Henry WILLIAMS

1792 - 1867  (75 years)

• Name	Henry WILLIAMS
  Born	11 Feb 1792
  Christened	13 Apr 1792	Gosport, Hampshire, England   [1]
  Gender	Male
  Died	16 Jul 1867	Paihia, New Zealand
  Person ID	I122	Blyth Family Tree
  Last Modified	31 Mar 2018

  
  

  Father	Thomas WILLIAMS,   b. 27 May 1753, Gosport, Hampshire, England ,   d. 6 Jan 1804, Sneinton, Nottinghamshire, England  (Age 50 years)
  Mother	Mary MARSH,   b. 10 Apr 1756, Gosport, Hampshire, England ,   d. 7 Nov 1831  (Age 75 years)
  Married	17 Apr 1783	Holy Trinity, Gosport, Hampshire, England   [2]
  Family ID	F60	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  According to family information Henry Williams was born on 11 Februar y 1 7 92; he was baptised on 13 April at Gosport, Hampshire, England . He was t h e fifth child and third son of Thomas Williams, a lace ma nufacturer, a n d his wife, Mary Marsh. His parents were relatively we ll off until the d e ath of his father in 1804. Two years later, at th e age of 14, Henry en t ered the Royal Navy as a midshipman, with aspi rations to be an officer . T he nearly 10 years that he spent in the n avy were far from easy; con di tions on naval vessels were extremely h arsh during the Napoleonic war s . Having seen active service in man y parts of the world he was dischar g ed from the navy in August 181 5 as a lieutenant on half pay. The last c a ptain under whom he serve d noted that he had behaved with diligence an d s obriety. With the end of the Napoleonic wars unemployment, particularly among h a l fpay lieutenants, was very high; Henry had to find a new vocation . He w o rked for a while as a drawing master, but at the same time be gan to pr e pare himself for the mission field. His parents were Disse nters, and l i ke many missionaries who came from homes influenced b y evangelical Chr i stianity, he experienced a gradual conversion rath er than a sudden ill u mination. From about 1816 he came under the tut elage of his evangelica l b rother-in-law, Edward Marsh, a member of t he Church Missionary Socie ty a nd later vicar of Aylesford. But his f irm decision to become a miss ion ary was probably made after his marr iage to Marianne Coldham at Nune ha m Courtenay, Oxfordshire, on 20 Ja nuary 1818. In 1819 Henry Williams offered his services to the CMS. He was accepte d f i rst as a lay settler, and then in 1820 as a missionary candidate . Alth o ugh Marsh thought that he had no 'great proficiency in the Gr eek and L a tin language', he was ordained a priest 'for the cure of s ouls in his m a jesty's foreign possessions' in 1822. Before leaving f or New Zealand h e a lso took instruction in the practical areas of me dicine, weaving, tw in ing, basket making, and, during the voyage out , shipbuilding. With Ma r ianne and three children he arrived at the B ay of Islands on the Bramp t on on 3 August 1823. Henry Williams was severely tested during the early months in the Ba y o f I slands, as he assumed the leadership of a mission beset by pro blems. T h e CMS mission to New Zealand was nearly 10 years old when h e arrived, b u t not a single Maori had been converted. The missionari es were still l a rgely dependent on the Maori for food and supplies ; and under the lead e rship of Thomas Kendall and John Butler the mis sion had been torn apar t b y bitter personal disputes. Having settled himself and his family at Paihia, Henry first attende d t o t he secular side of the mission. He wanted to reduce the missio naries ' i nvolvement with the trading captains of Kororareka (Russell ), to end t h eir dependence on the Maori for supplies, and most of al l he wanted to s t op the musket trade in which the missionaries had b een forced to engag e . He quickly imposed regulations on the missiona ries' trading, but it w a s the completion in 1826, under Henry's dire ction, of the 50 ton schoo n er Herald that really made the mission in dependent of local influences . Meantime Henry had also put his mind to the spiritual aspect of missio n a ry work. He soon concluded that the mission had placed too much em phas i s on 'civilising' the Maori. In this he differed from Samuel Ma rsden, f o under of the mission, who had emphasised teaching useful ar ts and agri c ulture as a prelude to conversion. Henry argued that th e emphasis on s e cular instruction distracted the missionaries from t he far more import a nt task of bringing the Maori to Christianity. H e began to reorganise t h e mission so that more time could be devote d to spiritual teaching. To better carry out this essential task, Henry argued that mission mem b e rs needed to spend more time learning the Maori language, preachin g to t h e tribes in the surrounding area, and teaching in the school s on the m i ssion stations; to do all these things most of the person nel would hav e t o be concentrated in one place. Paihia became the he adquarters and t he re the missionaries began by devoting regular amou nts of time to lear n ing Maori together. The arrival of Henry's broth er William, in 1826, g