Between 1929 and 2018 there were ten Wardens of Wills Hall. The post was abolished in 2018 as part of the University's review of pastoral support in halls of residence, despite significant resistance, not least from the residents of Wills and members of the WHA.

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The holders of this august office were all distinguished members of the university: the most senior of them was also the only woman to hold the role, Professor Phyllida Parsloe, a former Pro-Vice Chancellor. After Norton Matthews (a schoolmaster from Clifton College), all the incumbents also had academic appointments — as geographers (Kendall, Graves), linguists (Keigwin, Vilain), a Zoologist (Sloane), a lawyer (Rivers), a theologian (Gill), and a constitutional historian (Shell). Three incumbents had previously held military rank (Kendall, Sloane, Graves). 

 

​Two Wardens were Bristol graduates. One (Graves) was "gremial", in that he had himself been a resident of Wills as an undergraduate, and the other (Parsloe) had been a resident of Clifton Hill House as a student. Shell graduated from the LSE. The others were "Oxbridge" graduates, four from Cambridge (Norton Matthews, Emmanuel; Keigwin, Peterhouse; Kendall, Downing; Rivers, Pembroke), and two from Oxford (Gill, St John's; Vilain, Christ Church). This may have influenced the uncertainty as to how to refer to the oldest accommodation block, Old Quad or Old Court, "quad" being the Oxford norm, and "court" preferred in Cambridge.