WILLS, ISAAC

Carpenter (and architect?), of Dublin, active in the first and second quarters of the eighteenth century. Isaac Wills, who was born circa 1667, appears to have been a son of a Michael Wills (d. 1675) and his wife Joanna (d. 1713) who are buried with two of their children in the same grave as himself in Donnybrook old churchyard. On the gravestone he is designated 'Capt. Isaac Wills' which may indicate that he came to architecture via the military engineering route. All his known work was carried out in association with the surveyors-general William Robinson and Thomas Burgh, including Robinson's Marsh's Library and St Mary's Church and Burgh's anatomy house and library at Trinity College,(1) St Werburgh's Church, and Steevens's Hospital. He also worked on St Ann's church which is probably likewise by Burgh.

Wills died on 1 June 1753 at the age of eighty-six. Faulkner's Dublin Journal for 5 June 1753 carried the following impressive announcement:(2) 'Last Friday died in a very advanced age, Mr Isaac Wills, the eldest Freeman of Dublin, and one of the greatest Architects the Nation hath produced, being concerned in most of the public Building for more than fifty years past, particularly those fine Fabrics, the Libraries of St Sepulchre's and the University, the Parish Churches of St Mary's, St Anne's, and St Werburg's, etc.' His wife Mary (1676?-1732) had predeceased him over twenty years earlier. He was survived by a son, the architect MICHAEL WILLS MICHAEL WILLS , and three daughters, Martha Bowman and Eleanor and Patience Wills. Confusingly an 'Isaac Wills, architect' with a Clarendon Street address is listed in Wilson's Dublin Directory from 1769 to 1783. Casey suggests that Michael Wills, who does not appear in the directories, chose to continue the family business under his father's name.(3)

Isaac Wills was a subscriber to The Natural History of North Carolina, published in Dublin by John Brickell in 1737.

See WORKS.

References

All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from the inscription on the Wills family gravestone in Donnybrook old churchyard, published in Journal of the Association for the Preservation of the Memorials of the Dead, Ireland II, 83.

(1) For payments to Wills at Trinity between 1710 and 1724, see Trinity muniments, MUN/P/2/24/19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 31, 36-41, 43, 44, 47, 48, 51, 52, 54, 58, 59, 61-4, 66, 69-72.
(2) The grand claims on Isaac Wills's behalf may have had something to do with the fact that Faulkner would have known Michael Wills well as a fellow Friendly Brother.
(3) Christine Casey, '"De architectura": an Irish eighteenth-century gloss', Architectural History 37 (1994), 93.

9 work entries listed in chronological order for WILLS, ISAAC

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Building:	CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, MARY STREET, ST MARY'S CHURCH (CI)
Date:	1700p
Nature:	IW 'concerned in most of the public Building for more than fifty years past, particularly those fine Fabrics, the Libraries of St Sepulchre's and the University, the Parish Churches of St Mary's, St Anne's, and St Werburg's, etc.' (FS of church said to have been laid on 11 Apr 1700.)
Refs:	Notice of death in Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 5 Jun 1753;  Irish Ecclesiastical Gazette 4, no. 31 (15 Jan 1862), 372.

Building:	CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, COLLEGE GREEN, TRINITY COLLEGE, ANATOMY HOUSE (1710-11)
Date:	1710-11
Nature:	IW worked for Thomas Burgh on same.
Refs:	E. McParland, Public Architecture in Ireland: 1680-1760 (2001), 146

Building:	CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, COLLEGE GREEN, TRINITY COLLEGE, LIBRARY (OLD)
Date:	1712-1730p
Nature:	IW 'concerned in most of the public Building for more than fifty years past, particularly those fine Fabrics, the Libraries of St Sepulchre's and the University, the Parish Churches of St Mary's, St Anne's, and St Werburg's, etc.'
Refs:	Notice of death in Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 5 Jun 1753; E. McParland, Public Architecture in Ireland: 1680-1760 (2001), 84,146

Building:	CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, WERBURGH STREET, ST WERBURGH'S CHURCH (CI)
Date:	1715-19;1730-31
Nature:	IW carpenter for same. negotiates re carpentry for tower (& steeple?), 1730 and erects wooden cupola on tower, 1731.
Refs:	Notice of death in Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 5 Jun 1753; Rev. S.C. Hughes, The Church of S. Werburgh, Dublin (1889), 27-28; K. Severens, 'A new perspective on Georgian building practice; the rebuilding of St Werburgh's Church, Dublin (1754-59)' BIGS 35 (1992-93), 3,4.

Building:	CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, COOMBE, ST LUKE'S CHURCH (CI)
Date:	1716p
Nature:	IW carpenter for new church designed by Thomas Burgh.
Refs:	Christine Casey, The Buildings of Ireland: Dublin (2005), 626.

Building:	CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, DAWSON STREET, ST ANN'S CHURCH (CI)
Date:	1719
Nature:	IW 'concerned in most of the public Building for more than fifty years past, particularly those fine Fabrics, the Libraries of St Sepulchre's and the University, the Parish Churches of St Mary's, St Anne's, and St Werburg's, etc.'
Refs:	Notice of death in Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 5 Jun 1753;  Christine Casey, The Buildings of Ireland:  Dublin (2005), 469.

Building:	CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, STEEVENS'S LANE, STEEVENS'S HOSPITAL
Date:	1719-1733
Nature:	Worked on same as carpenter. Paid £55.8s. on 16 Nov 1732.
Refs:	MS. Cash Book of Michael Wills (Acc. 81/88), f.8; E. McParland, Public Architecture in Ireland: 1680-1760 (2001), 84

Building:	CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, BOW LANE, ST PATRICK'S HOSPITAL
Date:	1748
Nature:	Wills and Semple said to have been asked to supply designs for hospital, but Semple's designs preferred.
Refs:	MS notes comparing proposals for hospital by Michael Wills and George Semple, 1748, in St Patrick's Hospital Archives, F/1;  M. Craig, ed., The Legacy of Swift(1948), 32-35(illus.)

Building:	CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, PATRICK'S CLOSE, MARSH'S LIBRARY
Date:	?
Nature:	IW 'concerned in most of the public Building for more than fifty years past, particularly those fine Fabrics, the Libraries of St Sepulchre's and the University, the Parish Churches of St Mary's, St Anne's, and St Werburg's, etc.'
Refs:	Notice of death in Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 5 Jun 1753