(Benjamin) Gordon Williams (1885-1966) was the youngest of six children of Frederick George Williams (1842-1908), Life Deacon of Moseley Road Congregational Church, and Ann (nee Hawkins); his paternal grandfather, William Frederick Williams (1813-1891) was one of the six brothers of Sir George Williams (1821-1905). He attended Tettenhall College 1896-1900 and was apprenticed to Dr Frederick W. Lanchester, co-founder of the Lanchester Engine Company, Birmingham before joining the firm of Chamberlain and Hookham; he was appointed Membership Secretary c 1911, then Assistant Secretary July 1919, of Birmingham YMCA and served in Egypt and the Mediterranean during the First World War. In 1938 he volunteered for the Observer Corps.
Gordon met his future wife, (Jane) Dora Cross, in 1910. During the First World War, Dora served in Salonika as a nursing sister with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (Q. A. I. M. N. S.) and she and Gordon corresponded using gold nibbed pens; before their marriage in Stoke Poges Church July 1923, the nibs were melted with a half sovereign creating a 'nugget' which was to become a treasured family heirloom. Their son, Caleb G. Williams, was born in Hampstead in 1925; he married Beryl Ernestine Woodward (b 1933) in 1954.
Both Gordon and Dora were members of the Salonika Reunion Association which ran between 1924 and 1969 for veterans of service in the Balkans; Gordon was president of the Walsall Branch at the time of his death 9 June 1966.
Sources: Caleb G. Williams, 2011; John Springhall, 'Williams, Sir George (1821-1905)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Online: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36921, accessed 12 October 2011; 'Year Book of the National Council of Young Men's Christian Associations of England, Ireland and Wales (Incorporated)' for 1921; 'The Mosquito', number 155, September 1966 and website of the Salonika Campaign Association at http://www.salonikacampaignsociety.org.uk/ accessed 1 December 2011.
