Researching David Williams

Born in Brisbane, Williams played youth football at the Queensland Academy of Sport before making his professional debut for Queensland Roar. Williams has played for several A-League clubs including Queensland Roar, North Queensland Fury, Sydney FC and Melbourne City and Wellington Phoenix

Williams has also played in Europe for Danish Superliga (Denmark) club Brøndby and NB I (Hungary) club Haladás.

Williams is the first Indigenous Australian player to play for A-League club Melbourne City. Williams represented Australia twice in 2008.

Williams was involved in trade union activities and Labour politics from a young age. In 1898, he became the first Independent Labour Party councillor elected to Swansea Town Council, becoming an alderman in 1904 and was mayor of Swansea in 1912–1913. He received the freedom of Swansea in 1924. He was the first chairman of the Swansea Co-operative Society when it was formed in 1900.

He unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary constituency of Swansea East at the 1918 general election. When the Coalition Liberal MP Thomas Jeremiah Williams died the following year, he stood in the resulting by-election, cutting the Liberal majority. He won the seat at the 1922 general election, and held it until he resigned from the House of Commons on 26 January 1940, due to ill health. He died a year later, aged 75.

Williams was born in Bridgend in Wales and studied at the Hereford Cathedral School and St John's College, Oxford, where he read Modern History. His university studies were interrupted by World War II when Williams spent three years as an officer in the Royal Navy.

He started in advertising as a medical copywriter, rising through the ranks to head David Williams and Ketchum, regarded as one of the largest and most successful advertising agencies in the country. He suffered a severe stroke in 1977 and whilst he eventually made a more or less complete recovery, he suffered partial paralysis and impaired speech for a time and realised that he would not be able to return to the stresses of life in the advertising industry. He had written crime fiction in his spare time, with Unholy Writ being written before his stroke in 1976. He turned from advertising to writing "whodunnits": he wrote 23 novels in all, most featuring Mark Treasure, graduate of Jesus College, Oxford and vice-chairman of a merchant bank, and his successful actress wife Molly. A second series of books featured Chief Inspector Merlin Parry of the South Wales Constabulary, together with Sergeant Gomer Lloyd. His books were twice shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger award and he was elected as a member of the Detection Club in 1988. He also was a churchwarden of St Mary Aldermary and a governor of Pusey House, Oxford.

His ashes are interred in the churchyard of St Mary, Thorpe, Surrey - the nearest Anglo-Catholic parish church to his home, where he had been a Cantor and regular worshipper for many years.

Prior to turning pro, Williams played four seasons at Dartmouth College in ECAC Hockey, serving as team captain at the end of his career there. At Dartmouth, Williams was an All American player. He also played varsity hockey for Choate Rosemary Hall a prep school in Wallingford, Connecticut, and Chatham Township High School in Chatham Township, New Jersey. Williams was the first New Jersey-raised player to play in the NHL. Internationally Williams played for the American national team at two World Championships.

At Choate, Williams was also an All New England baseball player, but chose hockey and did not continue playing baseball.

Williams was elected to the New Jersey High School Ice Hockey Hall of Fame in 2012 for his achievements at all levels of ice hockey.

A forward from Rochester, Williams kicked nine goals against North Melbourne late in the 1986 VFL season at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. He however had his most successful season in 1987 when he kicked 39 goals and he bagged 33 more the following year. The second of those tallies included two of Melbourne's six goals in the 1988 VFL Grand Final, which he played as a half forward flanker. It was his last game for the club and he was traded to Richmond, but a knee injury ended his career.

Born at Benalla to schoolteacher Ralph Noel Williams and Rita Alice Hawkins, Williams attended school in Geelong before studying at the University of Melbourne, receiving a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Education and then a Diploma of Business from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. While at university he joined the Labor Party. On 22 August 1964, he married Jennifer Claire Dodd, with whom he had two sons. He worked as a lecturer at Ballarat College of Advanced Education, contesting the federal seat of Ballarat for the Labor Party in 1972, 1974, and 1975. In 1978 he won the state Legislative Council seat of Ballarat Province at a by-election, only to lose it in 1979. Following his defeat, he became an accountant and treasurer for Richmond City Council, town clerk from 1982, and Chief Executive Officer from 1984 to 1994. Since then he has been a community engagement consultant.

Williams was educated at Brynrefail Grammar School before qualifying as a Registered Mental Nurse at the North Wales Hospital in Denbigh. He became active in the Confederation of Health Service Employees (COHSE), and worked for the union full-time from 1955, when he became its Yorkshire Regional Officer.

In 1962, Williams moved to COHSE's head office as a National Officer, then was successively promoted to Senior National Officer and Assistant General Secretary. From 1977, he chaired the Whitley Council for nurses and midwives. Also active in the Labour Party, he served on its National Executive Committee from 1981 until 1983, when he was instead elected to the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

In 1983, Williams was elected as the General Secretary of COHSE, serving until his retirement in 1987. In retirement, he served as an occasional adviser to the World Health Organization.

David H. Williams was born in Llangyfelach, Swansea, on 5 October 1812, the second son of David William and Hannah. His father had progressed from being a labourer to mineral surveying, and the help father and his son gave William Logan with mapping coal in the Swansea area was probably a large factor in Henry de la Beche's decision in 1839 to make D.H.Williams his first employee for the Ordnance Geological Survey. D.H.Williams is acknowledged as sole or joint surveyor on numerous 1st edition geological maps and sections of England and Wales, from Pembrokeshire to Somerset, and Flintshire to Shropshire.

At the end of 1845, Williams was engaged by the East India Company as 'Surveyor of coal districts and superintendent of coal works, Bengal' (between Calcutta and Benares). In 1847 he introduced Joseph Hooker to travelling in India.

On 4 February 1848, Williams was appointed the "Geological Surveyor of the Geological Survey of India". He died of fever at Hazareebaugh on 15 November 1848.

Williams published a map, plus horizontal and vertical sections, of the Damoodah coalfield in December 1847. Detailed reports of his work in India, with recommendations for introducing iron works, were published posthumously in London and then Calcutta.