Gerald Wills was knighted for six years service in the Whips’ Office under three Prime Ministers and two Chief Whips. This culminated in his appointment as Comptroller of the Royal Household in January 1957. He stood down in October 1958. He was well regarded by his colleagues in the House who had elected him joint Secretary of the 1922 committee nine months after he entered the House of Commons and later elected him Chairman of the Conservative Home Affairs Committee. He continued to serve on the bench while a whip and in 1954 was one of the magistrates at Trowbridge who ruled that the Decameron was not obscene.
Wills was born on 3 October 1905 in Wiltshire into a wealthy family, who educated him privately. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge to study law. He studied for the Bar between 1929 and 1932 and was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1932.
On 19 July 1927 he married Amy Mary Louise, daughter of Ivo Peters, always known as Toddie, at All Saints, Corston near Bristol. His parents lived at Hill House in Corston. Their only son, Ronald, was married in April 1961.
He served in the Second World War as a Territorial with the Royal Artillery and from 1942 until 1045 was DAAG at the Headquarters of Southern Command.
At the end of the war Wills fought Bridgwater as a Conservative candidate, but could not gain the seat from Vernon Bartlett, who had won it as an 'Independent Progressive' in a 1938 by-election. He returned to the Bar, and was appointed a JP for Wiltshire in 1946. At the 1950 general election Wills was successful in regaining Bridgewater for the Conservative party and he held the seat until his death. In November 1950 he was elected joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee.
He was appointed an unpaid Assistant Government Whip on 3 November 1952, and was promoted to be Lord Commissioner of the Treasury on 26 October 1954. He retained this position under Anthony Eden. When Harold Macmillan became Prime Minister, he appointed Wills as Comptroller of Her Majesty's Household (normally the third highest position in the Whip's Office). Wills was knighted in the Birthday Honours June 1958 and left office in the following October 1958.
In 1959 he introduced a bill to amend the National Assistance Act with a view to clarifying the responsibility of local authorities in regard to the housing of long stay patients and those in sheltered employment.
In November 1960 he was one of five Members backing Edward Du Cann in advocating a national Disasters Fund to help the victims of recent flooding. He also introduced a private member's bill to amend the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Acts to permit County Councils to grant aid certain water and sewerage schemes where there was a Government grant.
In February 1961 he was one of the 65 Members who signed Robin Turton’s motion calling on the Government to adhere to the principles set out in the 1958 white paper when framing the proposals for constitutional advance in Northern Rhodesia.
On 1 June 1961 an interesting letter from him about whipping appeared in the correspondence column of The Times. It was a rebuttal of charges of “over-rigorous Conservative Party discipline” and the “brow-beating of backbenchers” and he argued that it was the primary duty of a Chief Whip and his whips to maintain a government. Necessarily when the majority was small the pressure on Members to attend and vote was considerable, but with a three figure majority the pressure had greatly relaxed and the majorities reported showed that to be the case. As for “brow-beating”, he simply did not believe it happened. If the reference was to the normal and reasonable persuasion that it was the Whip’s duty to exercise, “new Members must be much more tender flowers than UI believe them to ne”. What he had noted, however, was a tendency to move away from the old custom of Members whose “views were strong and feelings deep” being accorded a free vote while on lesser matters they indicated disagreement by abstention. Active opposition in the lobby was now the norm. He saw no harm in that if the public realised that there was nothing particularly constructive, brave or glamorous in such actions. Those who indulged must realise that they could only act in that way without risking a general election because of the loyalty of those so glibly called the “faceless ones”.
Wills was a member of the Public Accounts Committee and Chairman of the Conservative Home Affairs Committee 1962-4, becoming Vice Chairman when the party moved into Opposition and the shadow spokesman took the chair. He had been the Committee’s joint Vice Chairman from 1960. He also served on the Departmental Committee on Licensing Planning 1964-65.
Wills was a member of Lloyds and from 1959 a director of Williams and Williams Ltd. He was appointed a JP in 1946.
Early in February 1969 Wills announced that on medical advice, he would not fight the next General Election, but he remained in the House and died after a brief illness on 31 October 1969.
A memorial service was held in St Margaret’s, Westminster on 2 December 1969. An obituary appeared in The Times on 3 November 1969.