Pontypool Baptist College (PBC) was established in 1807 as Abergavenny Academy. The College moved to Pontypool in 1836 and finally to Cardiff in 1893, where it became a part of the Cardiff University. South Wales Baptist College, as PBC is now called, produced several outstanding graduates and JBU has benefited from the sterling ministry of at least one of them.
Philip Williams (1850-1917) was born in Pontypool, Monmouthshire, Wales, on August 7, 1850. At the age of 17, he professed faith in Christ and became a member of the Zion Baptist church in his town. He showed early signs of being a gifted preacher and, in 1869, he entered PBC. After completing three years of training at PBC, he, in response to a public appeal from BMS, offered himself for service as a missionary in Jamaica.
Arriving in Jamaica in 1872. when he was only twenty-two, Williams’ first pastorate was the Mandeville and Zion Hill Baptist churches where he spent four years. While there, he served as Secretary of the St Elizabeth-Manchester Baptist Association. On January 7,1874, he married Sarah Eliza Hewitt, the grand-daughter of Thomas Burchell. Two years after this, he commenced serving as pastor of the Bethel Town Baptist Church whose former pastor, Edward Hewitt, demitted office on account of failing health.
Williams understood the positive value of education in people’s development and he served as manager of the Dundee School. For several years, he was chairman of the District School Board in Cambridge and he served as an Inspector of School. He was also a member of the national Board of Education. Williams’ concern for the wider community led him to serve as a member, for 15 years, of the Parochial Board of Westmoreland.
Williams was a frequent contributor to The Gleaner. He answered The Gleaner editor’s request to “write something on Questionable Methods of Raising Church Funds.” On another occasion in 1917, J. Kissock Braham, the Wesleyan minister in Port Antonio, sent a letter to the editor of The Gleaner, supporting “Rev P. Williams in his manly protest against the introduction of the Jamaica Catechism as a part of the curriculum of our elementary day schools.”
Deeply committed to the JBU, Williams served four times as JBU Chairman (now President). He was also Secretary, and sometimes Secretary-Treasurer, of the Union for many years. Williams is to date the longest serving Secretary of the JBU, having completed some 27 years in the position. In addition, he was, for thirty years, Secretary of Calabar College Committee.
Williams
served on several important JBU Committees and was involved in developing
creative solutions to challenges faced by the Union.
On several occasions, Williams represented JBU overseas. In 1909, he accompanied Thomas Gordon Somers on a JBU deputation to Costa Rica and, in 1911, he representative JBU at the Baptist World Alliance congress in Philadelphia, PA, USA.
The Calabar College Committee of the JBU Session of the Union’s 1918 assembly in Balaclava adopted a resolution reflecting its gratitude for William’s life and ministry.
The centenary of BMS mission to Jamaica was marked in 1914. During that year, Williams was serving for the fourth time as JBU Chairman. In that same year, Williams wrote Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society: Centennial Review, which was published by the Times’ Printery in Kingston.
At
the JBU Assembly at Bethel Town in 1910, the delegates voted to honour Williams
for his twenty-five years of faithful service as JBU Secretary. The actual
event to honour him took place at the JBU Assembly in 1911 and included an
address by Rev W. M. Webb of Stewart Town and a monetary gift from the Union
“to mark its appreciation of [William’s] assiduous and gratuitous labours on
behalf of the Union as its secretary.”
A man with a strong ecumenical commitment, Williams was one of the speakers at the service of dedication for the Geddes Mount Methodist Church in the Mt Ward Circuit, St James/Hanover. He joined the congregation in celebrating the rebuilding of their place of worship after it had been destroyed by hurricane in 1912. On the national scene, he served the ecumenical movement as member of the leadership team of Union of Evangelical Churches in Jamaica. In this capacity, he contributed significantly to the effort to secure the involvement in the movement of the Church of England in Jamaica.
