There his employer's wife first took him to church and he was immediately drawn to this, and the pastor, Rev Nathan Wilks, enrolled him in a class to prepare for the ministry.

From there, they visited a number of the Polynesian island chains, sometimes with Mr and Mrs Ellis and other London Missionary Society representatives.

In 1827 Williams had heard of other heathen islands in the vicinity and in order to expand his ministry he built a ship from local materials, Messenger of Peace, in fifteen weeks.

They set foot on the island of Savaii at Puaseisei's village of Safune, before arriving at Sapapalii on the 24th of August, 1830, to meet with Malietoa Vaiinuupo who had sole power over Samoa following the death of his rival Tamafaiga.

At the end of his days, Leota was buried in Abney Park Cemetery with a dignified headstone paid for by the London Missionary Society, recording his adventure from the South Seas island of his birth.

However, in November 1839, while visiting a part of the New Hebrides where John Williams was unknown, he and fellow missionary James Harris were killed and eaten by cannibals on the island of Erromango during an attempt to bring them the Gospel.

She is buried with their son Rev Samuel Tamatoa Williams, who was born in the New Hebrides, at the old Cedar Circle in London's Abney Park Cemetery; the name of her husband and the record of his death were placed on the most prominent side of the stone monument.