Early Life
Williams was born in Nottingham to Thomas and Mary Williams. After the death of Thomas in 1804 Mary Williams moved with her younger children to Southwell, Nottinghamshire where she opened a school for young ladies. William Williams was educated at Southwell Grammar School. He completed an apprenticeship to a Southwell surgeon. William, like his brother Henry, was influenced by the Rev. Edward Garrard Marsh, the husband of his sister Lydia, who was a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS). William entering Magdalen Hall (later Hertford College), Oxford, in 1822, as a prospective CMS trainee. He came down from Oxford in 1824 with a BA in Classics. On 26 September 1824 William was ordained as a deacon, and priest, on 19 December 1824. In 1825 he entered the CMS Training College, Islington, London, with the intention of following his brother Henry to New Zealand.
On 11 July 1825, he married Jane Nelson of Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, a teacher at his mother's school. On 12 August they embarked on the Sir George Osborne to sail to Sydney, Australia, then on to Paihia, Bay of Islands, where they arrived on 25 March 1826.
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