Bristol
University's Wills
Memorial Tower rises to a height of 215 feet and houses
the ten
ton
bell known as Great
George. The tower was commissioned and paid for by
Sir George Alfred and Henry
Herbert Wills as a memorial to their father Henry Overton
Wills, the first Chancellor of
the
University. The Tower
was designed by Sir George Oatley
and was opened by King George V in 1925.
Henry Overton's
grandfather, also called Henry
Overton, founded the Wills tobacco company
in
1786. In 1826 Henry's
sons Willam Day and
Henry Overton succeeded to the business, which then
became
W.D. & H.O. Wills,
and in 1886
the company moved from Redcliffe to East Street, Bedminster. Wills
once
employed over a
thousand
people in South Bristol and was considered as one of the best employers
in the city.
Wills
was one of the thirteen firms which came together in 1901
to
create Imperial Tobacco.
In 1974 production in Bristol was transferred to a new
site in Hartcliffe, the largest cigarette
factory in Euope. The East Street factory was demolished in 1986,
although the frontage was
retained. The Hartcliffe factory ceased production in 1990 and was
demolished in 1999.