Writings of Janet Wills, sister of William and Robert Chambers and wife of William Henry Wills

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Title
Writings of Janet Wills, sister of William and Robert Chambers and wife of William Henry Wills
Author
  • Wills, Janet
Document Type
  • Diary
Date
n.d.
Biography
Janet Wills (nee Chambers) was born in 1812, the sister of Edinburgh publishers William and Robert Chambers. She married journalist, playwright and newspaper editor William Henry Wills in 1846 in Westham. In 1851, the census records Janet and William living in the Regent’s Park area of St Pancras with William’s brother Frederick, and in 1861 at 22 Regent’s Park Terrace, with a cook and a housemaid as staff. By 1871, the couple had moved to Sherrards in Welwyn. They had no children. Janet was part of a wide literary and social circle and her name appears frequently in the correspondence of Charles Dickens. It is believed he wrote the part of Nurse Esther in The Frozen Deep for her. In 1881, Janet, now widowed, lived in London with her nephew Rudolph Chambers Lehmann and by 1891, she had moved to Sussex Gardens in Paddington. Janet died in October 1892 and was buried with her husband In Ayot Saint Peter.
Copyright and Source Archive
Material sourced from the National Library of Scotland