a ve a great impetus to this programme: all mem bers benefited from Willi a m's talent for languages. Having more miss ionaries at one station mean t t hat they were able to visit the surro unding villages more frequently a n d, as they became proficient in Ma ori, their preaching was more effect i ve. Schooling for Maori childre n was revitalised under Henry and his w i fe, Marianne, and more stude nts attended classes regularly. Working ef f ectively together fostere d harmonious relations among the missionaries t h emselves; Henry clai med that the Maori noticed their greater unity and p u rpose. Henry Williams's forceful personality and discipline were perhaps as i m p ortant as his policies in reorganising the mission, and these char acte r istics also contributed to his growing mana among the Maori. Al though h i s capacity to comprehend the indigenous culture was severel y constrain e d by his evangelical Christianity, his obduracy was in s ome ways an ad v antage in dealings with the Maori. From the time of h is arrival he ref u sed to be intimidated by the threats and boisterou s actions of utu and m u ru plundering parties. By the late 1820s he f elt confident enough to i n tervene in intertribal disputes and on sev eral occasions was able to n e gotiate peace between hostile groups. S uch peacemaking was both a caus e a nd a consequence of his growing pr estige among the Maori. Only a per so n who was held in regard would b e invited to settle a conflict, and i t r equired even greater mana t o be successful. As his personal repute g re w, so did the influence o f the mission. The 1830s were a decade of achievement and progress for Henry William s a n d the CMS mission. Success could be measured in two ways: increa sing n u mbers of Maori were baptised, and the Bay of Islands missio n was secur e e nough to provide a base for expansion throughout the N orth Island. T he re had been occasional baptisms in earlier years, bu t, beginning in 1 8 29--30, several Maori adults and children were bap tised at Paihia. By 1 8 42 over 3,000 Maori in the Bay of Islands are a had been baptised. No d o ubt Maori motives for 'going missionary' w ere often mixed and there wa s c onsiderable backsliding in later year s, but, as Maori conversions in cr eased, the missionaries were succes sful, at least in their own terms. T h eir growing confidence in the n orth enabled them to extend their opera t ions to the south. Here, too , Henry Williams played a leading role. He m a de several trips to oth er parts of the North Island to explore the pos s ibilities for expans ion, and directed the establishment of new mission s . He sent mission aries to begin work at several places in the Waikato d u ring the 1830 s, his brother William moved to Turanga, in Poverty Bay, a t t he en d of the decade, and stations were founded as far south as Otak i . B y 1840 Henry could look with considerable satisfaction on the achi e vem ents of the CMS mission since his arrival in 1823. But 1840 was also a year of major changes, both for New Zealand and, a l t hough he did not appreciate it immediately, for Henry Williams. Wi th t h e country's annexation by Britain and a growing population of s ettlers , H enry became embroiled in racial conflict and caught up b y forces tha t w ere beyond his control. Rather than simply ministerin g to one race, h e w as drawn into the increasingly uncomfortable rol e of mediating betwe en t wo races. The ambiguity of his position was apparent at the signing of the Treat y o f W aitangi in 1840. Henry translated the English draft of the tre aty in to M aori, and, at the meetings with the Crown's representative , William H o bson, at Waitangi, he explained its provisions to Maor i leaders. Later h e t ravelled to the west coast of the North Island , between Wellington a nd W anganui, and to the Marlborough Sounds t o persuade other Maori to s ign t he treaty. However, his Maori versio n of the treaty was not a lite ral t ranslation from the English draf t and did not convey clearly the c essi on of sovereignty. Moreover, i n his discussions with Maori leaders H en ry placed the treaty in th e best possible light and this, and his man a , were major factors i n the treaty's acceptance. Undoubtedly, therefor e , he must bear som e of the responsibility for the failure of the Treat y o f Waitangi t o provide the basis for peaceful settlement and a lastin g u nderstand ing between Maori and European. As Maori-European relations deteriorated in the north in the early 184 0 s , Henry Williams tried to maintain peace between the races, as h e had d o ne earlier between tribes. In spite of his efforts the confl ict over l a nd and sovereignty soon moved beyond the possibility of c ompromise. Ha v ing failed to prevent hostilities he assisted the woun ded and helped e v acuate the beleaguered settlers when Hone Heke laun ched a final attack o n K ororareka in 1845. His close association wit h the Bay of Islands Mao ri p roduced accusations of disloyalty from E uropeans, while