Dr. Samuel Fell [q. v.] and sister of Dr. John Fell [q. v.]; she died on 31 Oct. 1670, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on 3 Nov. A son Richard died on 2 May 1667, and was buried in Merton College Chapel. The only surviving son, Thomas Willis (1658–1699), was father of Browne Willis [q. v.], the great antiquary, whose account of his grandfather's life and charities, in a letter to White Kennett, is printed in Wood's ‘Athenæ,’ ed. Bliss (iii. 1048–50). Willis married, secondly, on 1 Sept. 1672, at Westminster Abbey, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Matthew Nicholas, dean of St. Paul's [see Nicholas, Sir Edward, ad fin.], and widow of Sir William Calley of Burderop Park, Wiltshire. After Willis's death she married, as her third husband, Sir Thomas Mompesson (d. 1701) of Bathampton, Wiltshire, whom also she survived, dying in her seventy-fifth year on 29 Nov. 1709, and being buried in Winchester Cathedral.
A collected edition of Willis's works, entitled ‘T. W. Opera omnia cum … multis figuris æneis,’ appeared at Geneva in 1680 (2 tom. 4to); an improved edition was published by Gerard Blasius in six parts at Amsterdam (1682, 4to). An English version, entitled ‘The remaining Medical Works of … T. W. …,’ was published in London in 1681, folio, several of the treatises being translated by Samuel Pordage [q. v.]
[Works; Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 338; postscript to Pharmaceutice Rationalis, 1679, pt. ii.; Burnet's History of his own Time, London, 1724, p. 228; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. iii. 1048; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Burrows's Parl. Visit. (Camden Soc.), Chester's Reg. West. Abbey, passim.]
WILLIS, TIMOTHY (fl. 1615), writer on alchemy, was the son of Richard Willis, leather-seller of London. He was admitted to Merchant Taylors' school on 22 April 1575, and thence was elected to a fellowship at St. John's College, Oxford, in 1578. He matriculated on 17 Nov. 1581, but was ejected from his fellowship the following year ‘for certain misdemeanours.’ He proceeded B.A. from Gloucester Hall on 10 July 1582, and was afterwards readmitted to St. John's at the request of William Cordell, and by favour of Queen Elizabeth made ‘doctor bullatus,’ and sent on an embassy to Muscovy. He published: 1. ‘Propositiones Tentationum, sive Propædeumata de Vitiis et Fœcunditate compositorum naturalium,’ London, 1615. 2. ‘The Search of Causes; containing a Theosophicall Investigation of the Possibilitie of Transmutatorie Alchemie,’ London, 1616. On the title-page of the latter work he describes himself as ‘Apprentise in Phisicke.’
[Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Wood's Fasti, ed. Bliss, vol. i. cols. 220–1; Reg. of Univ. of Oxford (Oxford Hist. Soc.), II. ii. 44, iii. 105; Robinson's Reg. of Merchant Taylors' School, i. 24.]
WILLISEL, THOMAS (d. 1675?), naturalist, was a native of Northamptonshire, according to Aubrey, or, according to Ray, of Lancashire. He served as a foot-soldier under Cromwell. ‘Lying at St. James's (a garrison then I thinke), he happened,’ writes Aubrey, ‘to go along with some simplers. He liked it so well that he desired to go with them as often as they went, and tooke such a fancy to it that in a short time he became a good botanist. He was a lusty fellow, and had an admirable sight, which is of great use for a simpler; was as hardy as a highlander; all his cloathes on his back not worth ten groates, an excellent marksman, and would maintain himselfe with his dog and his gun, and his fishing-line. The botanists of London did much encourage him, and employed him all over England, Scotland, and good part of Ireland, if not all; where he made brave discoveries, for which his name will ever be remembered in herballs. If he saw a strange fowle or bird, or a fish, he would have it and case it’ (Aubrey, Natural History of Wiltshire, ed. Britton, p. 48). He was employed by Merret for five summers to make collections for his ‘Pinax’ [see Merret, Christopher]. Weld records that in October 1669 Willisel, who had been engaged by the society to collect zoological and botanical specimens in England and Scotland, returned to London with a large collection of rare Scottish birds and fishes and dried plants (History of the Royal Society, i. 224). He also prints the sealed commission given by the society to Willisel. Evelyn, who was present at the meeting of the Royal Society in October 1669, writes: ‘Our English itinerant presented an account of his autumnal peregrinations about England, for which we hired him’ (Diary, vol. i.). In his ‘Catalogus Plantarum Angliæ,’ published in 1670, Ray styles Willisel ‘a person employed by the Royal Society in the search of natural rarities, both animals, plants, and minerals; the fittest man for such a purpose that I know in England, both for his skill and industry.’ In 1671 the great naturalist took Willisel with him on a tour through the northern counties (Memorials of Ray, ed. Lankester, p. 26). Pulteney says: ‘I believe he was once sent into Ireland by Dr. Sherard. … The emolument arising from these employments was probably among the
