WILLIAMS, John (1796-1839), English missionary, was born at Tottenham near London, on 29th June 1796. He was trained as an ironmonger, and acquired while young considerable experience in mechanical work. Having offered himself to the London Missionary Society, he was sent, after some training, in 1816 to the South Sea Islands as a missionary. He was first stationed at Eimeo, in the Society Islands, where he rapidly acquired a knowledge of the native language. After staying there for a short time, he finally settled at Raiatea, which became his permanent headquarters. His success as a missionary here and elsewhere was remarkable. The people rapidly became Christianized and adopted many of the habits of civilization. Williams was fairly liberal for his age, and the results of his labours among the Pacific Islands were essentially beneficial. He travelled unceasingly among the various island groups, planting stations and settling native missionaries whom he himself had trained. From the Society Islands he visited the Hervey group, where he discovered, and stayed for a considerable time on, the island of Rarotonga. Most of the inhabitants of the group were converted in a remarkably short time, and Williams’s influence over them, as over the people of other groups, was very great. Besides establishing Christianity and civilization among them, he also, at their own request, helped them to draw up a code of laws for civil administration upon the basis of the new religion. While at Rarotonga he, with the help of the natives, built himself a ship, within about four months; with this he returned to Raiatea, and made voyages among other island groups, including Samoa and the neighbouring islands. Williams returned to England in 1834 (having previously visited New South Wales in ...1821); and during his four years’ stay at home he had the New Testam 3nt, which he had translated into Rarotongan, printed. Returning in 1838 to the Pacific, he visited the stations already established by him, as well as several fresh groups. He went as far west as the New Hebrides, and, while visiting Erromango, one of the group, for the first time, was murdered by the natives, 20th November 1839.
Williams was probably on the whole one of the most successful of Christian missionaries, both as regards the extent and the permanence of the work he accomplislιed. His Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands was published in 1837, and formed an important contribution to our knowledge of the islands with which Williams was acquainted. See Memoir of John Williams, by Rev. Ebenezer Prout, London, 1843.
WILLIAMS, Roger (c. 1600-c. 1684), one of the founders of the colony of Rhode Island, North America, was born either of Welsh or Cornish parents, but this as well as the date of his birth has been the subject of dispute. In early life he went to London, where his skill as a reporter commended him to the notice of Sir Edward Coke, who sent him to Sutton’s Hospital (Charterhouse school). From Charterhouse he went to one of the universities, but whether to Oxford or Cambridge there is no direct evidence to show. The register of Jesus College, Oxford, has the following entry under date 30th April 1624: “Rodericus Williams, filius Gulielmi Williams, de Conwelgaio Pleb., an. Nat. 18.” If this entry refers to the founder of Rhode Island he was of Welsh parentage and born about 1606. As Coke was a Cambridge student, the probability is, however, that Williams was sent there; and a Roger Williams matriculated at Pembroke College of that university on 1st July 1625, and took his B.A. degree in January 1627. This Roger Williams was the second son of William Williams, and was baptized at Gwinsea, Cornwall, on 24th July 1600, a date which corresponds with a statement regarding his age made by Williams himself. After leaving the university he entered on the study of law; but, soon forsaking it for theology, he was admitted into holy orders and is said to have had a parochial charge. On account of his Puritan beliefs he left England for Massachusetts Bay, where he arrived in the beginning of 1631. He accepted an invitation to become pastor of a church at Salem, on 12th April 1631, the same day that the magistrates were assembled at Boston to express disapproval of the scheme. To escape persecution he went to Plymouth, beyond the jurisdiction of Massachusetts Bay, and became assistant pastor there; but in the autumn of 1633 he returned to Salem as assistant pastor, succeeding in the following year as sole pastor. Chiefly on account of his pronounced opinions regarding the restricted sphere of the civil magistrate in religious matters, he came into conflict with the court of Massachusetts, and, being banished from the colony, left with a few sympathizers in January 1636 for Narragansett Bay. At first they received a grant of land from an Indian chief, which is now included in Seekonk, Massachusetts, and began to build houses, but in June following he and five others embarked in a canoe for Rhode Island, and founded a settlement to which Williams, in remembrance “of God’s providence to him in his distress,” gave the name of Providence. In 1639 he was publicly immersed and became pastor of the first Baptist church of Providence. As Massachusetts now began to claim jurisdiction over Narragansett Bay, Williams proceeded in June 1643 to England, and through the mediation of his friend Sir Henry Vane, whose acquaintance he had made at Massachusetts, obtained an independent charter, 14th March 1644. In 1649 he was chosen deputy president. He again visited England in 1651 to obtain a more explicit charter, and remained there till 1654, enjoying the friendship of Milton, Cromwell, and other prominent Puritans. On his return to the colony in 1654 he was chosen president or governor, and remained in office till 1658. He lived to the age of eighty-four, but the exact date of his death is uncertain.
Williams was the author of a Key into the Language of the Indians of America (written at sea on his first voyage to England; London, 1643, reprinted in vol. i. of Collections of Rhode Island Historical Society, 1827); Mr Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered, 1644; The Bloody Tenent of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience, 1644; Queries of Highest Consideration, 1644; The Bloody Tenent yet more Bloody, 1652; The Hireling Ministry None of Christ’s, 1652; Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health, 1652; and George Fox Digged ou,t of his Burrows, 1676. A complete collection of all his letters that have been recovered forms vol. vi. of the Publications of the Narragansett Club. See Lives by Knowles (1833), Gammell (1846), and Elton (1852); Spark’s Library of American Biography; Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of New England Settlers; Biographical Cyclopedia of Representative Men of Rhode Island, 1883; Guild’s Account of the Writings of Roger Williams, 1862; and Dexter’s As to Roger Williams and his Banishment from Massachusetts Bay, 1876.
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