Henry Overton Wills III of Kelston Knoll, near Bath in Somerset, was a prominent and wealthy member of the Bristol tobacco manufacturing family of Wills which founded the firm of W. D. & H. O. Wills. As a philanthropist his best-known act was the funding of the University of Bristol, founded in 1909, of which he became the first Chancellor.
Henry Overton Wills III
The cathedral-like Wills Memorial Building in Bristol, built in memory of Henry Overton Wills III by his two eldest sons
Coats of arms on the Wills Memorial Building, built by the eldest two sons of Henry Overton Wills III: centre: arms of the University of Bristol; left: arms of Sir George Alfred Wills, 1st Baronet, with a canton of a baronet (the Red Hand of Ulster); right: arms of Henry Herbert Wills, with a crescent for the difference of a second son
W.D. & H.O. Wills was a British tobacco manufacturing company formed in Bristol, England. It was the first British company to mass-produce cigarettes. It was one of the 13 founding companies of the Imperial Tobacco Company ; these firms became branches, or divisions, of the new combine and included John Player & Sons.
Wills former factory in Newcastle upon Tyne, pictured in 2009
Henry O. Wills, founder
The former W.D. & H.O. Wills warehouse building in Perth, pictured in 2018
Cut Golden Bar tobacco tin
