Robert Williams

Background

Robert Williams was born about 1745, probably in the United Kingdom.

Career

He served as a member of the Irish Methodist Conference from 1766 to 1769. More recently he offered himself for the colonies for assistance and when John Wesley had begun to seek for volunteers. Wesley, however, objected to Williams' vigorous criticism of the Anglican clergy and also felt that he lacked a teachable spirit. Wesley therefore hesitated to grant Williams' request in 1769 for an appointment as a Methodist missionary to America, but allowed him to go to America on condition that he would work under the supervision of Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmore, the official missionaries, whom he was sending. Williams sold his horse and saddlebags in order to pay his debts, and through the kindness of a friend, who paid his passage, he reached America in the autumn of 1769, in advance of Boardman and Pilmore.

He began his work in Wesley Chapel in New York City. Between 1769 and 1771 his activities were confined to the region around New York City and to Maryland. Williams' impetuous spirit caused him soon to seek pioneer fields of labor and early in 1772 he went to Virginia, preaching first in Norfolk. His type of preaching attracted attention, for in his initial sermon, which was delivered in the open air, he used such words as "hell" and "devil" so frequently that many of his listeners thought that he was either swearing or that he was insane.

He preached in Portsmouth, and in February 1773 he went to Petersburg, where with the help of Devereux Jarratt, the evangelical rector of Bath Parish, he led a great revival of religion.

Williams also began to reprint some of Wesley's sermons and pamphlets. These he circulated to such an extent that they "had a very good effect - and withal, they opened the way in many places for our preachers to be invited to preach where they had never been before". The other Methodist preachers, however, looked askance at the undertaking. Some feared that Williams was printing the books for his own personal gain; others held that such an enterprise should be under the supervision of all the preachers, and that any profit should be used for religious and charitable causes. As a result, at the Conference of 1773, it was decided that none of them was to print any of Wesley's books without the consent of Wesley and the Methodist preachers in America. Williams had, however, turned the attention of the American Methodists to the value of the religious press. At the Conference he was received into the traveling connection, and appointed to serve in Virginia. In 1774 he organized the Brunswick circuit, which extended south from Petersburg into North Carolina. Soon after this he retired from the itinerancy, and established a home on the public road half-way between Portsmouth and Suffolk, where he died on September 26, 1775.

Achievements

• Robert Williams was the first Methodist traveling preacher to come to America, who preached the first Methodist sermon and formed the first Methodist circuit in Virginia.

Membership

He probably organized the first Methodist society in North Carolina.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "No one has awakened more souls for Christ, than has Robert Williams. " (Francis Asbury)

Connections

Robert Williams was married.