The 1332 Subsidy list for Devon is the earliest document that I am aware of that gives an overall distribution of surnames and this shows the only WILLS around this area is Henry atte wille (meaning Henry living by the water) in Ilsington, he paid a subsidy of 8d . Next documents available are the Bovey Tracey Court Rolls and in 1428 William WILLE is accused of hunting the Lords rabbits with dogs, in 1429 John and William WILLE are appointed jurors for the King, in 1458 Henry Wille of Langaller is in plea of contract.
Note: Langaller or Brimley was an ancient manor with a stream and mill divided by the Bovey Tracey and Ilsington boundary, could this 1458 Henry be a descendant of the 1332 Henry and could they be the origins of the Lustleigh family? Several other mentions of the surname continue in Bovey Tracey Court Rolls through to 1531 when the parish registers start.
In 1497 John WILLE of Henley on Thames sold land in Bovey Tracey, probably indicating that he originated there. No research has been done on this possible branch. Perhaps he was the first of our worldwide family?
Parish Registers start in 1528, with Lay Subsidy lists for 1525 and 1544. The 1525 list shows a John WILLE in Bovey Tracey but by 1544 there is also Richard in Bovey, Henry in Christow, John in Bridford, Joan in Dunsford and Michael in Ashton. This suggests a possible migration from Bovey along the Teign valley. In 1577 Henry of Christow purchases 1/4 of Wreyland and his son Thomas a further 1/4 indicating an ongoing source of wealth. Documentation associated with Henry's land in Wreyland shows his name variously spelt as WILL, WILLE or WILLS. These documents are well covered by Cecil Torr in his book Wreyland Documents. A Henry WYLL is also mentioned in the Christow Court Rolls of 1562 but no mention of a WYLL there in earlier documents.
In 1586 George WILLS (later of Hisley) was baptized in Bovey Tracey to John, followed by two daughters Dunes and Elizabeth and then Christopher in 1592. Unfortunately there were three Johns baptized about 1564 who could have been their fathers. A John of Christow died in 1629 and George of Hisley purchased 1/3 Lustleigh manor with others in 1630, so we speculate that he used his recent inheritance from John of Christow. Furthermore a Dewnes Wills, probably a daughter of Henry married in 1577 at Christow, was George's sister named after her?. We know from the registers that John of Christow's father was Geoffrey of Christow and we speculate that he was a brother to Henry of Christow who purchased 1/4 of Wreyland and that they both benefited from the same source of wealth which might have been mining.
We will probably never know if our guesses are correct. But it is a fact that the WILLS family of Narracombe, the land of which includes old Brimley land, are in the same parish today, nearly 700 years later, as Henry atte wille in 1332.
In the past there have been suggestions that the WILLMEAD surname and the WILLS surname were one and the same but a closer look at all the information now available suggests that this is not the case. As a result of family names given in a chancery document at the National Archives in Kew we also now know there were at least two Henrys, the one who purchased part of Wreyland in 1577 and probably the other was the Henry WILLE at Willmead mentioned in the 1566 survey of Wreyland, it appears they were both born within some 10 years of each other.
