''John Williams'' was a

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

ship under the command of Captain Robert Clark Morgan (1798–1864) and owned by the

London Missionary Society The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed tradition, Reformed in outlook, with ...

(LMS). She was named after

John Williams John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (November 15, 2022)Classic Connection review, ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who w ...

(1796–1839), a missionary who had been active in the South Pacific. She was paid for by the contribution of English school children. She sank in 50 fathoms after drifting onto a reef at Danger Island (

Pukapuka Pukapuka, formerly Danger Island, is a coral atoll in the Northern Cook Islands, northern group of the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the most remote islands of the Cook Islands, situated about northwest of Rarotonga. On th ...

) on 16 May 1864. The passengers and crew were rescued. Six more ''John Williams'' ships successively operated in the Pacific as part of the LMS's missionary work, the last, ''John Williams VII'', being built in 1962 and decommissioned in 1968.

General specifications

''John Williams'' was launched at

Harwich Harwich is a town in Essex, England, and one of the Haven ports on the North Sea coast. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the north-east, Ipswich to the north-west, Colchester to the south-west and Clacton-o ...

on 20 March 1844. She was of 296

ton Ton is any of several units of measure of mass, volume or force. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses. As a unit of mass, ''ton'' can mean: * the '' long ton'', which is * the ''tonne'', also called the ''metric ...

s and had a length of and beam of . The depth of her hold was . She had 10 state rooms. A medal was issued commemorating her first three-year voyage and an example of this is held at the Royal Museum of Greenwich.

General specifications

References

Further reading