June 1672, and died at Middleton Hall on 3 July 1672. He was buried in Middleton church, his tomb being surmounted by a bust and bearing a Latin epitaph, probably by Ray. There is also a marble bust of him in Trinity College Library, Cambridge, and an oil portrait at Wollaton, from which that by Lizars in Sir William Jardine's ‘Naturalist's Library’ was engraved. The genus Willughbeia, an important group of Malayan rubber plants, was dedicated to him by William Roxburgh [q. v.] The leaf-cutting bee described by him bears his name as ‘Megachile Willubuella.’
Willughby married, in 1668, Emma, second daughter and coheiress of Sir Thomas Bernard, by whom he had three children, Francis, Cassandra, and Thomas. Francis, born in 1668, was created a baronet in 1676, no doubt as an honour to his father's memory, but died in 1688. Cassandra married James Brydges, first duke of Chandos [q. v.]; and Thomas, who succeeded to the baronetcy in 1688, was created Baron Middleton in December 1711, being one of the batch of peers created in one day under Harley and St. John; he died in 1729. Mrs. Willughby in 1676 married Sir Josiah Child [q. v.]
Ray was one of five executors of Willughby's will, under which he received an annuity of sixty pounds. Until 1676 he acted as tutor to the children of his friend, and, from letters printed in his ‘Correspondence’ (pp. 101, 103), he seems soon to have decided that it was his duty to publish what Willughby had done towards his history of animals. ‘Viewing,’ he says, ‘his manuscripts after his death, I found the several animals in every kind, both birds, and beasts, and fishes, and insects, digested into a method of his own contriving, but few of their descriptions or histories so full and perfect as he intended them; which he was so sensible of that when I asked him upon his deathbed whether it was his pleasure they should be published, he answered that he did not desire it, nor thought them so considerable as to deserve it … though he confest there were some new and pretty observations on insects. But considering that the publication of them might conduce somewhat to the illustration of God's glory … the assistance of those who addict themselves to this part of philosophy, and .. the honour of our nation … he not contradicting, I resolved to publish them and first took in hand the Ornithology’ (Preface to The Ornithology of Francis Willughby, 1678). This was published in 1676 as ‘Francisci Willughbeii … Ornithologiæ libri tres in quibus aves omnes … in methodum naturis suis convenientem … describuntur … Totum opus recognovit, digessit, supplevit Joannes Raius. Sumptus in chalcegraphos fecit illustriss. D. Emma Willughby vidua,’ London, pp. 312, fol. Of this work Neville Wood says Willughby was ‘the first naturalist who treated the study of birds as a science, and the first who made anything like a rational classification … His system … is without doubt the basis on which the ornithological classification of Linnæus is founded’ (Ornithologist's Text-book, pp. 3, 4). Ray next prepared an enlarged edition of this work in English, which he published in 1678 as ‘The Ornithology of Francis Willughby …’ his own share in which is described by the words, ‘translated into English and enlarged with many additions throughout the whole work. To which are added three considerable discourses: I. On the Art of Fowling. II. Of the Ordering of Singing Birds. III. Of Falconry,’ London (pp. 448, fol.) On 18 Feb. 1684 Ray, then settled at Black Notley, Essex, writes to Sir Tancred Robinson [q. v.] that he had extracted out of Willughby's papers, ‘revised, supplied, methodized, and fitted for the press,’ the ‘Ichthyology.’ The Willughby family not assisting in the publication of this work, as they had in the case of the former, it was issued at the expense of Bishop Fell and the Royal Society, various fellows of the society bearing the cost of the copperplate illustrations, and the work being printed at the Oxford University Press under the title of ‘Francisci Willughbeii … de Historia Piscium libri quatuor … Totum opus recognovit, coaptavit, supplevit, librum etiam primum et secundum integros adjecit Johannes Raius … Oxonii,’ 1686 (pp. 373, fol.) In the last year of his life Ray resolved to complete Willughby's ‘History of Insects,’ but, at Dr. Tancred Robinson's suggestion, preceded it by his ‘Methodus Insectorum,’ published in 1705, just after his death. In August 1704 he wrote to Dr. Derham of the larger work: ‘The main reason which induces me to undertake it is because I have Mr. Willughby's history and papers in my hands, who had spent a great deal of time and bestowed much pains upon this subject … and it is a pity his pains should be lost … I rely chiefly on Mr. Willughby's discoveries and the contributions of friends; as for my own papers on the subject they are not worth preserving.’ The ‘Historia Insectorum’ was published in 1710 as ‘auctore Joanne Raio,’ edited by Derham for the Royal Society; but it abounds throughout with acknowledgments of indebtedness to Willughby, expressed in terms of the highest
