| Memorial to Henry Overton WILLS III 1828-1911 |
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at Arnos Vale Cemetery BRISTOL (see below for text)
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| Memorial to Henry Overton WILLS III 1828-1911 |
|
at Arnos Vale Cemetery BRISTOL (see below for text)
|
Many areas and buildings in the cemetery at Arnos Vale are in a poor condition after years of neglect but now a trust has been set up to care for the cemetery, repair work has begun and also The Friends of Arnos Vale Cemetery (FAVC) meet regularly to help maintain the cemetery. Tours are available around Arno's Vale cemetery.
Henry Overton Wills III died on 4th September 1911 at Kelston Knoll, Bath. He was the oldest of his fathers eighteen children and had lived in five different reigns....Throughout his life he had endured the handicaps of acute shyness and chronic ill-health, perhaps partly psychosomatic but he was endowed with a strong sense of Christian duty and with shrewd judgement in business affairs.....
After a choral service in the Cathedral, H.O. Wills III was buried on 7 September in Arnos Vale cemetery. He was entombed in the same vault as his wife Alice, who died in December 1881, his son Maitland who was killed by a fall in North Wales in April 1885, his youngest son H.O. Wills IV who died in October 1899. He lived and died as plain Mr. H.O. Wills; and the Bristol Times and Mirror of September 1911 paid him the perceptive tribute:
"He placed a great community under lasting obligation, not merely in this generation but in the generations to follow. It was a fine thing to do and he did it in the quietest best manner."
Quoted from: "Furnished with Ability, The lives and Times of Wills Families" by S.J. Watson, 1991
