William Owen Williams

1. William Owen Williams was the second son of Thomas Pierce Williams and his second wife, Eliza Downe Griffith. He was born on 25/01/1828 and baptised on 23/02/1828, St Elizabeth, Cornwall, Jamaica.

2. He was admitted to Queen’s College, Cambridge on 01/06/1847. In the 1851 census, William Owen Williams, aged 23, Bachelor of Arts, was recorded in the list of students at Queen’s College. His birthplace was given as “Jamaica, British Subject”.

3. He was ordained by the Lord Bishop of Manchester, on 24/12/1851 in a service held at Bolton-le-Moors Parish Church, “…… the following gentlemen were ordained and afterwards licensed to the curacies set opposite their names ….. Deacon ………William Owen Williams, B.A., Queen’s College, Cambridge, to Blackburn ……”

4. Almost two months later, on 20/01/1852, William Owen Williams died of typhus fever. His death (with some errors) was announced in The Cambridge Chronicle, under the heading, “Clergymen deceased”. “January 20th of typhus fever Rev. William Owen Williams B.A.1851 Queen’s College, Cambridge, Curate of St Clement’s, Blackburn, Somerset (sic), second son of the Ven. Archdeacon Williams of Barbados(sic)”.

1. Her father was rector of St Elizabeth, 1820-51, Archdeacon of Cornwall (Jamaica), 1850-62 and rector of St James, 1851-62. His mother left Jamaica at some point after 1830 and had two illegitimate sons in the 1830s, one of whom was possibly born in India, before being convicted of fraud in Bath, England in 1846 and forgery in London 1847 and being transported to seven years' labour in Australia. It's not clear if William saw his mother after 1830; testamony from Eliza's sister in 1847 stated that the legitimate children were in Jamaica with their father.

2. Ancestry.com, Cambridge University Alumni, 1261-1900 [database online]; 1851 census online.

3. The Preston Guardian, 27/12/1851.

4. The Cambridge Chronicle 07/02/1852. The errors are that Blackburn is in Lancashire; William was the second son of his father's second marriage; and he was of Jamaica not Barbados.

We are very grateful to Mary Hewitt for her assistance with compiling this entry.