200:, joining as lecturer in Geology and Geomorphology, under Professor William Boulton. Birmingham University awarded him his PhD in 1920. In 1932, when Boulton retired, Jack Wills succeeded him as Professor and Head of Department, remaining in this post for seventeen years until his retirement in turn in 1949. He then became Professor Emeritus, retaining his link with the department until his death in 1979, a few weeks short of his ninety-sixth birthday.
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1979. This was made possible by the loving care provided by his unmarried daughter Penty. She had moved back in with her parents after working in occupied
Germany for the Control Commission after the end of the Second World War. She initially acted as housekeeper, and cared devotedly for her father both at Farley Cottage and in the bungalow to which they moved in 1965 on the sale of Farley Cottage by the FSC.
245:('FSC'), subject to him being able to continue to live there for his lifetime. The intention was that on his death the house would be used by the FSC as a Field Studies Centre. In 1965, the FSC decided that Farley Cottage was not of a size to be economic as a Centre, but that it would be sold and the proceeds put towards buying and restoring a new Centre. This was done, and
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One of the most remarkable features of Jack Wills's life was not only his longevity, but also the amount of geological work, both research and publications, which was done after his retirement. He retired in 1949, was widowed in 1952, but continued to work more or less up to his death on 12 December
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In 1926, the
Willses bought Farley Cottage, with some 45 surrounding acres in a valley near the Lickey Hills between Bromsgrove and Romsley, together with the neighbouring mediaeval Shut Mill. In 1926, this small and idyllic estate was extremely remote, with no mains electricity or water. Jack Wills
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in
October 1903 as a Scholar. He elected to read Natural Sciences in Part I with Geology in Part II. In 1906, he graduated BA with a First in the Natural Sciences Tripos Part I, and in 1907 made it a Double First with a First also in the Part II. In the same year he was awarded the Harkness Research
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Farley
Cottage, its gardens, orchard and surrounding valley, was the setting for the Willses' generous hospitality to many – family, friends, and geological colleagues – over the next forty years. 'The Professor' did much for local history, archaeology, and geology, and was largely instrumental in
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and wrote various papers on meteorology and other scientific observations. Jack Wills's grandfather bought an edge-tool business in
Nechells, AW Wills & Son, which manufactured such things as scythes and sickles. Jack Wills's father, William Leonard Wills (1858–1911), was a science graduate of
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In 1907, while out cycling from
Cambridge, Jack Wills sheltered from a thunderstorm in a quarry at Hauxton Mill, just south of Trumpington, and noticed something unusual protruding from the rock face. It turned out to be a perfectly preserved tenth- or eleventh-century double-edged Norse sword,
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After graduating in 1907, Jack Wills did two years research under the auspices of the
Harkness Scholarship, focusing on the plant and animal fossils of the Bromsgrove district in the Midlands. In 1909, the year he became a Fellow of King's, he started a four-year appointment with the
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installed a turbine which generated electricity from the mill pool. A ram supplied water from a spring. There was a telephone: Romsley 3. In 1936, Farley
Cottage was enlarged and modernised by their architect son, Leonard, then newly graduated from the Architectural Association.
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in
Rutland. His house was Fircroft, where the housemaster was the Revd Raven. The academic emphasis was firmly on the classics, with natural sciences receiving little attention. In spite of this, his interest in geology, encouraged by his father, was already developing.
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Jack Wills suffered various family bereavements, losing before the age of thirty both his father in 1911 and his sister Edith in 1913. Later he lost his wife Janet in 1952, and his son
Leonard in 1976. He had several serious medical issues, suffering a severe
81:, and was interested in the origin and shaping of the Alps – an interest which may well have influenced his great-nephew. Sir Alfred translated from French into English one of the classic early works on the geomorphology and glaciology of the mountains,
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in 1910 proved a particularly happy one. They had two children: Leonard born in 1911, and Penissa ('Penty') born in 1913. Penty never married, but Leonard did and had one son, David, who in turn had three children, Jack Wills's great-grandchildren.
151:, in preventing anemia in pregnancy. Their younger brother Alfred Gordon went up (also to King's) in 1910. Jack Wills's third sibling, the elder of the two sisters, Edith, married Morris Heycock, son of another Fellow of King's, the chemist
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Cambridge University awarded Jack Wills his BA in 1906, his MA in 1910, and his ScD in 1928. Cambridge also awarded him the Harkness Scholarship in 1907 and the Walsingham Medal in 1909. He was a Fellow of King's College from 1909 to 1915.
