AustLit

The printing, publishing and bookselling firm W. H. Williams operated in Melbourne for most of the second half of the nineteenth century. The founder, William H. Williams, arrived in Melbourne in October 1852, and was employed for a period as an overseer on the Melbourne Herald. In 1853 he bought the business of Connebee and Mould, who had been printers in Elizabeth Street since 1850; Williams was initially in a partnership as Hough, Heath and Williams, but by 1856 was sole proprietor. In 1856 the firm moved to 94 Bourke Street, where it shared premises with bookseller and publisher George Slater, who undertook a number of publishing projects with Williams. The firm was later located in Post Office Place, then Elizabeth Street, Little Collins Street West, and Queen Street.

W. H. Williams printed, published and owned a range of periodicals and newspapers in Melbourne, many of which had literary content, such as the Journal of Australasia (1857-58), and the Australian Monthly Magazine (1865-67), of which William Williams was printer, publisher, owner, and initially, editor. Williams was one of the first printers in the colony to type-set musical notation, and was known as 'Musical Williams'.

Williams' son, also William H. Williams, trained as a compositor and entered the business, printing and publishing with his father as Williams & Williams in the 1890s, and eventually operating in his own right, as W. H. Williams Jnr.