family. Daughter Mary Susanna's son, Francis Leader MacCarthy-Willis-Bund (1905–1980), was Chaplain, Fellow and Dean of Balliol College, Oxford. Willis-Bund married secondly (in 1896) Mary Elizabeth Thackeray, the daughter of General Frederick Rennell Thackeray and Lady Elizabeth Margaret Carnegie (the daughter of the 7th Earl of Northesk). Mary Elizabeth Thackeray was the widow of Colonel Alexander Essex Frederick Holcombe, and second cousin of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray.

Books and articles

Works edited

References

  1. 1 2 3 Robert Thomas Jenkins, WILLIS-BUND (formerly WILLIS), JOHN WILLIAM (1843-1928), Welsh Biography Online, Retrieved 2009-11-05. An electronic version of a publication by the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion
  2. 1 2 3 4 Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College 1349-1897 vol. II 1713-1897, John Venn, Cambridge University Press/ C. J. Clay and Sons, 1898, pg 354
  3. ↑ "Willis (post Willis-Bund), John William Bund (WLS861JW)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  4. ↑ Truth, volume 57, 1905, pg 1510
  5. ↑ Biograph on Louis Gougaud
  6. ↑ "No. 30460". The London Gazette (Supplement). 7 January 1918. p. 372.
  7. ↑ Gloucester Journal, 9 July 1927
  8. ↑ Gloucester Citizen, 13 January 1928
  9. ↑ Burke's Landed Gentry 1925, pg 235
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