| Notes |
- According to family information William Williams was born at Plumtre H o u se, Nottingham, England, on 18 July 1800, the ninth and youngest c hild o f M ary Marsh and her husband, Thomas Williams. He was baptise d on 30 Oc to ber 1800. Thomas Williams was of Welsh descent, a hosie r by trade and a m a n of substance in Nottingham. He was a Dissenter , but never accepted t h e Unitarian doctrine so strongly propounded i n Nottingham's chapels du r ing the eighteenth and early nineteenth ce nturies. He died of typhoid w h en William was three. After an unsucce ssful attempt to carry on the ho s iery business Mary Williams moved w ith her younger children to Southwe l l, Nottinghamshire, where she be gan a school for young ladies.
In 1813 the marriage of William's sister, Lydia, to their cousin Edwar d G a rrard Marsh brought the family under the influence of this evang elical c l ergyman. Marsh interested Henry, one of William's older bro thers, in t h e work of the Church Missionary Society, which in turn a ffected Willia m . Another consequence was that members of the William s family turned f r om nonconformity to the Church of England. This di ssenting, evangelica l b ackground considerably influenced the two mis sionary brothers and wa s s hared by their wives, making them opponent s of all later high church p r actices within the Anglican church.
William Williams was educated at a small dame school and at Southwel l G r ammar School. He completed an apprenticeship to a Southwell surg eon be f ore entering Magdalen Hall (later Hertford College), Oxford , in 1822, a s a p rospective CMS trainee, under the special care of i ts evangelical p rin cipal, Dr John Macbride. He came down from Oxfor d in 1824 with a BA i n C lassics, and the same year was ordained deac on, on 26 September, and p r iest, on 19 December. At the beginning o f 1825 he was at the CMS Train i ng College, Islington, London.
From the outset of his missionary training there had been a tacit agre e m ent with the CMS that he should follow his brother, Henry, to Ne w Zeal a nd. During a fund raising tour of the Midlands news of his im minent de p arture reached William and hurried along marriage plans. A t Sheffield, o n 1 1 July 1825, he married Jane Nelson of Newark, Nott inghamshire, and o n 1 2 August they embarked on the Sir George Osborn e. After a three mont h s tay at Sydney they landed at Paihia, Bay o f Islands, on 25 March 182 6. B etween 1826 and 1846 they had nine chi ldren, all born in New Zealan d.
At Paihia William Williams was in charge of the English boys' school a n d , until the arrival of Samuel Ford in 1837, was the mission doctor . Hi s e arly fluency in spoken Maori was noted by Henry Williams: 'He Éappear s n ot to learn it; but it seems to flow naturally from him' . In Septemb er 1 826 he began the first serious, sustained effort t o produce the Scr ipt ures in Maori. By the end of 1837 he had complet ed the whole of the N e w Testament and the greater part of the Book o f Common Prayer
In May 1835 the English boys' school was relocated at Waimate North, w h i ch became William's second station. He had already made several mi ssio n ary journeys, some of them most important. In December 1833 an d Januar y 1 834 he had gone by schooner to the East Cape and Mahia pe ninsula, ac co mpanied by William Yate, to return Ngati Porou Maori ca ptured by raid i ng Nga Puhi. (These people were to become the forerun ners of the CMS E a st Coast mission.) Between July and November 183 4 he had travelled ove r land to the Thames and Waikato regions, accom panied by Alfred Nesbit B r own. In January 1838, with William Colenso , Richard Matthews and James S t ack, he made an overland journey fro m East Cape to Turanga, Poverty Ba y . He was determined that a CMS mi ssionary be stationed on the East Coa s t, and 'when Richard Taylor, w ho had travelled with him on another vis i t there from March to May 1 839, agreed to take over the Waimate school , h e and Jane left for Tu ranga on 31 December 1839.
Apart from a visit to England during 1851--52 to vindicate the New Zea l a nd mission and his brother, William Williams remained based at th e Tur a nga mission station from 20 January 1840 to 3 April 1865. Fo r many yea r s he was the only ordained CMS missionary in the church' s eastern dist r ict, walking north to East Cape, south to Hawke's Ba y and inland to Wa i karemoana as part of a regular visiting schedule . He made occasional o v erland journeys to Wellington and to St John' s College, Auckland. Selw y n inducted him as archdeacon of the East C ape on 27 November 1842, and o n 3 A pril 1859 consecrated him bisho p of Waiapu, a diocese which initia lly h ad a predominantly Maori cha racter. (On his English visit a doctor ate o f canon law from Oxford h ad been conferred on him.)
