Willes, Sir James Shaw (1814–72), judge, was born 13 February 1814 in Cork, eldest among six children of James Willes, physician, and his wife, Elizabeth Aldworth, daughter of John Shaw, mayor of Cork in 1792. Educated at Dr Porter's school in Cork and TCD, he graduated BA in 1836, having entered the King's Inns the previous year. In 1837 he went to London and joined the Inner Temple as a pupil of the noted barrister Thomas Chitty (1802–78), in whose chambers he remained as a salaried assistant and special pleader before being called to the English bar (12 June 1840). The Willes and Chitty families were connected, and James's younger sister, Mary, later married Thomas Chitty's son.
Willes joined the home circuit, though his practice was chiefly in London in mercantile and shipping cases. A leading junior in the court of exchequer, Willes held the post of tubman from 1851; this was an honorary position in the gift of the lord chief baron. Known for his erudition, he was persuaded to edit, with Sir Henry Singer Keating, the third and fourth editions of John William Smith's Leading cases (1849, 1856). In 1850 his reputation was such that he was appointed one of the commissioners to draft the common law procedure bill (1854) and was credited with having effected most of the reform therein. On 3 July 1855 he was appointed judge of the court of common pleas, though he had not yet taken silk and was only 41, the youngest lawyer but one to have been appointed to the bench since 1778.
A classical scholar and linguist who knew oriental as well as European languages, who travelled widely, loved poetry, and frequented literary men, and whose judgments were clear and philosophical, Willes was accounted among the best common-law judges of his day, and was celebrated for the simplicity and lucidity of his style. Notable judgments include Esposito v. Bowden (1857), which laid down that the force of a declaration of war was equal to that of an act of parliament prohibiting commercial transactions with the enemy. In the law of torts he gave an oft-cited judgment in the case of Indermaur v. Dames (1866), which has been accepted almost as statutory, on the liability of the occupier of a building for the safety of a visitor. One of the first judges appointed (in 1868) to try election petitions, he laid down the rules of practice afterwards generally followed. A strong British patriot, he served in the Inns of Court Volunteers from 1859 until shortly before his death.
On 3 November 1871 Willes was sworn of the privy council; however, his health had deteriorated through overwork and an emotional temperament, and he had long suffered heart disease and gout. In August 1872, after a heavy assize at Liverpool, he returned to his house, Otterspool, Watford, Hertfordshire, and succumbed to a nervous breakdown, which led to his shooting himself on 2 October 1872. He was buried on 7 October at Brompton cemetery, and was survived fifteen years by his wife, Helen, daughter of Thomas Jennings of Cork (m. 17 May 1856). There were no children.
A tall, reserved man, with a prominent nose and sad eyes, Willes had great affection for children and animals and was singularly emotional, ‘known to return to his room and shed tears before passing sentence on a criminal’ (Manson, 130). He never lost his Irish accent. His marriage was allegedly unhappy, as he had been forced into it after he had fallen out of love. Sir Frederick Pollock (1845–1937), author of the magisterial History of English law and sometime marshal to Willes, dedicated to him his first textbook on torts in 1879, writing that he was ‘one of those whose knowledge is radiant and kindles answering fire’ (Holdsworth, xv, 506). A century later, A. W. B. Simpson maintained that ‘his reputation as a jurist will last as long as the law reports of England are read’ (Simpson, 537).