Williams was educated at Berkhamsted School and Pembroke College, Cambridge.[1] He
entered Her Majesty's Consular Service in 1932 and served successively at San Francisco, USA; Panama; Paris, France; Hamburg, Germany; Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Reykjavík, Iceland; Leopoldville; Vienna, Austria; 1945–1946, where he was a member of the Allied Control Commission as well; Baghdad, Iraq; New York, USA, (as deputy consul-general from 1950 to 1953); Tunis; the Foreign Office (as an Inspector of Foreign Office Establishments) from 1956 to 1960; and as Consul-General at New York 1960–64.[2] He was Ambassador to Panama 1964–66[3] and to Spain 1966–69.[4]
In 1946 Williams married Miss Masha Poustchine, an Englishwoman descendant from a Russian family; they had a son, Lawrence, and a daughter, Elizabeth.
Williams was appointed CMG in 1958[5] and knighted KCMG in 1963.[6]