3-046-987 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late Mr. Justice Willes, 1872. Engraving after a photograph by John Watkins. 'The lamented death of Sir James Shaw Willes, a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, was mentioned last week...Mr. Justice Willes ...was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1840, when he went the Home Circuit. In 1850 he was appointed a member of the Common Law Commission, and was raised to the Bench as a Puisne Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1855, at the early age of forty-one, when he was knighted...He was at his country house, Otterspool, near Watford, and had been been unwell during several days. It is considered by his medical attendant, Dr. A. T. Brett, that his heart, and finally his brain, were affected by a suppressed or undeveloped attack of gout. His manner and appearance showed an alarming degree of nervous depression, and he could not sleep. There is little doubt that his mind was disordered by the secondary effects of the disease and by want of rest. On Tuesday week he sought recreation by rowing in a boat on the river Colne, but could get no relief. Another sleepless night deprived him of reason, and he shot himself in his bed-room at seven o'clock next morning'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.