Shimazu Nariakira
In 1870, Willis resigned to become head of the hospital and medical school in Kagoshima at the invitation of Saigō Takamori. The institution later became the medical department of Kagoshima University. Willis married a Japanese woman in Kagoshima, Enatsu Yae (1850-1931), the daughter of a former retainer of Shimazu Nariakira, with whom he had a son, Albert (1873-1943). With the outbreak of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, Willis returned to Tokyo.