ELLIS, WILLIAM (1794-1872), English Nonconformist missionary, was born in London on Aug. 29, 1794. His boyhood and youth were spent at Wisbech, where he worked as a market gardener. He was sent by the London Missionary Society to the South Sea Islands in Jan. 1816, and remained in Polynesia, occu pying various stations in succession, until 1824. Ellis improved the condition of the people. He acclimatized many species of tropical fruits and plants, and set up and worked the first printing press in the South Seas. Ellis was for some years a travelling agent of the London Missionary Society and was its foreign secretary 2832-39. He paid three visits to Madagascar (1853-57), inquir ing into the prospects for resuming the work that had been sus pended by Queen Ranavolona's hostility. A further visit was paid in 1863. Ellis wrote accounts of all his travels, and Southey praised (in the Quarterly Review) his Polynesian Researches ( 2 vols., 1829). He died on June 25, 1872.