Henry Williams (11 February 1792 – 16 July 1867) was the leader of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) mission in New Zealand in the first half of the 19th century.

Williams entered the Royal Navy at the age of fourteen and served in the Napoleonic Wars. He went to New Zealand in 1823 as a missionary. The Bay of Islands Māori gave Williams the nickname Karu-whā ("Four-eyes" as he wore spectacles). He was known more widely as Te Wiremu. ('Wiremu' being the Māori form of 'William'). His younger brother, William Williams, was also a missionary in New Zealand and known as "the scholar-surgeon". Their grandfather, the Reverend Thomas Williams (1725–1770), was a Congregational minister at the Independent Chapel of Gosport in England.

Although Williams was not the first missionary in New Zealand – Thomas Kendall, John Gare Butler, John King and William Hall having come before him – he was "the first to make the mission a success, partly because the others had opened up the way, but largely because he was the only man brave enough, stubborn enough, and strong enough to keep going, no matter what the dangers, and no matter what enemies he made".

In 1840, Williams translated the Treaty of Waitangi into the Māori language, with some help from his son Edward.

On 21 September 1844, Williams was installed as Archdeacon of Te Waimate in the diocese centred on Te Waimate mission.Evans 1992, p. 21.

Parents, brothers and sisters Williams was the son of Thomas Williams (Gosport, England, 27 May 1753 – Nottingham 6 January 1804) and Mary Marsh (10 April 1756 – 7 November 1831) who had married in Gosport on 17 April 1783. Thomas Williams was a supplier of uniforms to the Royal Navy in Gosport, Hampshire. In 1794, Thomas and Mary Williams and their six children moved to Nottingham, then the thriving centre of the East Midlands industrial revolution. Thomas Williams was listed in the Nottingham trade directories as a hosier. The industry was based on William Lee's stocking frame knitting machine. The business was successful. Thomas Williams received recognition as a Burgess of Nottingham in 1796 and as a Sheriff of Nottingham in 1803. However the prosperity which had been such a feature of the hosiery industry in the second half of the 18th century ended. In 1804, when Thomas Williams died of typhus at the age of 50, his wife was left with a heavily mortgaged business with five sons and three daughters to look after.Gillies 1998, p. 18.

Williams's parents had nine children, of whom six (including himself) were born in Gosport and three (including William Williams) in Nottingham: Mary (Gosport, England, 2 March 1784 – Gosport, England, 19 April 1786) Thomas Sydney (Gosport, England, 11 February 1786 – Altona, Germany, 12 February 1869) Lydia (Gosport, England, 17 January 1788 – 13 December 1859), married (7 July 1813) Edward Garrard Marsh (8 February 1783 – 20 September 1862)Evans 1992, p. 15 John (Gosport, England, 22 March 1789 – New Zealand, 9 March 1855) Henry (Gosport, England, 11 February 1792 – Pakaraka, Bay of Islands, New Zealand 16 July 1867) Joseph William (Gosport, England, 27 October 1793 – Gosport, England, August 1799) Mary Rebecca (Nottingham, England, 3 June 1795 – Bethlehem, Palestine 17 December 1858) Catherine (Nottingham, England, 28 July 1797 – Southwell, Nottinghamshire, England, 11 July 1881) William (Nottingham, England, 18 July 1800 – Napier, New Zealand, 9 February 1878)

Williams was aged 11 when his father died (his brother William Williams was three).

1806–1815: Navy years

In 1806, aged 14, Williams entered the Royal Navy, serving on . He became a midshipman in 1807. He then served on HMS Maida under Captain Samuel Hood Linzee during the Battle of Copenhagen when the Danish fleet was seized in 1807. He landed with the party of seamen who manned the breaching battery before the city walls. He participated in the engagement on 13 February 1810, when 8 boats under the command of Lieutenant Gardiner Henry Guion, attacked nine French gun boats in the Basque Roads. On , under Captain Woodley Losack, he took part in the Battle of Tamatave (1811) between three English frigates, under the command of Captain Schomberg, and three French vessels of superior force. Williams was wounded and never entirely recovered. For this service he qualified for the Naval General Service Medal, which was awarded in 1847 with clasp "Off Tamatave 20 May 1811".

After the outbreak of the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States, he served on as part of the blockading squadron off New York City. He was transferred to and served under Captain Henry Hope in the action on 14 January 1815 against the American warship . When the latter was forced to surrender, Williams was a member of the small prize crew that sailed the badly damaged vessel to port, after riding out a storm and quelling a rebellion of the American prisoners.Carleton 1874, pp. 13–14. In 1848 the Admiralty authorized the issue of the Naval General Service Medal, with clasp "Endymion wh. President", to any still surviving crew from Endymion.

