Willis also wrote: 1. ‘Notitia Parliamentaria; or an History of the Counties, Cities, and Boroughs in England and Wales,’ 1715, 3 vols., 1716, 1750; 2nd ed. with additions, 1730, 1716, 1750 (but the last two volumes are of the original edition). A single sheet of this work on the borough of Windsor was printed in folio in 1733, and is now very scarce. 2. ‘History of the Mitred Parliamentary Abbies and Conventual Cathedral Churches,’ 1718–19, 2 vols. (cf. Rel. Hearnianæ, ed. Bliss, 1857, i. 428). He had previously drawn up ‘A View of the Mitred Abbeys, with a Catalogue of their respective Abbots,’ for Hearne's edition of Leland's ‘Collectanea’ (1715, vi. 97–264), the Latin preface of which is addressed to him. Both the preface and the paper on the abbeys and abbots are reprinted in the 1770 and 1774 editions. 3. ‘Parochiale Anglicanum; or the Names of all the Churches and Chapels in thirteen Dioceses,’ 1733. 4. ‘Table of the Gold Coins of the Kings of England, by B. W.,’ 1733, small folio a hundred copies, and the same number on large paper, which are said to have been printed at the expense of Vertue; it was included in the ‘Vetusta Monumenta.’ 5. ‘History and Antiquities of the Town, Hundred, and Deanery of Buckingham,’ 1755. Cole's copy, with notes copied from those by Willis, is in the Grenville Library, British Museum. Cole also transcribed and methodised in two folio volumes, now with the Cole manuscripts at the British Museum, his ‘History of the Hundreds of Newport and Cotslow’ to match this volume on Buckingham. Willis had circulated queries for information on the county in 1712.
In 1717 Willis published anonymously ‘The Whole Duty of Man, abridged for the benefit of the Poorer Sort,’ and in 1752 an anonymous address ‘To the Patrons of Ecclesiastical Livings.’ Editions of John Ecton's ‘Thesaurus rerum Ecclesiasticarum,’ with corrections and additions by Willis, came out in 1754 and 1763. He assisted in Samuel Gale's ‘Winchester Cathedral’ (1710), W. Thomas's ‘Antiquities of Worcester’ (1717), Tanner's ‘Notitia Monastica’ (1744), and Hutchins's ‘Dorset.’ He also aided and corresponded with Francis Peck [q. v.] Early in life he had made some collections on Cardinal Wolsey (Hearne, Collections, ed. Doble, i. 71, ii. 261), and communications from him on antiquarian topics are inserted in the ‘Archæologia’ (i. 60, 204, viii. 88–110).
John Nichols possessed numerous letters of Willis, including a thick volume of those to Dr. Ducarel. Many communications to and from him are printed in Nichols's ‘Illustrations of Literature’ (i. 811–12, ii. 796, 806–7, iii. 485–6, 532–3, iv. 113), ‘Letters from the Bodleian Library’ (1813), and in Hearne's ‘Collections’ (Oxford Hist. Soc.).
[Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, ii. 35, vi. 120, 186–211 (mainly from a memoir by Dr. Ducarel, read before Soc. of Antiquaries, 22 May and 12 June 1760, and printed in eight quarto pages), viii. 217–23; Hutchins's Dorset, 2nd ed. i. 100, 104–105, iv. 327–37; Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire, iv. 10–14, 18–37, 55, 75; Hearne's Coll. ed. Doble, i. 117, iii. 350; Misc. Geneal. et Heraldica, ii. 45–6; Chester's Westminster Abbey, p. 20; Halkett and Laing's Anon. Lit. pp. 2106, 2535, 2601, 2811; Biogr. Britannica; Rel. Hearnianæ, ed. Bliss, ii. 579–81, 609.]
WILLIS, FRANCIS (1718–1807), physician, born on 17 Aug. 1718, was third son of John Willis, one of the vicars of Lincoln Cathedral, and his wife Genevra, daughter of James Darling of Oxford. He matriculated from Lincoln College, Oxford, on 30 May 1734, migrated to St. Alban Hall, and proceeded B.A. on 21 March 1738–9, and M.A. on 10 Feb. 1740–1 from Brasenose College, of which he was fellow and subsequently vice-principal. In obedience to his father he took holy orders, but he had so strong an inclination for medicine that even while an undergraduate he studied it and attended the lectures of Nathan Alcock [q. v.], with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. In 1749 he married Mary, youngest daughter of the Rev. John Curtois of Bramston, Lincolnshire, and took up his residence at Dunston in that county. He is said to have at first practised medicine without a license, but in 1759 the university of Oxford conferred on him the degrees of M.B. and M.D. In 1769 he was appointed physician to a hospital in Lincoln which he had taken an active part in establishing. For the six following years he never ceased to attend it regularly twice a week, though distant nearly ten miles from his own home. In the course of this work he treated successfully several cases of mental derangement, and patients were brought to him from great distances. To accommodate them he removed to a larger house at Gretford, near Stamford.
When George III experienced his first attack of madness, Willis was called in on 5 Dec. 1788. He encountered considerable opposition from the regular physicians, being ‘considered by some not much better than a mountebank, and not far different from some of those that are confined in his house’ (Sheffield, Auckland Correspondence, ii. 256). From the first he maintained
