among others some Anabaptists, by one of whom in 1639 Williams was baptized, he baptizing others in turn and thus establishing what has been considered the first Baptist church in America. Williams, however, maintained his connexion with this church for only three or four months, and then became what was known as a “Seeker,” or Independent, though he continued to preach. In June 1643 he went to England, and there in the following year obtained a charter for Providence, Newport and Portsmouth, under the title “The Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay.” He returned to Providence in the autumn of 1644, and soon afterwards was instrumental in averting an attack by the Narragansets upon the United Colonies of New England and the Mohegans. In 1646 he removed from Providence to a place now known as Wickford, R.I. He was at various times a member of the general assembly of the colony, acted as deputy president for a short time in 1649, was president, or governor, from September 1654 to May 1657, and was an assistant in 1664, 1667 and 1670. In 1651, with John Clarke (1609–1676), he went to England to secure the annulment of a commission which had been obtained by William Coddington for the government of Rhode Island (Newport and Portsmouth) and Connecticut, and the issue of a new and more explicit charter, and in the following year succeeded in having the Coddington commission vacated. He returned in the summer of 1654, having enjoyed the friendship of Cromwell, Milton and other prominent Puritans; but Clarke remained in England and in 1663 obtained from Charles II. a new charter for “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” Williams died at Providence in March or April 1684; the exact date is unknown.
Though headstrong, opinionative and rigid in his theological views, he was uniformly tolerant, and he occupies a high place among those who have striven for complete liberty of conscience. He was the first and the foremost exponent in America of the theory of the absolute freedom of the individual in matters of religion; and Rhode Island, of which he was pre-eminently the founder, was the first colony consistently to apply this principle in practice.
Williams was a vigorous controversialist, and published, chiefly during his two visits to England, besides A Key into the Language of the Indians of America (written at sea on his first voyage to England (1643); reprinted in vol. i. of the Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society (1827), and in series i. vol. iii. of the Massachusetts Historical Society Collections); Mr Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered (1644); The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience (1644); Queries of Highest Consideration (1644); The Bloudy Tenent yet more Bloudy (1652); The Hireling Ministry none of Christ's (1652); Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health (1652); and George Fox Digged out of his Burrowes (1676).
His writings have been republished in the Publications of the Narragansett Club (6 vols., Providence, 1866–1874), the last volume containing his extant letters, written between 1632 and 1682. The best biographies are those by Oscar Straus (New York, 1894) and E. J. Carpenter (ibid. 1910). Also see J. D. Knowles, Memoir of Roger Williams (Boston, 1834), and Elton, Life of Roger Williams (London, 1852; Providence, 1853); New England Hist. and Gen. Register, July and October 1889, and January 1899; and M. C. Tyler, History of American Literature, 1607–1765 (New York, 1878). For the best apology for his expulsion from Massachusetts, see Henry M. Dexter's As to Roger Williams and his “Banishment” from the Massachusetts Plantation (Boston, 1876), an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Massachusetts from revoking the order of banishment.
WILLIAMS, ROWLAND (1817–1870), English divine and scholar, was born at Halkyn, Flint, the son of Rowland Williams (d. 1854), canon of St Asaph, and educated at Eton and Cambridge. He was elected fellow of King's College, Cambridge, in 1839, and took orders in 1842. During the next few years he actively opposed the amalgamation of the sees of St Asaph and Bangor. In 1850 he became vice-principal and Hebrew lecturer at St David's College, Lampeter, where he introduced much-needed educational and financial reforms. He was appointed select preacher of Cambridge University in 1854, and preached a sermon on inspiration, afterwards published in his Rational Godliness after the Mind of Christ and the Written Voices of the Church (London, 1855). He was charged with heterodoxy, and Alfred Ollivant (1798–1882), bishop of Llandaff, required him to resign his chaplaincy, but he remained at the college in spite of these difficulties. His views were further defined in Christianity and Hinduism (Cambridge, 1856), an expansion of the Muir prize essay which he had won in 1848. He became vicar in 1858 of Broadchalke with Bowerchalke and Alvedistone, Wiltshire. As a result of his favourable review of Bunsen's “Biblical Researches” contributed to Essays and Reviews (1860) he was prosecuted for heterodoxy. An unfavourable judgment was given by the Canterbury Court of Arches in 1862, but reversed by the Privy Council in 1864. Williams died on the 18th of January 1870.
