Author: Williams, John
Biography:
WILLIAMS, John (1779-1857: ancestry.co.uk)
He was possibly the John Williams baptised on 15 Apr. 1779 at Sidmouth, Devon, the son of John and Sarah Williams--but the name is very common and there is no corroboration. His parents moved to Plymouth a few years after his birth. He was educated at John Bidlake’s (q.v.) seminary and also under him at Plymouth grammar school. He came under the influence of Dr. Robert Hawker, Vicar of St. Charles, Plymouth, who encouraged him to study for the ministry. He would later write Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Reverend Robert Hawker (1831). He proceeded to St. Edmund’s Hall, Oxford (matric. 1801, BA 1805, MA 1808, BD 1815, DD 1818), and was ordained deacon and priest in 1805. He was curate at Stroud (1805-33) and rector of Woodchester (1833-57) (both Gloucestershire). He was a founding member of the Stroud branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1812 and a supporter of other missionary societies. Tirelessly evangelical, he ran weekly evening meetings on prayer and scripture exposition for the benefit of the poor and aged and established Sunday Schools for their children. He promoted Bell’s Madras system in parish schools and opened his own classical boarding school. He also prepared a small number of students for the Church Missionary Institution at Islington, London. Details of the missionary activities of his students in Ceylon, Calcutta, Sierra Leone, and New Zealand are given by Paul Hawkins Fisher (285-7). He married Elizabeth Cooke (1787-1870), the daughter of a wealthy clothing manufacturer, on 2 Dec. 1806 at Painswick, near Stroud. They had at least eleven children, with eight predeceasing him. He died on 30 June 1857, aged 78, at Woodchester, but was buried at Stroud where there is a family memorial. His wife Elizabeth died in 1870, and was buried beside him. Fisher also mentions a further work edited by him in 1812, Portions of the Psalms of David; together with A Supplement of Hymns, and quotes from the preface, but no copy has been located. (ancestry.co.uk 20 Mar. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 20 Mar. 2023; CCEd 20 Mar. 2023; Paul Hawkins Fisher, Notes and Recollections of Stroud, Gloucestershire [1871], 281-9; OJ 13 Dec. 1806; OUCH 4 July 1857; GM, Aug. 1857, 223) AA