WILLIAMS, WILLIAM JONES (1863 - 1949), civil servant, secretary of Kodak Limited, treasurer of Coleg Harlech and Urdd Gobaith Cymru

Name: William Jones Williams

Author: Margaret Beatrice Davies

Born 21 May 1863 at Salford, Lancashire, the eldest of the 7 children of John Williams (1828 — 1877), warehouseman, formerly of Tynygraig, Garthgarmon, near Llanrwst, and his first wife Ellen Williams (1838 — 1874), formerly of Bethel, near Llandderfel, Meironnydd. He was at Manchester Grammar School from January 1875 until December 1876 when he began to be employed on 21 December at ’ Mr. Salmon’s, Machinist, Manchester ’ at a wage of five shillings per week. He entered the Civil Service by examination, c. 1880, joining the Exchequer and Audit Department as a Second Division Clerk, and remaining in that service until 1900. In 1900, at the invitation of George Davison, late of Plas Wern Fawr, Harlech (now the home of Coleg Harlech), who had himself been in the Exchequer and Audit Department, Williams joined Kodak Limited as Secretary; he remained with that company until 1928. Before he had left the Civil Service he had taken by external examinations the degrees of B.A., and LL.B., London. He also qualified as a barrister as of the Middle Temple, but was never formally called to the Bar. While he was with Kodak Limited Williams travelled extensively in Europe (including Russia), South Africa, and Egypt, organising Kodak branches, etc., mainly in his capacity as an expert accountant.

In his early years in London he was a member of Shirland Road CM Chapel; he was actively connected with the Cymru Fydd movement, and was a member of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, and an early member of the Fabian Society. After his retirement from Kodak he became associated actively with several other societies, institutions, and bodies. Among these were Coleg Harlech (Treasurer, 1927-48, and subsequently Vice-President); Urdd Gobaith Cymru (Treasurer 1931-42), the Labour Party — he supported a Welsh Labour weekly Y Dinesydd, the Workers’ Educational Association, the Caernarfonshire Historical Society, the Cambrian Archaeological Association.

One major interest which he shared with his wife Mary Williams (1873 — 1942), of London and formerly Ruthin, whom he married in 1903, was mountaineering. He climbed in north Wales and the Alps with such pioneers as Owen Glynne Jones, Roderick Williams, J.M. Archer Thomson, and G.D. and A.P. Abraham; he had joined the Alpine Club in 1903 and was also a member of the Climbers’ Club. He was a contributor to S.H. Hamer, Dolomites (1910, 2nd ed., 1926) and to Cassell’s Storehouse, ed. by S.H. Hamer. He had a large private library and had throughout the years collected Welsh books and works on mountaineering. He died 10 August 1949.