Professor Emeritus David V Williams comes from a sheep farming background in Hawkes Bay and Whanganui. He attended Whanganui Collegiate School. He has tertiary qualifications in history, law and theology from Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Oxford (where he was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College). His PhD is from the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. His university teaching and research career at Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland focussed especially on ‘law and society’ and on ‘legal history.’
As an officeholder in the Citizens’ Association for Racial Equality [CARE] he was a political activist engaging with many issues affecting Māori and Pacific peoples during the 1970s and 1980s. From 1991 to 2001 he was an independent researcher specialising in historical research relevant to Treaty of Waitangi claims. He has worked with many hapū and iwi as an historian, and as a claims negotiator. He is also an ordained priest in the Anglican Church, chairperson of the St Isaac’s Retreat House Trust in the Hokianga, and was formerly Legal Adviser to Te Pīhopatanga o Aotearoa. Professor Williams was appointed to the Tribunal in 2023.