Reginald Murray "R.M." WilliamsAO, CMG was an Australian bushman and entrepreneur who rose from a swagman to a millionaire, he was born at Belalie North near Jamestown in the Mid North of South Australia, 200 kilometres north of Adelaide, into a pioneering settler family working and training horses. R.M. had many adventures in Australia's rugged outback as a bushman, and became known for creating an Australian style of bushwear clothing and footwear recognised worldwide and the company that bore his name.
Personal life
From Welsh ancestors, his maternal grandfather Richard Mitchell being from Cornwall, Reginald Murray Williams was born to Joe Williams and his wife. When he was 10 years old, R.M.'s family moved to Adelaide so that he and his two sisters could attend school there. School did not agree with R.M. and so, at 13, R.M. packed his swag and left for the land he loved. At 18 he started work as a camel driver and spent 3 years trekking through the Australian desert, living with Indigenous Australians and learning to survive the harsh conditions. During the Great Depression, R.M. returned to Adelaide, where he met Thelma Ena Cummings, who would become his first wife After they married, they settled in South Australia's Flinders Ranges and had six children. After the marriage broke up in the 1950s, Williams purchased 55 hectares of land behind Yatala Labour Prison, South Australia. There, R.M. constructed a homestead, planted vineyards and thousands of roses, and ran rodeos on the floodplain of Dry Creek. When the land was compulsorily acquired during the time of former State PremierSir Thomas Playford, R.M. left South Australia for his Rockybar property in Eidsvold, Queensland, vowing never to return to South Australia. He remarried in 1955 to Erica, had four more children, living at the North Burnett cattle station in Queensland. In 1985, he co-wrote his autobiography, Beneath whose hand. In 2003 Williams died at his home in Toowoomba on the Darling Downs in Queensland.
Company
R.M. learned his leather-working skills from a horseman called Dollar Mick, making bridles, pack saddles and riding boots. In 1932, with his son's illness and the expense of hospital treatment, he was in need of money and began selling his saddles to Sir Sidney Kidman, a wealthy pastoralist. R.M. soon had a small factory running in his father's back shed in Adelaide that rapidly expanded. To address financial problems, he also became involved with the Nobles Nob gold mine, near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. Williams established a national magazine, Hoofs and Horns, in 1944, aimed at cattlemen and horsemen. Williams' most successful products were handcrafted riding boots. Williams' boots were unique when they were introduced to the market, as they consisted of a single piece of leather that was stitched at the rear of the boot. Following the founding of the R.M. Williams company in 1932, Williams sold the business in 1988 to the long established South Australian stock and station agents Bennett & Fisher Limited. That business went into receivership in 1993, after banks were concerned about $16 million AUD of debts. R.M. Williams Pty Ltd was then placed under the ownership of long-time friend Ken Cowley, who acted in partnership with Australian business mogul Kerry Stokes, and together with his family, presided over R.M. Williams Pty Ltd for two decades.
A major road in South Australia's mid north, which runs between Stanley Flat and Hawker, via Jamestown has been named the RM Williams Way in his honour.
Williams also published the 300+ pages of poetry anthology Saddle for a throne in 1953. The poems of Scottish-Australian bush poet Will H. Ogilvie struck fondness with Williams who shared the affinity of Ogilvie with horses and the Australian Outback.