Besides the above works his most important production was a translation of the Hebrew Prophets with commentary (pt. i. 1866; pt. ii. edited by Mrs Williams 1871; pt. iii. though planned was never written). See Life and Letters, edited by Mrs Williams (2 vols., 1874); and T. K . Cheyne, Founders of Old Testament Criticism (1893).
WILLIAMS, SIR WILLIAM FENWICK, Bart. (1800–1883), British general, second son of Commissary-General Thomas Williams, barrack-master at Halifax, Nova Scotia, was born at Annapolis, Nova Scotia, on the 4th of December 1800. He entered the Royal Artillery as second lieutenant in 1825. His services were lent to Turkey in 1841, and he was employed as a captain in the arsenal at Constantinople. He was British commissioner in the conferences preceding the treaty of Erzerúm in 1847, and again in the settlement of the Turko-Persian boundary in 1848 (brevet majority and lieutenant-colonelcy and C.B.). Promoted colonel, he was British commissioner with the Turkish army in Anatolia in the Russian War of 1854–56, and, having been made a ferik (lieutenant-general) and a pasha, he practically commanded the Turks during the heroic defence of Kars, repulsing several Russian attacks and severely defeating the Russian general Muraviev in the battle of Kars on 29th September 1855. Cold, cholera, famine and hopelessness of succour from without, however, compelled Williams to make an honourable capitulation on the 28th of November following. A baronetcy with pension for life, the K.C.B., the grand cross of the Legion of Honour and of the Turkish Medjidie, the freedom of the City of London with a sword of honour, and the honorary degree of D.C.L. of Oxford University, were the distinctions conferred upon him for his valour. Promoted major-general in November 1855 on his return from captivity in Russia, he held the Woolwich command, and represented the borough of Calne in parliament from 1856 to 1859. He became lieutenant-general and colonel-commandant Royal Artillery in 1864, general in 1868, commanded the forces in Canada from 1859 to 1865, held the governorship of Nova Scotia until 1870, and the governorship of Gibraltar until 1876. He was made G.C.B. in 1871, and Constable of the Tower of London in 1881. He died in London on the 26th of July 1883.
WILLIAMSBURG, a city and the county-seat of James City county, Virginia, U.S.A., on a peninsula between the York and James rivers, 48 m. by rail E.S.E. of Richmond. Pop. (1900) 2044; (1910) 2714. Williamsburg is served by the Chesapeake & Ohio railway. It is the seat of the Williamsburg Female Institute (Presbyterian), and of the College of William and Mary, chartered by the Crown in 1693 and the second oldest college in the United States. Besides the main building and the president's house, the College of William and Mary has a science hall, a gymnasium, a library building, an infirmary and dormitories; in front of the main building is a statue by Richard Hayward of Norborne Berkeley, Lord Botetourt (1717–1770), the most popular royal governor of Virginia. The college offers a classical course and a scientific course, two-thirds of the work in each being prescribed, and in connexion with the normal department is the Matthew Whaley Model and Practice School. In 1909 there were 21 instructors and 228 students in the college, 6 instructors and 140 pupils in the model school, and 20,000 volumes, many of them rare, in the library. Since 1892 the college has published the William and Mary College Quarterly, an historical magazine.
Here in December 1776 was established the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the first American college “Greek Letter” Society, now an inter-collegiate honorary fraternity. The college suffered heavy losses during the War of Independence and in the Civil War. In June 1781 Lord Cornwallis made the president's house his headquarters, and the institution was closed for a few
