Aneurin Williams

Aneurin Williams (11 October 1859 – 20 January 1924) was a British Liberal Party politician.

He was the born in Dowlais, Glamorganshire, the second son of Edward Williams, CE, JP, ironmaster, of Cleveland Lodge, Middlesbrough. He was the great-grandson of Iolo Morgannwg, founder of the Gorsedd. He was educated privately before attending St John’s College, Cambridge where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Tripos in 1880 and a Master of Arts in 1883. He married, in 1888, Helen Elizabeth Pattinson, of Shipcote House, Gateshead. They had one son Iolo Aneurin Williams and one daughter, Helen Ursula Williams. His wife Helen died in 1922.

He was Called to Bar, Inner Temple in 1884. He was one of the acting partners at Linthorpe Ironworks, in Middlesbrough from 1886–90.

He joined the Liberal Party. He was firstly the unsuccessful Liberal candidate for the safe Conservative Medway Division of Kent at the 1906 General Election. He was one of the successful Liberal candidates for the dual member Plymouth Division of Devon at the January 1910 General Election. He was defeated at the Plymouth in the December 1910 General Election. He was the successful Liberal candidate for the North West Durham Division at the North West Durham by-election, 1914.

In September 1915, Williams, along with Lord Bryce, attempted to publicize the Armenian genocide. In a public letter published in The New York Times, Bryce wrote that he agreed with Williams that "the civilized world ... ought to know" about the Ottoman Turks' "plan of extirpating Christianity by killing off the Christians of the Armenian race". This letter estimated that 250,000 Armenians had escaped from the Ottoman Empire, while "perhaps 500,00 have been slaughtered or deported". A series of speeches in Parliament by Williams, Lord Robert Cecil, and T. P. O'Connor about the Armenian genocide were later published as a pamphlet entitled The Armenian Question.

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