Williams and Sarah Eliza nee Hewett, had three children, two of whom served in World War I. They joined Kitchener’s army in England, and one of the two sons served as a translator in France. Their daughter, Miss M. I. Williams, a nurse, also offered for the front but could not be released by the hospital in England because it needed her services. Afterwards, she came to reside with her parents in Bethel Town. She played a vital role in the church’s Sunday School and Christian Endeavor movements. She also served as church organist. On November 21, 1916, the Girls Improvement Society in Bethel Town hosted a farewell function for her prior to her departure from Jamaica for Canada.
In his endeavours, Williams was detailed and thorough. This took a toll on his physical health. In May 1915, while preaching at Shortwood Baptist Church in St James, he took ill right after the hymn before the sermon was announced. In 1916, his medical consultant advised him to “cease from active work for a while.” In August, 1917, The Jamaica Baptist Reporter announced William's illness and his decision to travel to Canada “for rest and change.” Two months later, The Reporter was again calling on the churches to pray for William’s recovery.
Williams returned to Jamaica and died at Bethel Town on November 2, 1917. In his passing, JBU lost a gifted leader and conscientious worker and a reliable servant of God.
Several services were held to memorialize Philip Williams. One was held at Jones Town Baptist Church on November 11, 1917. In delivering the sermon based on 2 Kings 2:12, Rev R A L Knight declared, concerning Williams: He was “bold and fearless and steadfast in the faith of the Lord.” “He denounced sin. He had no respect of persons. To him right was right and wrong was wrong wherever it was found…. He was always easy of approach, always full of mirth and of ready wit…. As a minister, there was none more faithful than he in instructing, exhorting, rebuking. [Yet], the people of Bethel Town loved him as a father…. If Mr Williams was a father to his people, he was a brother and leader among his brethren in the Union…. We might call him the Knibb of later years. As secretary, he guided and directed the affairs of the Union. He carried in his head all the rules and regulations and business of the Union. His ruling on a point was generally accepted, even, though many of his brethren differed from him, because they respected him for his sincerity and conviction. We might call him the Knibb of later years. As secretary, he led the Union in many of its protests against existing conditions, such as the importation of coolies, the low wage of the labourer, the liquor traffic, the educational question. So loved and respected was he that he was thrice elected Chairman of the Union, the last occasion being the celebration of our centenary. His jovial presence and wise counsel will be greatly missed from our Union meetings, and his place there cannot be quickly filled. The Churches had no better friend. His was a large heart.”
Another
memorial service took place at Jericho Baptist on November 18, 1917. In
delivering the sermon, based on 1 Corinthians 15:57-58, Rev A. Nelson McDonald
described Williams as “a true and sturdy Baptist, believing in the ideals of
Baptist teaching, especially in connection with the spirit of freedom that
every individual ought to have and enjoy. Did he take a most determined stand
in connection with the emigration question? It was the outcome of the spirit of
liberty and freedom. He felt that one section of the community should not
thrive at the expense of the other. Did he fight the battle to the successful
finish against the introduction of sectarian catechisms into the schools of
Jamaica? It was the result of the same firm hold of the essentials of Baptist
principles.” In speaking of the bitterness of bereavement, McDonald expressed
gratitude for the way in which God gives “the garment of praise for the spirit
of heaviness.”
A third Memorial Service, held jointly for Rev. Philip Williams and Rev William Pratt, took place during the JBU Annual Assembly in Balaclava in 1918. Both had gone overseas in hopes of returning to Jamaica well. Pratt died in England; Williams returned to Jamaica and died shortly thereafter. The memorial service was led by Rev. George Henderson of Brown’s Town and the tribute to Williams was given by Rev Charles Chapman. In addressing the gathering, George Henderson, speaking from the text of the transfiguration of Jesus, spoke on the impact of the lives of the two saints who were remembered that day.
The Jamaica Baptist Reporter published an article in its February, 1914, issue that sums up the JBU’s assessment of Philip Williams. That article follows:
The Chairman of the Union for
the year, which is the Centenary of the Baptist Mission in Jamaica, is the Rev.
