Rhys Williams (1929-2003) was born in San Francisco, California. Influenced by his uncle, David Rhys Williams, minister of the Unitarian Church of Rochester, New York, he decided to pursue a ministerial career. He graduated from St. Lawrence University in 1951 and received his B.D. from the Theological School there in 1953. He received an honorary doctorate in 1962 from Emerson College, and another from St. Lawrence University in 1966. He served as a student minister from 1951 to 1953 at the Universalist Church in Edwards, New York. In 1954, he was ordained a Unitarian minister at the Unitarian Church in Charleston, South Carolina. He served as minister there until 1960, when he became the minister of the First Church in Boston. He served as minister of the First Church in Boston until his retirement in 2000.
In 1969 he was appointed field education supervisor at Harvard Divinity School, and over the course of his career more than sixty future ministers interned with him at First Church. Williams was president of the Unitarian Historical Society from 1960 to 1975; president of the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry/Benevolent Fraternity of Unitarian Churches from 1991 to 1999; president of the Ministerial Association from 1968 to 1970; and president of the Society for Ministerial Relief from 1975 to 2003. He was president and then vice president of the Evangelical Missionary Society from 1965 until 2003. From 1975 to 2003 he was vice president and president of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among Indians and Others in North America. His book Triumphant Living: Sermons from Five Decades Celebrating the Liberal Gospel was published in 2003.
From the guide to the Papers, 1951-2003., (Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School)
