Godfrey John Williams, Friends’ School Principal 1907–1908
Posted on June 26, 2024
In 1908, less than a year after he’d sailed from Liverpool to become principal of The Friends’ School, Godfrey John Williams died unexpectedly of nephritis. He was only 31, and “a grand man to work with”, according to a colleague writing in that December’s issue of School Echoes. “He never forgot that he had been a schoolboy himself and therefore he was able to understand and sympathise with the [students’] feelings.”
So when designer and author Crispin Rose-Innes visited Australia from East Sussex in March, he sought out his great uncle’s resting place. “I found the experience quite emotional,” says Crispin of seeing the gravestone at Friends’ Park, the Mellifont Street playground that was a Quaker cemetery until 1912. “His life was cut very short… he was just getting started.”
Soon after the death, the Old Scholars commemorated Godfrey Williams with a set of historical lantern slides – glass photos for the “magic lanterns” that predated slide projectors – now preserved in the school archives. Crispin, whose grandmother Lucy Williams was Godfrey’s sister, is seeking more information about Edith M. Brown, who The Mercury’s obituary says Godfrey married before setting sail from England. He also wonders what motivated his forebear to travel so far given the uncertainty of what he would find.
Perhaps the answer lies in the School Echoes tribute, which describes how, “although he was with us only a short time”, the young principal brought real joy with him into schooling. “The boys and girls all came to love him, and his death was felt by each one as a personal loss.”
