THE WILLIAMS MUSEUM

Welcome to the Henry and William Williams Museum website, which showcases ‘The Retreat’, an historic house at Pakaraka in Northland, New Zealand, built for Henry and Marianne Williams in 1853.

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While the 'Retreat' is currently not open on a regular basis, this 'virtual museum' enables you to view the house and garden, items from a collection of family possessions, and learn something of the history of the pioneering missionary brothers, Henry and William Williams, and their families. Collectively they played an important part in shaping relationships between Māori and Pakeha in Aotearoa/New Zealand in the early to mid nineteenth century.