W.D. & H.O. Wills
Overview
 
W.D. & H.O. Wills was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

 importer and cigarette
Cigarette
A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...

 manufacturer formed in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It was one of the founding companies of Imperial Tobacco
Imperial Tobacco
Imperial Tobacco is a global tobacco company headquartered in Bristol, United Kingdom. It is the world’s fourth-largest cigarette company measured by market share , and the world's largest producer of cigars, fine-cut tobacco and tobacco papers...

.
The company was founded as Wills, Watkins & Co. by Henry Overton Wills I and his partner Watkins, who opened a shop in Castle Street, Bristol in 1786. After the retirement of his partner in 1789 it became “Wills & Co.”. From 1791 to 1793 the company was known as Lilly, Wills & Co when it merged with the firm of Peter Lilly, who owned a snuff mill on the Land Yeo
Land Yeo
The Land Yeo is a small river which flows through North Somerset, England.It rises on Dundry Hill and supplies Barrow Gurney Reservoirs before flowing through various villages to Clevedon where it drains into the Bristol Channel...

 at Barrow Gurney
Barrow Gurney
Barrow Gurney is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated in the Unitary Authority of North Somerset on the B3130, midway between the A38 and A370 near the Long Ashton bypass and Bristol Airport, south west of Bristol city centre...

, and then, from 1793 to his retirement in 1803, as Lilly and Wills.
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