the station ing o f British troops at the Waimate miss ion created suspicion in the m inds o f some Maori. Other Maori accuse d him of misleading them in his e xplan ations of the treaty. Througho ut the conflict, as in later life, H enry a sserted that his missionar y vocation was paramount and that his p rimar y concern was for the Ma ori, but it was difficult to be single-min ded w hen he was assailed f rom all sides. The arrival of George Grey to begin his first governorship in late 184 5 s o on led to Henry Williams's involvement in disputes of another ki nd. Du r ing the 1830s, mostly to provide some security for his growin g family, H e nry had purchased extensive tracts of land in the Tai-a- mai area, west o f P aihia. In dispatches to the Colonial Office tha t later became public , G rey questioned the validity of Henry's titl e to the land and falsely c l aimed that the landholdings of the CMS m issionaries were a cause of th e w ar in the north. Henry was oblige d to defend his land purchases and, m u ch more important as far as h e was concerned, his personal integrity a g ainst the governor's charg es. But he was fighting a losing battle agai n st a more powerful adve rsary. Henry's superior, Bishop G. A. Selwyn, s i ded with Grey, and i n 1849 the CMS in London, persuaded by Henry Willi a ms's critics, dec ided that Henry was too much of an embarrassment to r e main a membe r of the organisation. His dismissal from the CMS that he had served for so long was a bitte r b l ow to Henry. Within a week of receiving the news in May 1850 h e left P a ihia and moved to Pakaraka, where his children were farmin g the land t h at was the source of so much trouble. He was still a pr iest in the Chu r ch of England and Selwyn had made him archdeacon o f Waimate in 1844; h e c ontinued to minister and preach to the Maor i in his locality and gat he red a considerable congregation around hi m. The injustice against him w a s only partly assuaged when he was re instated to the CMS in 1854. Henry Williams's abiding concern for the Maori was apparent in his dis t r ess at the outbreak of warfare with the Pakeha again in 1860. In p riva t e correspondence he was critical of the government officials an d their p o licies, but he remained largely aloof from the public deba te about the w a r. In 1862 he wrote to his brother-in-law, Edward Mar sh: 'I feel our w o rk is drawing to a close; and were it not for th e Maories, I should ha v e relinquished all long since. But I feel bou nd to them'. After severa l y ears of deteriorating health, Henry Will iams died on 16 July 1867. H is p assing was perhaps most keenly fel t by the northern Maori among who m h e had lived for most of his life . -- MERGED NOTE ------------ According to family information Henry Williams was born on 11 Februar y 1 7 92; he was baptised on 13 April at Gosport, Hampshire, England . He was t h e fifth child and third son of Thomas Williams, a lace ma nufacturer, a n d his wife, Mary Marsh. His parents were relatively we ll offuntil the d e ath of his father in 1804. Two years later, at th e age of14, Henry ent e red the Royal Navy as a midshipman, with aspir ations tobe an officer. T h e nearly 10 years that he spent in the nav y were farfrom easy; conditi o ns on naval vessels were extremely hars h during the Napoleonic wars. H a ving seen active service in many par ts of the world he was discharged f r om the navy in August 1815 a s a lieutenant on half pay. The last capta i n under whom he served no ted that he had behaved with diligence and so b riety. With the end of the Napoleonic wars unemployment, particularly among h a l fpay lieutenants, was very high; Henry had to find a new vocation . He w o rked for a while as a drawing master, but at the same time be gan to pr e pare himself for the mission field. His parents were Disse nters,and li k e many missionaries who came from homes influenced by e vangelical Chri s tianity, he experienced a gradual conversion rathe r than a sudden illu m ination. From about 1816 he came under the tute lage of his evangelical b r other-in-law, Edward Marsh, a member of th e Church Missionary Society a n d later vicar of Aylesford. But his fi rm decision to become a missiona r y was probably made after his marri age to Marianne Coldham at Nuneham C o urtenay, Oxfordshire, on 20 Jan uary 1818. In 1819 Henry Williams offered his services to the CMS. He was accepte d f i rst as a lay settler, and then in 1820 as a missionary candidate .Altho u gh Marsh thought that he had no 'great proficiency in the Gre ekand Lat i n language', he was ordained a priest 'for the cure of sou ls in his ma j esty's foreign possessions' in 1822. Before leaving fo r New Zealand he a l so took instruction in the practical areas of med icine, weaving, twini n g, basket making, and, during the voyage out , shipbuilding. With Maria n ne and three children he arrived at the B ay of Islands on the Brampton o n 3 A ugust 1823. Henry Williams was severely tested during the early months in the Bayo f I s