But after this the profile of the Association suffered because he was not able to give it his full attention. On his return to London he finished his bar exams and, like Mahatma Gandhi around the same time, went on to practise in South Africa, where he stayed from 1903 to 1905. Williams was the first black man to be admitted to the bar in the Cape Colony, on 29 October 1903, having presented to the court in Cape Town a certificate issued on 20 September confirming his credentials: