John Willis (bishop)


John Jamieson Willis was an Anglican bishop, Bishop of Uganda from 1912 to 1934 and subsequently Assistant Bishop of Leicester. He and William George Peel, Bishop of Mombasa, were accused of heresy during the Kikuyu controversy.

Biography

Born on 8 November 1872, the second son of Sir William Willis, Accountant-General of the Navy, and great-grandson of Joseph Tucker, Surveyor of the Navy Willis was educated at Haileybury and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he took a Bachelor of Arts in 1894, Cambridge Master of Arts in 1899, and Doctor of Divinity in 1912. He was ordained in 1895 and began his career with a curacy in Great Yarmouth. Then he began a long period of service as a CMS missionary in Africa eventually becoming Archdeacon of Kavirondo before his appointment to the episcopate in 1912. In 1934 he returned to England to be Assistant Bishop of Leicester. He died on 12 November 1954.