lands, as he assumed the leadership of a mission beset by proble ms. Th e C MS mission to New Zealand was nearly 10 years old when he a rrived, b ut n ot a single Maori had been converted. The missionarie s werestill la rge ly dependent on the Maori for food and supplies; an d underthe leader sh ip of Thomas Kendall and John Butler the missio n had beentorn apart b y b itter personal disputes. Having settled himself and his family at Paihia, Henry first attendedt o t h e secular side of the mission. He wanted to reduce the missionar ies' i n volvement with the trading captains of Kororareka (Russell) , toend the i r dependence on the Maori for supplies, and most of al l he wanted to s t op the musket trade in which the missionaries had b een forced to engag e . He quickly imposed regulations on the missiona ries' trading, but it w a s the completion in 1826, under Henry's dire ction, of the 50 ton schoo n er Herald that really made the mission in dependent of local influences . Meantime Henry had also put his mind to the spiritual aspect of missio n a ry work. He soon concluded that the mission had placed too much em phas i s on 'civilising' the Maori. In this he differed from Samuel Ma rsden, f o under of the mission, who had emphasised teaching useful ar ts and agri c ulture as a prelude to conversion. Henry argued that th e emphasis on s e cular instruction distracted the missionaries from t he far more import a nt task of bringing the Maori to Christianity. H e began to reorganise t h e mission so that more time could be devote d to spiritual teaching. To better carry out this essential task, Henry argued that mission mem b e rs needed to spend more time learning the Maori language, preachin gto t h e tribes in the surrounding area, and teaching in the school s onthe mi s sion stations; to do all these things most of the personn el would have t o b e concentrated in one place. Paihia became the hea dquarters and ther e t he missionaries began by devoting regular amoun ts of time to learnin g M aori together. The arrival of Henry's brothe r William,in 1826, gave a g r eat impetus to this programme: all membe rs benefited from William's ta l ent for languages. Having more missio naries at one station meant that t h ey were able to visit the surroun ding villagesmore frequently and, as t h ey became proficient in Maori , their preaching was more effective. Sch o oling for Maori children w as revitalised under Henry and his wife, Mar i anne, and more student s attended classes regularly. Working effectivel y t ogether fostere d harmonious relations among the missionaries themsel ve s; Henry clai med that the Maori noticed their greater unity and purpo s e. Henry Williams's forceful personality and discipline were perhaps as i m p ortant as his policies in reorganising the mission, and these char acte r istics also contributed to his growing mana among the Maori. Al though h i s capacity to comprehend the indigenous culture was severel y constrain e d by his evangelical Christianity, his obduracy was in s ome ways an ad v antage in dealings with the Maori. From the time of h is arrival he ref u sed to be intimidated by the threats and boisterou s actions of utu and m u ru plundering parties. By the late 1820s he f elt confident enough to i n tervene in intertribal disputes and on sev eral occasions was able to n e gotiate peace between hostile groups. S uch peacemaking was both a caus e a nd a consequence of his growing pr estige among the Maori. Only a per so n who was held in regard would b e invited to settle a conflict, and i t r equired even greater mana t o be successful. Ashis personal repute gr ew , so did the influence o f the mission. The 1830s were a decade of achievement and progress for Henry William s a n d the CMS mission. Success could be measured in two ways: increa sing n u mbers of Maori were baptised, and the Bay of Islands missio n wassecure e n ough to provide a base for expansion throughout the No rth Island. Ther e h ad been occasional baptisms in earlier years, but , beginning in 1829 -- 30, several Maori adults and children were bapt ised at Paihia. By 184 2 o ver 3,000 Maori in the Bay of Islands are a had been baptised. No dou bt M aori motives for 'going missionary' w ere often mixed and there was c on siderable backsliding in later year s, but, as Maori conversions incre a sed, the missionaries were succes sful, at least in their own terms. Th e ir growing confidence in the n orth enabled them to extend their operat i ons to the south. Here, too , Henry Williams playeda leading role. He m a de several trips to othe r parts of the North Island to explore the pos s ibilities for expansi on, and directed the establishment of new mission s . He sent missiona ries to begin work at several places in the Waikato d u ring the 1830s , his brother William moved to Turanga, in Poverty Bay, a t t he end o f the decade, and stations were founded as far south as Otak i. B y 18 40 Henry could look with considerable satisfaction on the achie vem en ts of the CMS