Willis was born in Greenock in western central Scotland in 1798 or 1799. He was the son of Rev William Willis of Stirling, a minister of the Old Light Burghers, a Secessionist church. He grew up and was educated in Stirling. He studied at Glasgow University and the Divinity Hall in Glasgow, with further training as a Secessionist minister at the Burgher Synod. In 1821 he was ordained at the Secessionist Church at Albion Street in the Merchant City in Glasgow. From 1835 he took on the additional role as Professor of Theology at Divinity Hall. In 1839, as part of a wider absorption of the Secessionist Church, he became a minister of the Church of Scotland, also being one of the leading organisers of this union. He was then moved to Renfield Street Church. This association proved to be brief and in the Disruption of 1843 he left the established church and joined the Free Church of Scotland. He was sent to Canada in 1845 to spread the views of the Free Church. In 1847 he was appointed Professor of Theology at Knox College, Toronto. In 1857, the college not having previously been fully organised, he was elected as its first Principal. He was instrumental in creating the college constitution which aims to further the Calvinist ideals within Christianity. From 1851 he was the first President of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada. This was highly involved in the rescue and sanctuary end of the so-called "Underground Railway" which helped many thousands of slaves escape America to find safety in Canada. In this process he befriended and aided Rev William King and was noteworthy for giving the very first communion to a group of fugitive negro slaves arrived at their mission church at Buxton in Ontario. Queen's University, Kingston awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1863. In 1870 he stood down as both Professor and Principal of Knox College. He was in the same year elected the first Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Canada. In this he replaced Rev William Ormiston who had done much of the work in establishing the church formally and organising its first Synod. He retired to London but spent much time as a guest preacher in Scotland. He died on 18 August 1879 whilst preaching for an old friend at Aberlour near Banff in northern Scotland.
Publications
Discourse on National Establishments of Christianity
The Late Union between the Church of Scotland and the Associate Synod
