R. M. Williams

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Williams died at his home in Toowoomba on the Darling Downs in Queensland, on 4 November 2003. He was 95.

In 1992 he was named an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), for service to business and to the community.

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 A$16 million of debts.

In 1985 Williams was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG), for services to the outback community.

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.

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 (1869–1963) struck a chord with Williams, who shared the affinity of Ogilvie with horses and the Australian outback.

After the marriage broke up in the 1950s, Williams purchased 55 hectares (140 acres) 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 Premier Sir Thomas Playford, R.M. left South Australia for his Rockybar property in Eidsvold, Queensland, vowing never to return to South Australia.

Williams established a national magazine, Hoofs and Horns, in 1944, aimed at cattlemen and horsemen.

In April 1934, Williams moved back to Adelaide and started a small factory running in his father's back shed in Prospect, 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 learned his leather-working skills from an Aboriginal stockman called "Dollar Mick" Smith, making bridles, pack saddles and riding boots near Nepabunna in the northern Flinders Ranges. He set up a workshop and employed local Adnyamathanha people from the Nepabunna Mission, who played an important part in building up his business between 1932 and 1934. Williams had since 1927 been employed as a missionary by the United Aborigines Mission (UAM), an interdenominational Christian group which had set up the mission in 1931. 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.

Reginald Murray "R.M." Williams AO CMG (24 May 1908 – 4 November 2003) 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 (120 mi) north of Adelaide CBD, into a pioneering settler family working and training horses. Williams 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.