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However, the work which was to earn him lasting fame was the putting together of all then available information on surface and subsurface structures with the aim of producing a sequential picture of the geological evolution of the
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Jack Wills was brought up in the country near Birmingham, initially in Wylde Green, then Sutton Coldfield, and finally Barnt Green, all then villages. He went to the Lickey Hills preparatory school before going in 1898 to
449:, its highest award to geologists throughout the world, in 1954. Finally and uniquely, in 1976 when he was 92, the Geological Society of London made him an Honorary Fellow, the only British geologist to be so honoured.
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The research work embodied in these second two titles had considerable economic significance. As BP's senior geologist Sir Peter Kent noted, the Atlas made Jack Wills a household name among petroleum geologists, and
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Thus his Cambridge career lasted from his going up to King's in 1903 until the end of his Fellowship in 1915. During this period there were several family connections with Cambridge. The younger of his two sisters,
67:, Manchester, and took over the running of the family business. He was interested in botany, zoology, geology and natural sciences generally, as well as in the developing science of photography.
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Jack Wills's publications covered a span of over seventy years. His first were two papers in 1907 about fossils in the Bromsgrove area. His last was a Palaeogeological Map produced in 1978.
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saving the valley from being flooded as a reservoir for Birmingham. He was a churchwarden at Romsley from 1930 to 1936. He was a keen gardener with extensive horticultural knowledge.
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162:. Ewing was yet another King's Fellow, and subsequently during the Great War was the originator of Room 40, Britain's first cryptanalytic operation, the precursor of
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253:. Jack Wills and his daughter Penty moved to a small bungalow half a mile away from Farley Cottage in the same valley, where he lived until his death in 1979.
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His mother, Gertrude Annie Wills née Johnston (1855–1939), was the only daughter (with six brothers) of a well-known Birmingham doctor, Dr James Johnston.
292:, and became a particular specialist on terrestrial arthropods, notably with delicate dissections and interpretations of fossilized Triassic scorpions and
23:(1884–1979) – known as 'Jack' to friends and family – was one of the leading British geologists of his generation. He held the Chair of Geology at the
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Birmingham University awarded him his PhD in 1920. In 1949, the year of his retirement from the Chair of Geology, he became Professor Emeritus.
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These presented his research into the deep structure and evolution of the British Isles and his pioneering interpretations of subsurface data.
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On the Fossiliferous Lower Keuper Rocks of Worcestershire with Descriptions of some of the Plants and Animals Discovered Therein
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His final publication, at the age of 93, was another Memoir published in 1978 by the Geological Society of London, entitled
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A Palaeogeological Map of the Lower Palaeozoic Floor below the cover of Upper Devonian, Carboniferous and Later Formations
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299:. He developed ingenious methods of dissection, revealing details even of their respiratory and reproductive organs.
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In 1909, he was one of only two postgraduates to become Fellows of King's College Cambridge, the other being the
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His paternal great-grandfather, William Wills, had been a prosperous Birmingham attorney from a nonconformist,
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A Palaeogeological Map of the Palaeozoic Floor below the Permian and Mesozoic Formations in England and Wales
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However, his major works were his four imaginative and influential textbooks written between 1929 and 1956.
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probably a relic of a Viking invasion. It is now in the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Cambridge.
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The second two, both published after his retirement from the Chair of Geology at Birmingham, were:
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131:. In the same year Jack Wills was awarded the Walsingham Medal. His Fellowship lasted until 1915.
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395:• The Palaeogeography of the Midlands (Liverpool University Press/Hodder & Stoughton, 1948).
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In 1947, the British Palaeontographical Society published his Monograph in two parts entitled
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Jack Wills himself married Maud Janet Ewing in 1910, the daughter of the engineer scientist
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shortly after his retirement, losing the sight of one eye, and losing all his body hair to
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498:"The Development of the Severn Valley in the Neighbourhood of Iron-Bridge and Bridgnorth"
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Amongst the numerous papers and books, the highlights included a paper in 1910 in the
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in the Second World War and the Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, now.
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the Professor at Birmingham until 1913), covered most of the north-west Midlands.
