Career
Born in Llanpumsaint, Carmarthenshire, and having had only a basic education, Williams began working in a cotton warehouse in London and soon built up his own business. After losing the seat in 1847, he became Member of Parliament for Lambeth in 1850. As a result of a speech made by Williams on 10 March 1846, a government inquiry into the state of education in Wales was launched, culminating in the "Treachery of the Blue Books".
In 1863 he chaired the meeting that launched the campaign for a University of Wales.
William Williams was a generous benafactor to the village of his birth, paying for the construction and furnishing of the village school in 1862. William Williams died on 26 April 1865, after falling from his horse in Hyde Park, London.
A plaque is dedicated to him in the village school he founded in Llanpumsaint.