Before serving on HMS Saturn, Williams sat and passed his examinations for the rank of lieutenant, although he was not promoted to lieutenant until 28 February 1815, after the Treaty of Ghent was ratified by the United States. When peace came in 1815, he retired on half pay.Henry Williams in Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. At the age of 23 he had been "in the North Sea and the Baltic, around the French and Spanish coasts, southwards to the Cape, up to the eastern shores of Madagascar, across the Indian Ocean to Mauritius, and northward to the coast of India. After service at Madras and Calcutta, it was on into the cold American winter and that epic last naval engagement in which he took part, on the Endymion".Gillies 1998, p. 8.

Williams' experiences during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 influenced his decision to become a Christian missionary and peacemaker in carrying out the work of the Church Missionary Society in what was then considered an isolated and dangerous mission in New Zealand.

Marriage and children After leaving the Royal Navy, Williams gained employment at Cheltenham, as a teacher of drawing. His artistic skills are apparent in the drawings he made in New Zealand. Williams married Marianne Coldham on 20 January 1818. They had eleven children:Evans 1992, p. 19 Edward Marsh (2 November 1818 – 11 October 1909). Married Jane Davis, daughter of the Rev. Richard Davis, a CMS missionary. Marianne (28 April 1820 – 25 November 1919). Married the Rev. Christopher Pearson Davies, a CMS missionary. Samuel (17 January 1822 – 14 March 1907). Married Mary Williams, daughter of William and Jane Williams. Henry (Harry) (10 November 1823 – 6 December 1907). Married Jane Elizabeth Williams (also a daughter of William and Jane). Thomas Coldham (18 July 1825 – 19 May 1912). Married Annie Palmer Beetham, daughter of William Beetham. John William (6 April 1827 – 27 April 1904). Married Sarah Busby, daughter of James Busby. Sarah (26 February 1829 – 5 April 1866). Married Thomas Biddulph Hutton. Catherine (Kate) (24 February 1831 – 8 January 1902). Married the Rev. Octavius Hadfield. Caroline Elizabeth (13 November 1832 – 20 January 1916). Married Samuel Blomfield Ludbrook. Lydia Jane (2 December 1834 – 28 November 1891) Married Hugh Carleton. Lydia died in Napier, New Zealand on 28 November 1891. Joseph Marsden (5 March 1837 – 30 March 1892).

Missionary Edward Garrard Marsh, the husband of their sister Lydia, would play an important role in the life of Henry and William. He was a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and was described as "influential" in the decision of Henry and William, of Dissenter background, to convert to Anglicanism in February 1818, and then to join the CMS."From about 1816 he (Henry Williams) came under the tutelage of his evangelical brother-in-law, Edward Marsh". biography of Henry Williams Williams received The Missionary Register from Marsh, which described the work of CMS missionaries. Williams took a special interest in New Zealand and its native Māori people. It was not until 1819 that he offered his services as a missionary to the CMS, being initially accepted as a lay settler, but was later ordained.

Williams studied surgery and medicine and learned about boat-building. He studied for holy orders for two years and was ordained a deacon of the (Anglican) Church of England on 2 June 1822 by the Bishop of London; and as a priest on 16 June 1822 by the Bishop of Lincoln.Carleton 1874, p. 18.

On 11 September 1822, Williams with his wife Marianne and their three children embarked on the Lord Sidmouth, a convict ship carrying women convicts to Port Jackson, New South Wales, Australia. In February 1823, in Hobart, Williams met Samuel Marsden for the first time. In Sydney he met Marsden again and in July 1823 they set sail for New Zealand, accompanying Marsden on his fourth visit to New Zealand on board the Brampton.Carleton 1874, pp. 91–123. In 1823 he arrived in the Bay of Islands and settled at Paihia, across the bay from Kororāreka (nowadays Russell); then described as "the hell-hole of the South Pacific" because of the abuse of alcohol and prostitution that was the consequence of the sealing ships and whaling ships that visited Kororāreka.

Early days at Paihia

The members of the CMS were under the protection of Hongi Hika, the rangatira (chief) and war leader of the Ngāpuhi iwi (tribe). The immediate protector of the Paihia mission was the chief, Te Koki and his wife Ana Hamu, a woman of high rank, who gave permission to the CMS to occupy the land at Paihia. Williams was appointed to be the leader of the missionary team. Williams adopted a different approach to missionary work as that applied by Marsden. Marsden's policy had been to teach useful skills rather than focus on religious instruction. This approach had little success in fulfilling the aspirations of the CMS as an evangelistic organisation. Also, in order to obtain essential food, the missionaries had yielded to the pressure to trade in muskets, the item of barter in which Māori showed the greatest interest in order to engage in intertribal warfare during what is known as the Musket Wars.

Williams concentrated on the salvation of souls. The first baptism occurred in 1825, although it was another five years before the second baptism. Schools were established, which addressed religious instruction, reading and writing and practical skills. Williams also stopped the trade in muskets, although this had the consequence of reducing trade for food as Māori withheld the supply of food so as to pressure the missionaries to resume the trade in muskets. Eventually the mission began to grow sufficient food for itself. Māori eventually came to see that the ban on muskets was the only way to bring an end to the tribal wars, but that took some time.