In April 1857, having come to realise that the training of a Maori pas t o rate was his main job, William Williams moved from the first missi on s i te at Manutuke (at Kaupapa between 1840 and 1844, and then at W hakato) , t o locate his Maori training schools and his residence at W aerenga-a- hi ka, a few miles inland, where there was more land availa ble for a mis s ion farm. After leaving Turanga in 1865 he stayed fo r two years at Pai h ia where he began another training school at Horo tutu. There he wrote C h ristianity among the New Zealanders , publish ed in London in 1867 and i n tended as an apologia for the CMS missio n in New Zealand. At the end o f M ay 1867 he moved to Napier and th e following year into his final res id ence, Hukarere, on Napier hill . An agreement between Bishops G. A. Se l wyn and C. J. Abraham had ad ded Hawke's Bay to the Waiapu diocese, and W i lliam was anxious to ma ke Te Aute estate (set aside for educational pu r poses by his nephe w and son-in-law, Samuel Williams) the site of his c e ntral diocesa n school. In July 1875 he also established the Hukarere s c hool for M aori girls, close by his own home. His daughter, Anna Maria, w a s pri ncipal. On 9 February 1878 he died at Hukarere. His land at Napi e r w as worth nearly £9,000, and he left other property at Kerikeri , Taur an ga and Gisborne.
William Williams once described his missionary life as 'like the unbro k e n course of a parish schoolmaster. A great deal of work, but mos t of i t o f the same character'. With his Maori converts he regularl y 'read an d c onversed', but apart from his knowledge of the languag e he showed li tt le interest in Maori culture and disapproved of mos t Maori social cus t oms. Nevertheless his influence among his missio n Maori, to whom he wa s k nown as Parata (Brother), was considerable . He generally found that ' a l ittle quiet expostulation' settled dif ferences between Maori and mis si onary. His colleagues found him kind ly, easy to get along with and 'a g e ntleman', but when his principle s were crossed, either by Bishop Selwy n o r by the CMS secretaries i n London, he was adamant and resolute. His d e cision to quit Waerenga -a-hika in 1865, when it was threatened by a sm a ll band of Hauhau wh o fraternised with his Turanga Maori, appears to h a ve been influence d not so much by the admonishments of Selwyn and memb e rs of his fami ly, as by William's own determination to withdraw his pr e sence and h is mana from those who were prepared to entertain 'false go d s'.
His attitude to colonisation and to the New Zealand wars changed as h e g r ew older. In 1840 he collected signatures to the Treaty of Waita ngi, a n d later defended its land guarantee against threats by settle rs and Br i tish authorities. He was critical of the Waitara purchase , but thought t h at the wisest course was for the government to subju gate 'rebel' Maori ; ' salutary chastisement' would bring them to thei r senses. Later he re vi sed that opinion: 'All this war down to the p resent time [1868] has s p rung out of WaitaraÉ. As a community and a s a government we have been p u ffed up, first with an idea that we we re in the right, & secondly that w e w ere able to put down the native s by our own strengthÉ. We are now br ou ght very low.' Land confiscat ion, he came to think, was particularly u n just. For years he had reg arded Turanga as a missionary enclave; retur n ing there from Englan d in 1853 he disapproved of the attempt made by h i s locum, T. S. Gra ce, to introduce European trading practices.
As a steady, conscientious teacher William Williams was neither too up l i fted by the apparent missionary success of the 1830s and 1840s, no r to o d ismayed by the massive falling away of the 1850s and 1860s. A ll thro ug h his missionary life he kept revising the Maori New Testam ent and Bo o k of Common Prayer. In 1844 he was with the 'Translatio n Syndicate' at W a imate, but mostly he worked alone, conferring fro m time to time with R o bert Maunsell. His enduring memorial is A dict ionary of the New Zealan d l anguage , first published at Paihia in 18 44. The second edition was a l so his work, the third and fourth tha t of his son, Bishop William Leon a rd Williams, and the fifth, of hi s grandson, Bishop Herbert William Wi l liams.
