Meanwhile Williams had entered parliament, 19 Nov. 1868, as liberal member for the Denbigh boroughs. He sat for that constituency till 1880, when he was elected for Carnarvonshire. As early as 1854 he had published a pamphlet on the 'Law of Church Rates,' and, though himself a churchman, he on 24 May 1870 moved a resolution in the House of Commons in favour of the disestablishment of the church in Wales in a speech which displayed considerable knowledge of ecclesiastical history. The motion was opposed by Mr. Gladstone, and lost by 209 against forty-five votes. In 1875 Williams did good service as a member of Sir Henry (afterwards Lord) James's committee on foreign loans. When Mr. Gladstone returned to office in 1880, he was offered but declined the post of judge-advocate-general. In November of the same year, on the promotion of Sir Robert Lush to a lord-justice- ship, his son-in-law, Williams, was appointed to the vacant puisne judgeship, though he had recently made a public declaration that he would never accept such an office. He was a most painstaking, fair, and independent judge. He concurred in the judgement of the crown cases reserved in upholding the conviction of Most in connection with the murder of the tsar, Alexander II. In Sanders v. Richardson he decided that a parent who sends a child to school without fee is liable to legal penalty. His judgement in the important case of privilege of counsel (Munster v. Lamb), when he nonsuited the plaintiff, was upheld by the superior courts. To the council of judges Williams submitted a paper advocating the abolition of distinctions between the common pleas and exchequer divisions, but the retention of the chiefships. He publicly repudiated their decisions announced in November 1881, declaring that nothing less than an act of parliament should ever induce him to deprive a prisoner of the right of making a statement to a jury of facts not given in evidence. Williams did excellent work when sitting with Mr. Justice Mathew as the tribunal of commerce. In nisi prius business his knowledge and quickness of apprehension were invaluable, but his judgements in complicated cases of law were sometimes diffuse and loosely reasoned.
Williams died suddenly of heart disease on the night of 17 July 1884 at Nottingham, where he was on circuit with Mr. Justice Lopes (afterwards Lord Ludlow). He was buried at Kensal Green cemetery on 22 July.
Besides the works mentioned, he published in 1853 'An Essay upon the Philosophy of Evidence, with a Discussion concerning the Belief in Clairvoyance;' of this excellent book a second edition was issued in 1855.
Williams was twice married, and left several children. His first wife, Henrietta, daughter of William Henry Carey, esq., and niece of Vice-chancellor Malins, died in 1864. In the following year he married Elizabeth, daughter of Lord-justice Lush, who survived him.
[Private information; Times, 19 and 21 July 1884; Law Times, 26 July 1884; A Generation of Judges, by their Reporter (W. F. Finlason), pp. 211-17; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715-1886; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, 4 Oct. 1884; A Reminiscence (probably by Chief-justice Way of South Australia), reprinted from the South Australian Register.]
WILLIAMS, DANIEL (1643?–1716), nonconformist divine and benefactor, was born at (or near) Wrexham, Denbighshire, about 1643. Nothing is known of his father or of his education, but he was well connected. His mother was probably a daughter of Hugh Davies of Wrexham, grandfather of Stephen Davies (d. 1739), minister at Banbury, whom Williams in his will calls his ‘cousin,’ and makes a residuary legatee. His sister Elizabeth (d. January 1727–8) married Hugh Roberts of Wrexham, a landowner and currier. He says himself that ‘from five years old’ he did nothing but study, and ‘before nineteen’ was ‘regularly admitted a preacher’ (Defence of Gospel Truth, 1693, pref.). Visiting about 1664 Lady Wilbraham (d. 2 Nov. 1679) of Weston, near Shifnal, Shropshire, he accepted the offer of a chaplaincy to the Countess of Meath (Mary, d. 1685, daughter of Calcot Chambre of Denbigh). While in her service he preached regularly to an independent congregation at Drogheda, a survival of Cromwell's garrison. In 1667 he was called to the congregation of Wood Street, Dublin, originally independent, as colleague to Samuel Marsden (d. 1677), a moderate independent. From 1682 to 1687 Gilbert Rule [q. v.] was Williams's colleague, and from him Williams learned his admiration, always purely theoretical, of the presbyterian system, and (except in the matter of non-residence) of the Scottish universities. In 1683 Joseph Boyse [q. v.] also joined Williams, and for some years the Wood Street congregation was strongly manned. Its ministers met those of other dissenting congregations in a neutral association formed (1655) by Samuel Winter [q. v.] But on the outbreak of the troubles of 1687, Rule returned to Scotland, and Williams, who had so excited the animosity of Roman catholics that he thought his
