New Zealand's Greatest Doctor:
Ulric Williams of Wanganui
A Surgeon who became a Naturopath
By Brenda Sampson
NEW ZEALAND'S GREATEST DOCTOR : ULRIC WILLIAMS OF WANGANUI
He was born at Putiki near Wanganui in 1890, a great grandson of the Henry Williams who came to New Zealand as a missionary in 1823. Ulric's father was an Anglican minister employed in the Maori Mission at Putiki near Wanganui. Maybe it was a stern upbringing? I met Ulric's sister about 1973 when she was in her nineties, and she said, "We were never allowed to go to birthday parties." She also told me that he was always a good athlete. She watched him play rugby at a secondary school match, and he kicked a goal from his own 25 yard line; a distance of 75 yards.
As an adult he was a Christian, but not a churchgoer. He thought that orthodox Christianity concentrated too much on sin; not enough on the lovingness of God, and the loving-kindness of God. Perhaps this was more true in his youth than it is today? My own thought is that God is Love. He doesn't want us to serve Him. He wants us to USE Him. When we do this, He is able to repair and heal every trouble.
Dr Williams was a compassionate and intuitive man. A woman told me, "He was our family doctor in the Great Depression. My mother had tuberculosis. My father was unemployed, and was using his time to train as a Presbyterian minister. We had very little money. Dr Williams used to come every week to see my mother, with both arms loaded with fresh fruit and vegetables."
(In the Great Depression from 1928 to 1936, the only benefit was a widow's benefit. There was no unemployment benefit. Men were paid ten shillings a week if they would leave home to go into road-making camps. There were no bulldozers; it was hard labour with shovels, and a sledge hammer to break stones. Men would live in these camps and each week send their 10/- to their families.)
Ulric Williams trained as a doctor at Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities. He graduated in 1918, and after serving in the NZ Medical Corps, he returned to Wanganui, where he worked as a honorary surgeon at the Wanganui Hospital.
In the early 1930's, in the depth of the Great Depression, there was a mass meeting of the unemployed in Wanganui, and an archdeacon came from Wellington to address the meeting. He said, "This depression is not God's will. If everyone here would go home, and kneel down, and offer his life to God, the depression would be over in a fortnight!" Dr Williams did just that, and said he had a vision of Jesus in the room with him, accepting his offer.
It came at a time of crisis in his life. He was dissatisfied with surgery as a means of healing. He saw the human body as a marvellous creation, and surgery seemed like mutilating it. He asked God to show him a better way of healing, and the answer came in a strange way.
He was at a picnic on the Wanganui River, and sat next to an attractive woman, who asked how he liked the picnic? "Very nice, except that I don't like the food much!" The food was all health foods: fresh fruit, salads, sandwiches of wholemeal bread, etc.
She said, "I'm sorry; I arranged the food"; and told her story. Her name was Reid; she had a little daughter aged nine with a tubercular hip. Before antibiotics were invented about 1939, tuberculosis was usually fatal. Mrs Reid took her daughter all over Europe looking for a cure, and the search ended at a health farm in England run by Stanley Lief, where the child recovered on a diet of raw fruit and vegetables (a diet of living foods). Ulric Williams said, "Do you know, a fortnight ago I was asking God to lead me to someone who could teach me about diet." Mrs Reid said, "A fortnight ago I was on my knees asking God to lead me to a doctor who would be interested in diet." So they joined forces. He opened a convalescent home; there were three in Wanganui eventually. I went to one of these homes in 1942.