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357:. In 1935 the same publication (Volume XLVI, Part 2 pages 211–246) published
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Jack Wills's researches started with the plant and animal fossils of the
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In 1913, he started his long association with the geology department of
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In 1956, Jack Wills decided to gift Farley Cottage and its land to the
404:• A Palaeogeographical Atlas of the British Isles (Blackie, 1951) and
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His first book appeared in 1911 – a guide to Worcestershire in the
368:, and in 1973 the Geological Society published his Memoir entitled
314:. His interests developed into more recent geological history, the
392:• Physiographical Evolution of Britain (Edward Arnold, 1929) and
338:. This work continued until his last paper at the age of 93.
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An Outline of the Palaeogeography of the Birmingham Country
188:, mapping the rocks of the Llangollen area of north Wales.
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from 1932 to 1949, and received many honours including the
476:"Lapworth Museum of Geology: Wills and Shotton Archives"
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stratigraphy, the Trias to Quaternary succession of the
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and sentenced the writer to two years in Reading Gaol.
139:, a pioneer in the field of haematology, went up to
60:British Association for the Advancement of Science
441:The Geological Society of London awarded him the
43:Jack Wills was born on 27 February 1884 in the
58:, family. William Wills was involved with the
120:Scholarship and began his postgraduate work.
89:(1840). As a judge, Sir Alfred presided over
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353:(Volume XXI, Part 5 pages 249–331) entitled
502:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society
351:Proceedings of the Geologists' Association
143:in 1907; she later discovered the role of
554:Academics of the University of Birmingham
73:One of Jack Wills's great uncles was Sir
407:• Concealed Coalfields (Blackie, 1956).
249:in Somerset has since been known as the
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589:Alumni of the University of Birmingham
302:His research work then took him into
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564:People educated at Uppingham School
559:Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
186:Geological Survey of Great Britain
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514:10.1144/GSL.JGS.1924.080.01-04.15
87:Théorie des Glaciers de la Savoie
549:20th-century British geologists
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377:Cambridge County Geographies
91:the second Oscar Wilde trial
29:Geological Society of London
265:exposed in quarries around
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381:Cambridge University Press
366:British Triassic Scorpions
251:Leonard Wills Field Centre
280:He wrote accounts of new
208:Jack Wills's marriage to
117:King's College, Cambridge
25:University of Birmingham
579:Wollaston Medal winners
342:Books and publications
310:and the origin of the
160:Sir James Alfred Ewing
115:Jack Wills went up to
111:Cambridge and siblings
97:Early years and school
31:'s highest award, the
21:Leonard Johnston Wills
445:in 1936 and then the
379:series, published by
284:fishes from the late
243:Field Studies Council
198:Birmingham University
192:Birmingham University
496:Wills, L.J. (1924).
415:became the bible of
413:Concealed Coalfields
389:The first two were:
584:Lyell Medal winners
430:Degrees and honours
417:National Coal Board
219:coronary thrombosis
204:Marriage and family
129:John Maynard Keynes
247:Nettlecombe Court
39:Family background
16:British geologist
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508:(1–4): 274–308.
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328:Charles Lapworth
318:deposits of the
312:Ironbridge Gorge
263:Keuper sediments
210:Maud Janet Ewing
104:Uppingham School
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447:Wollaston Medal
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304:Lower Paleozoic
271:Upper Paleozoic
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153:Charles Heycock
141:Newnham College
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33:Wollaston Medal
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324:Lake Lapworth
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308:Severn valley
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525:. Retrieved
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479:. Retrieved
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75:Alfred Wills
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574:1979 deaths
569:1884 births
443:Lyell Medal
316:Pleistocene
297:eurypterids
282:ostracoderm
179:1907 – 1913
170:Norse sword
125:Old Etonian
83:Louis Rendu
79:Alpine Club
35:, in 1954.
543:Categories
462:References
267:Bromsgrove
149:B vitamins
137:Lucy Wills
127:economist
47:suburb of
45:Birmingham
19:Professor
527:27 August
522:130464410
56:Unitarian
49:Erdington
481:11 April
320:Midlands
290:Devonian
286:Silurian
275:Triassic
223:alopecia
453:Old age
326:(after
257:Geology
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145:folate
518:S2CID
155:FRS.
529:2011
483:2010
288:and
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510:doi
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