-- MERGED NOTE ------------
According to family information William Williams was born at Plumtre H o u se, Nottingham, England, on 18 July 1800, the ninth and youngest c hild o f M ary Marsh and her husband, Thomas Williams. He was baptise d on30 Oct ob er 1800. Thomas Williams was of Welsh descent, a hosie r by trade and a m a n of substance in Nottingham. He was a Dissenter , but never accepted t h e Unitarian doctrine so strongly propounded i n Nottingham's chapels du r ing the eighteenth and early nineteenth ce nturies. He died of typhoid w h en William was three. After an unsucce ssful attempt to carry on the ho s iery business Mary Williams moved w ith her younger children to Southwe l l, Nottinghamshire, where she be gan a school for young ladies.
In 1813 the marriage of William's sister, Lydia, to their cousin Edwar d G a rrard Marsh brought the family under the influence of this evang elical c l ergyman. Marsh interested Henry, one of William's older bro thers, in t h e work of the Church Missionary Society, which in turn a ffected Willia m . Another consequence was that members of the William s family turned f r om nonconformity to the Church of England. This di ssenting, evangelica l b ackground considerably influenced the two mis sionary brothers and wa s s hared by their wives, making them opponent s of all later high church p r actices within the Anglican church.
William Williams was educated at a small dame school and at SouthwellG r a mmar School. He completed an apprenticeship to a Southwell surgeon befo r e entering Magdalen Hall (later Hertford College), Oxford, in 1 822, as a p r ospective CMS trainee, under the special care of its eva ngelical princ i pal, Dr John Macbride. He came down from Oxford in 18 24 with a BA in C l assics, and the same year was ordained deacon, o n 26 September, and pr i est, on 19 December. At the beginning of 182 5 he was at the CMS Traini n g College, Islington, London.
From the outset of his missionary training there had been a tacit agre e m ent with the CMS that he should follow his brother, Henry, to Ne w Zeal a nd. During a fund raising tour of the Midlands news of his im minent de p arture reached William and hurried along marriage plans. A t Sheffield, o n 1 1 July 1825, he married Jane Nelson of Newark, Nott inghamshire, and o n 1 2 August they embarked on the Sir George Osborn e. After athree month s t ay at Sydney they landed at Paihia, Bay of I slands, on 25 March 1826. B e tween 1826 and 1846 they had nine childr en, all born in New Zealand.
At Paihia William Williams was in charge of the English boys' school a n d , until the arrival of Samuel Ford in 1837, was the mission doctor .His e a rly fluency in spoken Maori was noted by Henry Williams: 'HeÉ appears n o t to learn it; but it seems to flow naturally from him'. I n September 1 8 26 he began the first serious, sustained effort to pro duce the Scriptu r es in Maori. By the end of 1837 he had completed th e whole of the New T e stament and the greater part of the Book of Com mon Prayer
In May 1835 the English boys' school was relocated at Waimate North, w h i ch became William's second station. He had already made several mi ssio n ary journeys, some of them most important. In December 1833 an d Januar y 1 834 he had gone by schooner to the East Cape and Mahia pe ninsula, ac co mpanied by William Yate, to return Ngati Porou Maori ca ptured by raid i ng Nga Puhi. (These people were to become the forerun ners of the CMS E a st Coast mission.) Between July and November 183 4 he had travelled ove r land to the Thames and Waikato regions, accom panied by Alfred Nesbit B r own. In January 1838, with William Colenso , Richard Matthews and James S t ack, he made an overland journey fro m East Cape to Turanga, Poverty Ba y . He was determined that a CMS mi ssionary be stationedon the East Coas t , and 'when Richard Taylor, wh o had travelled with him on another visi t t here from March to May 18 39, agreed to take over the Waimate school, h e a nd Jane left for Tur anga on 31 December 1839.
Apart from a visit to England during 1851--52 to vindicate the New Zea l a nd mission and his brother, William Williams remained based at th e Tur a nga mission station from 20 January 1840 to 3 April 1865. Fo r manyyear s h e was the only ordained CMS missionary in the church' s easterndistri ct , walking north to East Cape, south to Hawke's Ba y and inlandto Waika r emoana as part of a regular visiting schedule . He made occasional over l and journeys to Wellington and to St John' s College, Auckland. Selwyn i n ducted him as archdeacon of the East C ape on 27 November 1842, and on 3 A p ril 1859 consecrated him bisho p of Waiapu, a diocese which initially h a d a predominantly Maori cha racter. (On his English visit a doctorate o f c anon law from Oxford h ad been conferred on him.)