mission since his arrival in 1823. But 1840 was also a year of major changes, both for New Zealand and, a l t hough he did not appreciate it immediately, for Henry Williams. Wi th t h e country's annexation by Britain and a growing population of s ettlers , H enry became embroiled in racial conflict and caught up b y forces tha t w ere beyond his control. Rather than simply ministerin g to onerace, h e w as drawn into the increasingly uncomfortable rol e of mediating betwe en t wo races. The ambiguity of his position was apparent at the signing of the Treat y o f W aitangi in 1840. Henry translated the English draft of the tre aty in to M aori, and, at the meetings with the Crown's representative , William H o bson, at Waitangi, he explained its provisions to Maor i leaders. Later h e t ravelled to the west coast of the North Island , between Wellington a nd W anganui, and to the Marlborough Sounds t o persuade other Maori to s ign t he treaty. However, his Maori versio n of the treaty was not a lite ral t ranslation from the English draf t and did not convey clearly the c essi on of sovereignty. Moreover, i n his discussions with Maori leaders H en ry placed the treaty in th e best possible light and this, and his man a , were major factors i n the treaty's acceptance. Undoubtedly, therefor e , he must bear som e of the responsibility for the failure of the Treat y o f Waitangi t o provide the basis for peacefulsettlement and a lasting u n derstandi ng between Maori and European. As Maori-European relations deteriorated in the north in the early 184 0 s , Henry Williams tried to maintain peace between the races, as h e had d o ne earlier between tribes. In spite of his efforts the confl ict over l a nd and sovereignty soon moved beyond the possibility of c ompromise. Ha v ing failed to prevent hostilities he assisted the woun ded and helped e v acuate the beleaguered settlers when Hone Heke laun ched a final attack o n K ororareka in 1845. His close association wit h the Bay ofIslands Maor i p roduced accusations of disloyalty from Eu ropeans, while the stationi ng o f British troops at the Waimate missi on created suspicion in the mi nds o f some Maori. Other Maori accuse d him of misleading them in his ex plan ations of the treaty. Througho ut the conflict, asin later life, Hen ry a sserted that his missionar y vocation was paramount and that his pri mar y concern was for the Ma ori, but it was difficult to be single-minde d w hen he was assailed f rom all sides. The arrival of George Grey to begin his first governorship in late 184 5 s o on led to Henry Williams's involvement in disputes of another ki nd. Du r ing the 1830s, mostly to provide some security for his growin g family, H e nry had purchased extensive tracts of land in the Tai-a- mai area, west o f P aihia. In dispatches to the Colonial Office tha t later became public , G rey questioned the validity of Henry's titl e to the land and falsely c l aimed that the landholdings of the CMS m issionaries were a cause of th e w ar in the north. Henry was oblige d to defend his land purchases and, m u ch more important as far as h e was concerned, hispersonal integrity ag a inst the governor's charge s. But he was fighting a losing battle again s t a more powerful adver sary. Henry's superior, Bishop G. A. Selwyn, si d ed with Grey, and i n 1849 the CMS in London, persuaded by Henry Willia m s's critics, dec ided that Henry was too much of an embarrassment to re m ain a membe r of the organisation. His dismissal from the CMS that he had served for so long was a bitte r b l ow to Henry. Within a week of receiving the news in May 1850 h e left P a ihia and moved to Pakaraka, where his children were farmin g the land t h at was the source of so much trouble. He was still a pr iest in the Chu r ch of England and Selwyn had made him archdeacon o f Waimate in1844; he c o ntinued to minister and preach to the Maori i n his locality and gather e d a considerable congregation around him . The injustice against him wa s o nly partly assuaged when he was rei nstated to the CMSin 1854. Henry Williams's abiding concern for the Maori was apparent in his dis t r ess at the outbreak of warfare with the Pakeha again in 1860. In p riva t e correspondence he was critical of the government officials an d their p o licies, but he remained largely aloof from the public deba te about the w a r. In 1862 he wrote to his brother-in-law, Edward Mar sh: 'I feel our w o rk is drawing to a close; and were it not for th e Maories,I should hav e r elinquished all long since. But I feel boun d to them'.After several y e ars of deteriorating health, Henry Willia ms died on 16 July 1867. His p a ssing was perhaps most keenly felt b y the northernMaori among whom he h a d lived for most of his life.

  
  

• Sources

  [S35] Dictionary Of New Zealand Biography, Dictionary Of New Zealand Biography- Henry Williams. (Reliability: 0). [S63] Lionel Klee, Klee Family Genealogy, Klee And Block Family Genalogy (http://genealogy.eproject.co.nz/). (Reliability: 0).