William Williams was born in 1888 at Tyn Parc Rhiw, the son of a farmer. But as a young lad William wasn’t interested in the land, and left for London to work at his uncle’s bakery. However William’s ambition was to go to sea, and whilst in London he studied seamanship at night school, and went on to a successful career at sea. He became a superintendent of the ‘Southern Whaling and Sealing Company’, a subsidiary of Lever Brothers. William worked for the most part down in the South Atlantic in the whaling industry. When he married a young woman from Edern he took her on a voyage with him down to Antarctica, and she became the first Welsh woman to travel this far south during that time. In 1936 Captain Williams was asked by Lever Brothers to go to Holyhead to recruit men to work on the whalers, and being the depression there was no shortage of applicants. In fact it was so successful many men had to be turned down. Coincidentally two who were employed were my uncles Cynfelin and Joseph Collins Jones. The account of the men from Anglesey has been well documented in the book ‘Whaler’s of Anglesey’ by Alun Owen. In it he refers to Captain Williams and by all accounts he was well liked and respected by his crewmembers. It was during our winters, (summer in the South Atlantic) that they hunted whales, the catcher ships were manned by mostly Norwegians, as they were well experienced in whaling. Having caught the whales they would then be transported to the factory ships to be processed and at the end of the season the whale oil would be transported back to Port Sunlight to be made into soap etc. During the First World War Capt Williams’s ship was torpedoed by the Germans and he was rescued by a ship ‘Primrose Hill’. However during the Second World War, on the second of November 1942, his ship the "Empire Gilbert" was en route from Blyth to Archangel Russia, U boat 586 fired a torpedo and sank her off the coast of Iceland, and Capt Williams lost his life, aged 54. Captain Williams took many photographs during his voyages to the South Atlantic and South Georgia, where the whalers were based. We have been very fortunate to borrow his album, and our thanks and gratitude to his family is enormous.

"Grytviken"

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