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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Auckland Provincial District]

The Hon. Henry Williams

The Hon. Henry Williams was born at Paihia, in the Bay of Islands, in the year 1823, three weeks after the arrival of his parents in New Zealand. He is the third son of the late Archdeacon Henry Williams, who came to New Zealand in 1823, as missionary under the Church Missionary Society, and he was educated in the Mission School, under the late Bishop of Waiapu. In 1842 Mr. Williams joined his brothers on their land at Pakaraka, where he has resided ever since. During Heke's war in 1845, he and his brothers were left in undisturbed possession by Heke, who maintained that his quarrel was against the Government and not against the settlers. Mr. Williams has been a Justice of the Peace since the year 1858, and was chairman of the Bay of Islands County Council continuously from 1876 to 1899, when he retired and did not seek re-election. He was called to the Legislative Council by the Whitaker Administration in 1882. Mr. Williams is one of the few who have seen the gradual development of New Zealand from the savage state it was in in 1823, to its colonisation in 1840, and its present position as one of the company of nations—offshoots of, and under the aegis of the great British people. He is an ardest imperialist, and the position that New Zealand took up in connection with the war in South Africa, going as a young whelp to the assistance of the mother lion, had his heartiest support. His aspirations are to see not merely the federation of England and her colonies, but the federation of the whole Anglo-Saxon race; a consummation which he believes to be in the near future.

The Hon. H. Williams.

The Hon. H. Williams.