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Birth of a university
It is fitting that the other great architectural legacy of the Wills family is part of the university. Without financial donations from the Wills family, the University College of Bristol may never have opened its doors in 1876. Over the years, the family pledged millions of pounds to guarantee the creation and growth of the university. In 1909, HO Wills became the university's first chancellor.
King George V opened the Wills Tower in 1925. Conceived as a memorial to their father Henry Overton Wills, the tower was commissioned and paid for by Sir George and Henry Herbert Wills.
Standing at 215 feet (65.5m), this extravagant structure has been called the last great Gothic building to be constructed in England. The building was originally designed to provide about 50 rooms resplendent with carved wood, panelling and feature windows. The tower now houses the Faculty of Law and Department of Geology.
The Tower is crowned by the Octagonal Lantern, an open structure designed to let the resounding tones of England's fourth largest bell, 'Great George', reverberate across the city.
Legacies
© The Tobacco Factory
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The factory on Raleigh Road and the Wills Tower share little architecturally, but both owe their existence to the tobacco leaf and the entrepreneurial skills of the Wills family. They reflect perfectly the influence of the Wills family on the architecture of the locality through both industry and philanthropy.
These two imposing structures also stand as testimony to the importance of Bristol's trading links with the New World over the centuries, which go right back to the 15th Century, and Cabot's voyage to North America .
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