William Henry Collison

William Henry Collison (1847-1922), also known as W. H. Collison, was an Anglican missionary among First Nations people in coastal British Columbia, Canada.

Birth records are unclear as to whether Collison was born in County Armagh, or in Dublin, both in Ireland. In any case his date of birth was November 12, 1847.

After first apprenticing as a warehouseman, he attended the Church of Ireland Normal College, after which he served as the Superintendent of the Buckingham House Free School for Boys in Cork, Ireland. After three years there, in 1872 he applied to the Church Missionary Society to be accepted into their missionary program, and then for a year attended the Church Missionary Society College, Islington.

In August 1873, he married Marion M. Goodwin who had served as a deaconess, nursing the wounded in the Franco-Prussian war. They were wed at St. Paul's, Tottenham, in London, and left for North America soon after their marriage.

After his training Collison was appointed by the Church of England's Church Missionary Society (CMS) to Metlakatla, British Columbia, to assist William Duncan (missionary) in converting the Tsimshian people. Marion Collison became the first white woman to be resident in that community. Their first child, a son (William Edwin), was the first white child born there, as was a second son (Henry Alexander).

After teaching and preaching at Metlakatla, as well as becoming fluent in the Tsimshean language, he accepted an invitation by the Haidas to set up a mission in Haida Gwaii. In 1876 he became the first missionary to work among the Haida people on the nearby islands of Haida Gwaii (formerly named the Queen Charlotte Islands. Their first daughter, Emily Charlotte, was born at Massett on Haida Gwaii.

Collison was ordained at Metlakatla in 1879, by Bishop William Bompas who had travelled overland from Red River for this purpose.

...
Wikipedia