Willys baronets

There have been two baronetcies- both extinct- granted to the Willises of Fen Ditton, both in the Baronetage of England.

The Willis (also Willys) Baronetcy, of Fen Ditton in Cambridgeshire, was first created in the Baronetage of England on 15 December 1641 for Thomas Willis (the surname often alternatively given as "Willys"), son and heir of Inner Temple barrister and landowner Richard Willys, of Fen Ditton and Horningsey, Cambridgeshire, by Jane, daughter and heir of William Henmarsh, of Ball's Park, in Ware, Hertfordshire. Richard's brother, Thomas, was Clerk of the Crown in Chancery.

Secondly, Sir Richard Willis (knighted in 1642), the younger brother of Thomas, with the same parentage, was also created Baronet of Fen Ditton (on 11 June 1646). Sir Richard, who fought as an officer in the Royalist army during the Civil War, also worked as a double-agent for Oliver Cromwell during the Interregnum and was banned from court following the Restoration, retiring to his estate having married a rich wife. Sir Richard's son Sir Thomas Fox Willis died in 1701 without issue, having been born, according to the medical notes made by his grandfather, the physician Thomas Foxe, 'bereft of his wits'; this baronetcy therefore became extinct.

The baronetcy granted to Thomas Willys passed to his son John Willys (2nd Baronet), then to his grandson Thomas Willys (3rd Baronet), but his great-grandson, also Thomas Willys (4th Baronet) died without issue in 1725; the baronetcy passed to another Thomas Willys, the 4th Baronet's first cousin once removed (the son of Sir John Willys, 2nd Baronet's younger brother, the third son William, a London merchant; his elder brother, the second son, Richard Willys, was a gentleman pensioner of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms to King Charles II, and died unmarried). On Thomas's death in 1726 his younger brother William inherited the title, but died childless in 1732, predeceased by the only remaining heir, his first cousin, John Willys (vide infra), making the baronetcy extinct.

Confirmation of the extinction of the 1641 baronetcy

The extinction of the 1641 creation was explored by Arthur J. Willis in Genealogy for Beginners. When researching his (it came to be shown) unrelated Willis ancestors, he visited the College of Arms regarding a potential link to the baronetical Willyses, and observed: 'I was told that the male line of the grandsons had died out, though there was a suggestion without evidence that the last member of the family, John, had refused the baronetcy because he was in trade and had gone North'.