George Willis is likely to be the soldier and artist Lieutenant George Brander Willis (1790¬-1868) of the Royal Artillery. Willis retired on half-pay in 1823 to his estates at Sopley Park, Hampshire. In 1834 he sold Sopley Park to John Kemp-Welch, owner of the Schweppes company. Although Willis is not known to have exhibited his work, he produced numerous landscape views including a ‘View of Bayonne’ (1814), etched and engraved by John Clark and Matthew Dubourg; a watercolour ‘Panoramic view of St Helier's, Jersey’ (c.1856) and a series of 25 drawings made during the Peninsular Compaign (1862). In addition his notebooks of 1814 to 1819 are of interest to ornithologists for their records of bird-life made in the area Kingston, Surrey.
