Henry Williams

In class we were researching the Treaty of Waitangi. We had to find good information about Henry Williams. Thanks for reading my work, please leave me feedback.

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Henry Williams was the leader of the Church Missionary Society mission in Aotearoa in the first half of the 19th century. He entered the navy at the age of fourteen and served in the Napoleonic Wars. He went to New Zealand in 1823 as a missionary.

Missionary Henry Williams, about 1865. Henry Williams was a missionary who supported British annexation. He believed that Māori should be protected from lawless Europeans and fraudulent dealings. He and his son Edward translated the Treaty of Waitangi and Maori.

Under his forceful personality, the mission was highly successful, influencing several thousand Maori to convert and spreading its influence through much of the North Island.

By the late 1830s, Williams and most missionaries actively supported British annexation, believing it necessary to protect Maori from lawless Europeans. They also supported measures intended to protect Maori from fraudulent dealings, such as the prohibition on private land purchases and the investigation of existing purchases.

On 4 February 1840, Williams and his son Edward were given one night to translate the technical language of Hobson and Busby's draft Treaty of Waitangi in to Maori. Henry then had a crucial role in explaining it to the chiefs who met William Hobson at Waitangi on 5 February. He later travelled to the southern North Island and the Marlborough Sounds to gain signatures. His personal mana undoubtedly influenced many chiefs to sign.

He was criticised after the sack of Kororareka in 1845 and also harshly criticised for his land holdings. After 1845, Governor George Grey questioned Williams’s title to land he had bought near Paihia, although it had been officially investigated and confirmed. The embarrassment this caused led to his sacking as head of the New Zealand CMS Mission, but he was later reinstated. He became Archdeacon of Te Waimate and remained in that post until his death.