"John Wiliiams VI"

New Mission Ship Due at End Of Year

IN a North of England shipyard on August 5, 1948, Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret will name the Lon don Missionary Society’s new vessel “John Williams VI.”

Beginning with the “Duff” in 1795, the London Missionary Society has main tained a line of ships serving mission in terests in the South Pacific, For more than 100 years there has been a ship called the “John Williams” in these waters, named after the pioneer missionary who was murdered by savages at Erromanga in 1843.

Each vessel of the “John Williams” line has been bought and maintained by the collections of the children of Con gregational Churches and Sunday Schools in Britaih, Australia, and New Zealand.

With the exception of “John Williams V” (an auxiliary schooner which is to be sold after 18 years of service) these vessels have been well known in Sydney and other Australian ports.

The new vessel was purchased by the Society shortly after her launching, and for some months has been in the British coastal trade, earning her keep by carry ing food and vegetables to and from the Continent.

She is a single screw diesel-driven ship of 300 tons burthen, and she will have a far wider cruising range than her im mediate predecessor. She will sail be tween (Fiji, Samoa, Niue. Cook Islands, Gilbert and Ellice Group, and Papua, conveying missionaries and Islands pastors and teachers, carrying food, building sup plies, medicines and school material. The “John Williams” is usually the only means of carrying children, who are to have higher education, to one centre, and taking them home again.

It is expected that the vessel will leave Britain in September for her Suva base.

After an initial visit to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, she will go to Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Wellington, and Auckland, in order to give the chil dren, her “owners,” an opportunity of inspecting her.