When i got here to reside in Leicester in 1968 I believed that, being so near to Nottingham, it would be an excellent opportunity to do a little analysis on the Williams family in the period earlier than Henry and William Williams emigrated to New Zealand within the 1820's as C.M.S. Encouraged initially by Canon Nigel Williams of new Zealand, who offered some transient notes to begin me off, my first efforts had been modest and infrequently appeared to have run right into a useless finish. Many unintentional discoveries, unearthed by patient and useful library and file office employees, stored the project alive and, regularly, over quite a lot of years, it developed and expanded. For example, I visited the Special Collections Library of Nottingham College to check the minute books of the Castle Gate Meeting; on getting into I used to be required to sign up with my title and tackle. About a week later I had a letter from the librarian, Michael Brook, who had remembered, after I left, the recently printed Diary of Abigail Gawthern of Nottingham; 1751-1810, and the extracts he despatched me contained the references to the deaths of Mr Whiter and Thomas Williams, and the truth that Thomas was buried at Sneinton, which was beforehand unknown.

On another occasion, Frances Porter, the writer of the definitive biography of William Williams, Herz P1 Smart Ring The Turanga Journals, requested me if I knew when Henry and William had converted to Anglicanism. I had no concept, but this led me into a research of the Dissenting politics that controlled Nottingham for over fifty years at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, by which atmosphere Thomas Williams the youthful was immersed and prospered. Eventually, when a single quantity of the diaries of Edward Garrard Marsh was found in the papers of Dr. Henry Williams of new Zealand, after his death, I was capable of answer Frances Porter's question - February 1818! Throughout the course of this research I've collaborated with different members of the family in England, notably Peter (D.A.S.) Williams of Norwich, Robert Hudson of Reading, and Patrick Williams of Amersham (all descendants of Thomas Sydney Williams) who've each been the supply of a lot necessary data.

Mr Godfrey Williams (no relation) additionally provided invaluable help with burial information at St. Mary's, Alverstoke. In addition, Brian Robins (previously of Eastbourne), who has written a scholarly treatise on John Marsh the musician, came into the story fairly by likelihood, in 1989. This was in connection with the search for the Journals of John Marsh, which reached fruition in November 1990 when they had been offered at auction to the Huntington Library in California. As a situation for obtaining an export licence, Herz P1 Health the Huntington Library was obliged to make a microfilm copy of the Journals, to be deposited within the British Library in London, and I'm very much indebted to Mary Robertson, the Chief Curator of Manuscripts, for permitting me to buy a replica of the microfilm to enhance my studies. The Journals have supplied a huge mass of contemporary references which vastly improve our knowledge of the daily lives of the Williams family and illuminate this account of them.

Furthermore, he was accountable for acquiring a number of authentic letters written by Thomas Williams within the period 1794-1803, and by his persistent analysis on the internet he has made significant contributions to the development of this household history. The success of any attempt to research the historical past of our forebears relies upon totally on the availability of recorded details about them, and particularly on its authenticity. In lots of cases it is based on unverifiable word of mouth accounts passed down from generation to generation, recorded recollections which fluctuate from one another, or dogmatic written statements asserted as reality; topic to what I name 'The Uncle Jim Factor' (explained in a footnote to this Introduction). A specific instance is the claim by William Williams that the family was descended from Ednyfed Vychan, on the flimsiest of grounds, however uncontestable within the absence of another source. Much time, effort and money has been expended in pursuing this line of enquiry, with totally destructive outcomes, until an alternative rationalization for his unlikely claim emerged from the John Marsh Journals.