Sir Ernest Wills, 3rd Baronet

Sir Ernest Salter Wills, 3rd Baronet CStJ JP (30 November 1869 - 14 January 1958) was Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire from 1930 to 1942.

Life

The son of Sir Edward Payson Wills, 1st Baronet, KCB and of Lady Wills (she was Mary Ann, elder daughter of J. Chaning Pearce FGS, of Montagu House, Bath), Wills succeeded his elder brother in the baronetcy in 1921.

The Wills family were part owners of W. D. & H. O. Wills, tobacco importers and cigarette manufacturers, which had been founded by Wills's great grandfather, Henry Overton Wills, in 1786, and later became part of Imperial Tobacco. Wills was a cousin of Gilbert Wills, 1st Baron Dulverton.

In 1894, Wills married Caroline Fanny Maud, daughter of William Augustine de Winton, of Westbury Lodge, Durdham Down, Bristol, later appointed DStJ, and they had two sons and three daughters.

Wills owned substantial properties in England and Scotland: Littlecote House, near Hungerford, Wiltshire, and Meggernie Castle in Perthshire, and also owned the Château de l'oiseau bleu at Menton on the French Riviera. He was a director of Imperial Tobacco and of the Portishead District Water Company.

He was succeeded in the title by his elder son, Lieutenant-Colonel Ernest Edward de Winton Wills, Scots Guards.

References

• WILLS, Sir Ernest (Salter) 3rd Bt in Who Was Who 1897-2007 (London, A. & C. Black)
• Sir Ernest Wills, 3rd Baronet at cox.net