exiled Russian liberal in Stuttgart. The city had become the centre of organised political opposition by Russian political refugees working towards reform in their own country. Here Williams met Ariadna Tyrkova, the ‘Madame Roland’ of Russia. In October 1904 he had moved from Paris, in December to St Petersburg and Williams began to send by post dispatches to Reuters. Williams corresponded with the Dutch Frederik van Eeden about translations of his work. In January 1905 Williams obtained positions with the Manchester Guardian in Russia, and worked towards Anglo-Russian rapprochement together with Bernard Pares. As a special correspondent for the Morning Post in 1908 and in the Ottoman Empire in 1911. Williams and his wife settled in Istanbul after their flat was searched by the Okhrana. In August 1914 he was writing for the Daily Chronicle dispatching telegrams and feature articles from all over the Russian Empire. He was in constant pursuit of his avowed quest "to serve the great cause of liberty". His work in Russia enabled him, in 1905, to meet Leo Tolstoy, and they talked of politics, literature and morality. Reportedly Tolstoy asked him why he had learnt Russian and received the reply, "Because I wanted to read Anna Karenina in the original." Tolstoy insisted on the languages Williams spoke being enumerated. The interview was published in the Manchester Guardian on 9 February 1905, but for Williams the meeting was not a success. He was disappointed with Tolstoy's withdrawal from the world of political reality and the consequences of contemporary events. Williams found himself sympathetic towards the left-wing reformers, the Cadets and Liberals. His "wife" (it is not known they ever married, perhaps in February 1918) was elected to the Russian Duma and was a feminist. At this time events and conditions that he encountered tested some of Williams' early views. He gave up being a vegetarian, and soon afterwards his pacifist ideals, but remained throughout his life a practising Christian, though with a belief guided by a general sense of the spiritual rather than the dogmatic. As he declared in his final sermon in New Zealand: "Whatever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men." Authority on Russian affairs His remarkable knowledge of Russia soon established him as an authority on Russian affairs. He had freely travelled into every part of the country accumulating an immense amount of knowledge about Russia—its people,