Philip Williams of Bethel Town. When, so far back as two years ago, the Council
of the Union began to arrange for the meetings of this historic year, it was
felt that someone, who had long been connected with Baptist work in Jamaica and
could truly represent the various aspects of the work should be elected to the
chairmanship, and the choice fell on Mr. Williams, who, on the nomination of
the Council, was unanimously and most cordially elected Chairman. His ministry
in this island has extended over forty years, being exercised for a short time
in the Mandeville, but, for almost the whole period, in the important Bethel
Town circuit of churches. All through this long period Mr. Williams has proved
himself to be a true minister of the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, building up and enlarging the churches under his charge by faithful and
steady work. Mr. Williams has, also, served the Baptists of Jamaica generally, by
visiting and truly “confirming” their churches in all parts of the island and
by ever taking a prominent part in building up the various institutions of the
denomination.
As a member of the Managing
Committee of the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society, his counsel and help has
been, for very many years, most valuable. For 30 years he was Secretary of the
Calabar College and for over 25 years he has been Secretary of the Jamaica
Baptist Union.
Whatever office Mr. Williams
has held and whatever duty he has been called upon to perform, he has done
everything in the most efficient manner. Mr Williams has ever maintained the
best traditions of the Baptist ministry in Jamaica and, by interesting himself
in everything that concerned the rights and manifold welfare of the people of
Jamaica and has ever stood up, sometimes alone, as champion of causes which he
held to be right. Mr. Williams has served on various boards, Parochial Boards
and the Board of Education and now is President and Treasurer of one of the
recently formed Cooperative Loan Banks. There is no man who, by character and
service, is better fitted to represent Jamaica Baptists in this the centennial
year of their history than Mr. Williams.
The centenary will loom big in
all the Union meetings this year. Not only is there to be the great Centenary
Meeting to be presided over by the Governor, but papers are to be read on
"The Lessons of the Centenary for our Ministers" and "for our
Young People." We need to learn and carry out those lessons from the past
and if only our ministers and young people learn them and take them to heart,
the celebration of the Centenary will make its influence felt in Jamaica for
many years to come. By the Centenary Meetings, which begin this month in
Kingston, our Divine Lord will surely call Jamaica Baptists so to remember with
thankfulness and pride their past as to “go forward, with courage and hope,
into the future.”
Gifted, dedicated, responsible, efficient and hard-working, Philip Williams was a blessing to the JBU.
After
William’s death, Sarah Eliza, his widow resided in the Springfield area for
about a year. Prior to her departure to join two of her children living in
Canada, the Bethel Town church organized a farewell service for her. This took
place in the afternoon of Sunday, May 12, 1918. Acting pastor, A. G. Kirkham, presided
and JBU Chairman, Rev. J. A. Jones, who had preached at the morning service at
Bethel Town, was in attendance. Mr. C. W. Whittingham, the Bethel Town Sunday
School Superintendent, offered a touching tribute on behalf of the church
members. He said:
We deeply deplore the
circumstances which have culminated in your decision to finally disconnect
yourself with, and retire from, us. When, a little while ago, it pleased the
Great Head of the Church to call and remove your dear partner in life, and an
esteemed and revered pastor up to higher service, we were consoled by the fact
that you were still spared to us, and would for some time yet be the guiding
star of the destiny of many in this church and community. But, alas! our hope,
though fondly cherished, was not to materialize and today we are called upon to
say goodbye. We say it, but reluctantly. For nearly a quarter of a century you
have lived among us, shedding your influence for good in connection with every
department of the activities of the church. Your going out from us terminates a
history—a kind of dynasty—at once unique, illustrious, grand. For nearly a
century this church has been ministered to by one member or another of the same
family. The name of Thomas Burchell, your illustrious grandfather, can never be
forgotten, and Philip Williams, your equally illustrious and beloved husband by
whose side you laboured so well and constantly; these must live as long as the
church lasts for what they have done. We had cherished the hope that we would
have had you as the last link of that Burchell-Williams until you also were
called up to higher service. But, alas! this was not to be so. The magnetic
influence of family relationship was stronger than any we could exert, and now
you go to be reunited with your loved ones across the waters: A blank that will
never be filled has been created. We shall miss you far more than we can find
language to adequately express, nor will you yet realize. Our prayers shall,
however, go after you incessantly.
Mrs. Williams left by train to Kingston and departed Jamaican shores on May 21, 1918, when she sailed to Canada.
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