Alfred Wills

Sir Alfred Wills PC (11 December 1828 – 9 August 1912) was a British High Court judge and a well-known mountaineer. He was the third President of the Alpine Club from 1863 to 1865.

Early life

Wills was the second son of William Wills, JP, of Edgbaston, Birmingham, and of his wife Sarah Wills, a daughter of Jeremiah Ridout. He was educated at a school in Edgbaston and at University College London, where he held exhibitions and scholarships in Mathematics, Classics and Law, graduating BA in 1849 and LLB in 1851.

Legal career

Wills became a barrister from Middle Temple in 1851 and was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1872. He was first Recorder of Sheffield, 1881–84; a Judge of the Queen's and King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, 1884–1905, President of the Railway and Canal Commission, 1888–1893, and Treasurer of the Middle Temple, 1892-1893.

During his career as a judge, Alfred Wills notably presided over the trial in which Oscar Wilde was convicted for "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons".