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For other persons of the same name, see Henry Williams.

Henry Williams was born in 1792 in England. When he was 12, his father died, and at 14 he entered the Royal Navy. He married at 26 and soon after joined the Church Missionary Society and decided to become a missionary.

He arrived in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand in 1823 with his wife Marianne and their three children. Williams became the leader of the mission there. At that time, not a single Māori had become a Christian. Māori had their own religion and did not want to become Christians.

Williams could see that the other missionaries were not succeeding in converting Māori to Christianity because they spent too much time trying to make Māori live like the settlers. Williams decided that more Māori would become Christians if the missionaries talked more about the spiritual side of being a Christian because Māori were very spiritual people. He also told the other missionaries that they should learn the Māori language and learn about Māori culture if they wanted to be able to talk properly with Māori about becoming Christians.

Williams was very helpful to Māori and often helped solve disputes between Māori and settlers. Three thousand Māori in the Bay of Islands area had become Christians by 1842. But the years that followed the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi were not so happy for Henry Williams.

After the Treaty was signed, there was a lot of conflict between the settlers and Māori. Settlers became suspicious of Williams because he was very friendly with iwi in the Bay of Islands. Māori became suspicious of him because British troops were stationed at the Waimate Mission station. Some Māori were also beginning to think that he had misled them when he told them what was in the Treaty. He had not told them that the English version said that they would be under the control of the British Queen's representatives in Aotearoa.

Williams had acquired a lot of land in the north before the Treaty was signed. The Governor of Aotearoa said that he and the other missionaries had far too much land and this was the cause of war in the north. In 1849, the Church Missionary Society decided to dismiss him from the society.

Williams had a considerable following in the north. He endowed the Holy Trinity Church which was built by his sons at Pakaraka in the Bay of Islands and opened in April 1851 in recognition of his work, photos of which appear on this page (taken in 2006).

Williams continued to be a minister and was allowed back into the Church Missionary Society in 1854. He remained in Aotearoa until his death.