WILLIAMS, GEORGE (1762–1834), physician, was baptised at Catherington, Hampshire, on 24 Nov. 1762, being the younger son of John Williams, vicar of Catherington. Williams was entered on the foundation at Winchester in 1775, where he was distinguished for his recitations of Homer, which he had learnt from his father, and in November 1777 entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, with a Hampshire scholarship. He graduated B.A. in 1781, and became a fellow of his college, and then studied medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, proceeding M.A. in 1785 and M.D. in 1788. He then began to practise in Oxford, and in 1789 was chosen one of the physicians to the Radcliffe Infirmary. On the death of Professor John Sibthorp [q. v.] in 1796 Williams was appointed regius and Sherardian professor of botany; but in this capacity it has been said of him that he, ‘although an elegant scholar, added nothing to botanical science.’ On the death of Thomas Hornsby [q. v.], Williams was in 1810 chosen Radcliffe librarian, being the first physician to hold the office, and he carried out a scheme to devote the Radcliffe Library to books on medicine and physiology, preparing an index catalogue of the collection. In 1832 he became vice-president of Corpus, and on 17 Jan. 1834 he died at his residence in High Street, Oxford. Williams was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter's-in-the-East, Oxford; he is commemorated by a monument in Corpus Christi College Chapel. He bequeathed 500l. to improve the buildings in the Oxford Botanical Garden. Williams became a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1798, and of the Royal College of Physicians in 1799.
[Gent. Mag. 1834, i. 334; Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 467; Kirby's Winchester Scholars, p. 269; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886.]
WILLIAMS, GEORGE (1814–1878), divine and topographer, born at Eton on 4 April 1814, was son of a bookseller and publisher at that place. He was educated on the foundation at Eton, being in the first form, lower school, in the election for 1820, and was admitted scholar on 15 Sept. 1829. He had the montem in 1832 as captain of the school, and obtained 957l. (Stapylton, Eton Lists). On 14 July 1832 he was admitted to a scholarship at King's College, Cambridge, and was a fellow from 14 July 1835 to 1870. He graduated B.A. 1837, M.A. 1840, was admitted ad eundem at Oxford on 10 June 1847, and proceeded B.D. at Cambridge in 1849.
In 1837 Williams was ordained, and on 22 Sept. 1838 he was appointed by Eton College to the perpetual curacies of Great Bricet and Wattisham, which he held until Michaelmas 1840. He was appointed by Archbishop Howley to accompany Bishop Alexander as chaplain to Jerusalem, and was in that city from 1841 to May 1843. He then served as chaplain at St. Petersburg (1844–5), and it was through holding those posts that he became imbued with the desire of bringing together the Greek and Anglican churches. In 1846 he took up his residence at Cambridge, where he filled the post of dean of arts at his college until 1848, and of dean of divinity from 1848 to 1850. He contributed to the ‘Christian Remembrancer,’ the ‘Ecclesiologist,’ and the ‘Guardian.’
Williams was appointed warden of St. Columba's College at Rathfarnham, near Dublin, in 1850. The college was mainly kept in existence by the liberality of Lord John George de la Poer Beresford [q. v.], archbishop of Armagh, and when, in 1853, the warden joined with Archdeacon Denison, Dr. Pusey, and others in protests against the action of Bishop Gobat, the then bishop of Jerusalem, for attempting to seduce from their creed the adherents of the Greek church, the archbishop called upon him to resign. An angry correspondence then ensued on the position and principles of Williams, and the archbishop severed his connection with the institution, but Williams retained his post until 1856 (Correspondence relative to Warden of St. Columba's College, 1853; 3rd edit. 1854). From 1854 to 1857 he was vice-provost of King's College, Cambridge, and in 1858 he acted as pro-proctor to the university, but he incurred some unpopularity, and his nomination as proctor was rejected by the senate on 1 Oct. 1860, the nonplacets being 29 and the placets 26.
In 1858 Williams took temporary charge of Cumbrae College, and was appointed an honorary canon of that institution in 1864. He made ‘a long and arduous journey in Russia’ in 1860, with a view to spreading knowledge of the benefits available for foreign communities at English universities; and he printed in that year a French tract on the project to establish at Cambridge ‘des hôtelleries en faveur des étrangers’ of the Greek or Armenian churches, but the scheme proved abortive.
After a tour in the East with the Marquis of Bute and several years in residence at Cambridge, Williams was presented by his college on 9 Feb. 1869 to the important vicarage of Ringwood in Hampshire. He was Lady Margaret preacher at Cambridge in 1870, and was created honorary canon
