William Henry Collison

Who was William Henry Collison?

William Henry Collison, also known as W. H. Collison, was an Anglican missionary among First Nations people in coastal British Columbia, Canada.

Birth records are unclear as to whether Collison was born in County Armagh, or in Dublin, both in Ireland. In any case his date of birth was November 12, 1847.

After first apprenticing as a warehouseman, he attended the Church of Ireland Normal College, after which he served as the Superintendent of the Buckingham House Free School for Boys in Cork, Ireland. After three years there, in 1872 he applied to the Church Missionary Society to be accepted into their missionary program, and then for a year attended the Church Missionary School at Islington, now in London, England.

In August 1873, he married Marion M. Goodwin who had served as a deaconess, nursing the wounded in the Franco-Prussian war. They were wed at St. Paul's, Tottenham, in London, and left for North America soon after their marriage.

After his training Collison was appointed by the Church of England's Church Missionary Society to Metlakatla, British Columbia, to assist William Duncan in converting the Tsimshian people. Marion Collison became the first white woman to be resident in that community. Their first child, a son, was the first white child born there, as was a second son.