| Constituency | Dates |
|---|---|
| Totnes | 29 Dec. 1718 – 25 Dec. 1741 |
Ensign, Col. Thomas Erle’s regt. of Ft. 1689; capt. 19 Ft. 1691; maj. Col. Thos. Saunderson’s regt. of Ft. 1694, lt.-col. 1697, half-pay 1698; lt.-col. 36 Ft. 1701; adjt.-gen. to Earl of Peterborough in Spain 1705; col. 30 Ft. 1705 – 16; brig.-gen. 1707; maj.-gen. 1709; lt.-gen. 1715; col. 3 Ft. 1716 – 26, 1 Ft. Gds. 1726 – d.; gen. 1730; gen. comdg. the Ft. 1739.
Gov. Berwick-upon-Tweed 1715, Portsmouth 1718; lt.-gen. of the Ordnance 1718 – d.; P.C. 9 May 1719.
After a distinguished military career culminating in the surrender to him at Preston of the rebel army in 1715,1C. Dalton. Geo. I’s Army, i. 59-70.Wills was returned by the Duke of Bolton for Totnes, which he continued to represent till his death. In a loyal address in 1727 the Totnes corporation boasted that
our borough now sends to your senate, a Wills; who as he has been the scourge of perfidious rebels at home, will, we doubt not, on occasion, with like courage and success, vanquish and confound all your Majesty’s faith-breaking enemies abroad.2The Totnes Address Versified. To which is annex’d the Orig. Address (7th ed. 1727), p. 10.
Wills, who in 1722 was said to have been a follower of Lord Cadogan’s,3HMC Portland, vii. 329. voted consistently with the Administration. In September 1726 it was reported that he was about to become a peer and in September 1739 he seems to have expected to be made a field marshal, but neither promotion was in fact conferred,4Pol. State, xxxii. 300; Dalton, i. 69. perhaps owing to ‘the remarkable passages which happened at the review of the footguards’ in July 1737, when the King told ‘Gen. Wills that he lied, who thereupon turned his horse about and rode off the field’.5Stuart mss 201/40. He died 25 Dec. 1741 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.