When Willard played the part of Judah Llewellyn for the first time in America, 29 December 1890, at Palmer's Theatre, he gained a verdict of emphatic admiration.

Willard had long been known and esteemed, in New York, by the dramatic profession and by those persons who habitually observed the changing aspects of the Stage on both sides of the ocean, but to the American public his name had been comparatively strange.

In 1906, he retired from the stage, but returned on special occasions, as in 1911 for the gala performance at His Majesty's Theatre, London, to play the part of Brutus in the forum scene from Julius Caesar.

In 1875 Willard married Emily Waters, the daughter of a government civil servant attached to the Woolwich Arsenal station in London.

Emily Waters was originally an actress but later turned to writing children’s stories and plays under the pseudonym Rachel Penn.