Willis John The Hon Sir

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Biografie:
The Hon Sir John Willis 1908-1988
John Ramsay Willis, Jack to his countless friends, was a distinguished lawyer who completed a long much-respected career when he served as a Judge in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court from 1966 to 1980. He was educated at Lancing College, where he was a scholar, and at Trinity College Dublin where he obtained his degree with first-class honours. Called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1932, he quickly built up a practice in planning, rating and local government law. His career was interrupted by the Second World War when he joined the Territorial. Army and served in the Royal Corps of Signals, reaching the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and serving on the staff of Mountbatten at SEAC and of General Slim in the 14th Army in Burma. After resuming his career, he became a Bencher of Gray's Inn while still a junior, in 1953, and took silk in 1956. In 1965 he was appointed Deputy Chairman of East Suffolk Quarter Sessions and Recorder of Southampton. He was knighted on his appointment to the High Court Bench in 1966, and in 1969 became Treasurer of Gray's Inn.
Jack's first introduction to the mountains came when, as a young man, he worked for a time as a travelling secretary for Sir Henry Lunn. Among other places, this took him to Maloja in the Engadine. It was there that he was taken on a mountain walk by a stranger - who, he later discovered, was a future President of the Alpine Club, Leo Amery.1t was not until the 1950s, however, that he started more serious climbing. In 1953 he was in the Ötztal, and he completed some winter climbs in Austria in the following year. In 1955 he started in Arolla and went on to Zermatt, where he climbed the Matterhorn and traversed the Alphubel to Saas Fee.
Later he climbed the Blümlisalphorn with John Poole and R S Hargreaves, to whom I am indebted for most of these details. In 1956 he traversed the Lagginhorn with Hargreaves and his other regular Alpine companion, Dr F S Jackson - also the Allalinhorn, Rimpfischhorn and Monte Rosa. It was in that year that he was elected to the Club. In 1961 the same trio traversed the Rimpfischhorn and climbed the Zinalrothorn, but there were no major ascents recorded after that. He continued, however, to walk and climb in Britain, particularly in North Wales and in the Cuillins, and in 1977 he was walking in Nepal with his son Michael. In June 1988, a few weeks short of his 80th birthday and four months before his death, he spent a week in Borrowdale when his last expedition, completed in glorious sunny weather, was the ascent of Scafell Pike.
Jack Willis was a delightful companion. He has left behind a wide circle of friends with many happy memories, both on and off the hills. Our sympathy goes to his widow, Barbara, and to his two sons by his first marriage, Michael and Christopher.
J H Emlyn Janes
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 94, 1989-90, Seite 319-320


Geboren am:
1908
Gestorben am:
06.1988