name of Elizabeth Jane Robinson on 22 January 1883 in St Andrew's Cathedral. They had sixteen children, seven of whom died before their father. Eventually, he went into business on his own, but met with scant success. Williams later joined the firm Dawood & Co. While on duty on 15 March 1916, he slipped and fell, fracturing a hip bone. He failed to recover from this injury, and died of complications a month later, on 17 April 1916, at his residence at Shamrock, 32 Barker Road, and was interred at the Bidadari Cemetery in northeast Singapore. Legacy Williams's story served as the inspiration for Joseph Conrad's novel Lord Jim. Conrad, who was himself an experienced sailor, had spent time in Singapore in the 1880s and had come across Williams as a result. A century later, the author Gavin Young tracked down the few remaining traces of Williams in Singapore, including his long-forgotten grave in Bidadari, in the course of researching In Search of Conrad, a book of travel and literary detection. When the dead of Bidadari Cemetery were exhumed in the early 2000s in order to make way for redevelopment plans, Williams's granddaughter, Queenie, a daughter of his youngest son, Cuthbert, reclaimed his remains. Joseph Conrad based his novel Lord Jim on the story of the Jeddah and the character of Austin Williams. References 1852 births 1916 deaths English sailors People from Porthleven