In April 1857, having come to realise that the training of a Maori pas t o rate was his main job, William Williams moved from the first missi on s i te at Manutuke (at Kaupapa between 1840 and 1844, and then at W hakato) , t o locate his Maori training schools and his residence at W aerenga-a- hi ka, a few miles inland, where there was more land availa ble for a mis s ion farm. After leaving Turanga in 1865 he stayed fo r two years at Pai h ia where he began another training school at Horo tutu. Therehe wrote C h ristianity among the New Zealanders , publishe d in London in 1867 and i n tended as an apologia for the CMS missio n in New Zealand. At the end o f M ay 1867 he moved to Napier and th e following year into his final res id ence, Hukarere, on Napier hill . An agreement betweenBishops G. A. Sel w yn and C. J. Abraham had add ed Hawke's Bay to the Waiapu diocese, and W i lliam was anxious to mak e Te Aute estate (set aside for educational pu r poses by his nephew a nd son-in-law, Samuel Williams) the site of his c e ntral diocesan sch ool. In July 1875 he also established the Hukarere s c hool for Maor i girls, close by his own home. His daughter, Anna Maria, w a s princi pal. On 9 February 1878 he died at Hukarere. His land at Napie r w a s worth nearly £9,000, and he left other property at Kerikeri, Taur a n ga and Gisborne.
William Williams once described his missionary life as 'like the unbro k e n course of a parish schoolmaster. A great deal of work, but mos t of i t o f the same character'. With his Maori converts he regularl y 'read an d c onversed', but apart from his knowledge of the languag e he showed li tt le interest in Maori culture and disapproved of mos t Maori social cus t oms. Nevertheless his influence among his missio n Maori, to whom he wa s k nown as Parata (Brother), was considerable . He generally found that ' a l ittle quiet expostulation' settled dif ferences between Maori and mis si onary. His colleagues found him kind ly, easy to get alongwith and 'a g e ntleman', but when his principle s were crossed, either by Bishop Selwy n o r by the CMS secretaries i n London, he was adamant and resolute. His d e cision to quit Waerenga -a-hika in 1865, when it wasthreatened by a sma l l band of Hauhau wh o fraternised with his TurangaMaori, appears to hav e b een influence d not so much by the admonishments of Selwyn and member s o f his fami ly, as by William's own determination to withdraw his pres en ce and h is mana from those who were preparedto entertain 'false gods' .
His attitude to colonisation and to the New Zealand wars changed as h e g r ew older. In 1840 he collected signatures to the Treaty of Waita ngi, a n d later defended its land guarantee against threats by settle rs and Br i tish authorities. He was critical of the Waitara purchase , but thought t h at the wisest course was for the government to subju gate 'rebel' Maori ; ' salutary chastisement' would bring them to thei r senses. Later he re vi sed that opinion: 'All this war down to the p resent time [1868] has s p rung out of WaitaraÉ. As a community and a s a government we have been p u ffed up, first with an idea that we we re in the right,& secondly that w e w ere able to put down the native s by our own strengthÉ. We are now br ou ght very low.' Land confiscat ion, he came to think, was particularly u n just. For years he had reg arded Turanga as a missionary enclave; retur n ing there from Englan d in 1853 he disapproved of the attempt made by h i s locum, T. S. Gra ce, to introduce European trading practices.
As a steady, conscientious teacher William Williams was neither too up l i fted by the apparent missionary success of the 1830s and 1840s, no rtoo d i smayed by the massive falling away of the 1850s and 1860s. Al l through h i s missionary life he kept revising the Maori New Testame nt and Book of C o mmon Prayer. In 1844 he was with the 'Translation S yndicate' at Waimat e , but mostly he worked alone, conferring from ti me to time with Robert M a unsell. His enduring memorial is A dictiona ry of the New Zealand langu a ge , first published at Paihia in 1844 . The second edition was also hi s w ork, the third and fourth that o f his son, BishopWilliam Leonard Wil li ams, and the fifth, of his gra ndson, Bishop Herbert William Williams.
BIRT: _WEBTAG
NAME WebTag
URL http://www.williams.gen.nz/
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1800 - 1878 (77 years)
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