Edward Marsh Williams (2 November 1818 – 11 October 1909) was a missionary, interpreter, and judge who played a significant role in the British colonisation of New Zealand.

[2] Edward was appointed by Lieutenant Governor Hobson as government interpreter, Clerk to the Court, and the first postmaster at Auckland.

He was apprenticed to a London doctor, but after twelve months he ended his studies as the consequence of brain fever (an uncertain diagnosis) and he returned to New Zealand.

Willoughby Shortland was in the act of a magisterial examination of the charge against Kihi when Te Haratua, a chief from Pakaraka, arrived with about three hundred armed warriors and began a haka.

Williams, who was present as a witness, identified that Te Haratua and the warriors did not have any hostile intentions, having come over to make a public display of their abhorrence of the murder.

He persuaded Te Haratua and the warriors to leave and explained in a quiet way that it was ignorance of Māori culture on Shorthand's part that made him call for the troops.

[1] In 1861, Williams was appointed by Sir George Grey to be the resident magistrate for the Bay of Islands and Northern Districts.