Obituary: Sir Charles ‘Cow’ Williams

24 November 1932 – 19 November 2021

Sir Charles Othneil Williams received his honours for his huge contribution to construction, sport, agriculture and business in Barbados and the West Indies. There is a long and interesting history behind the man with the quirky nickname based on his initials.

Early jobs included working on plantations and sugar factories in Barbados, it was here that he “learned that a job title means nothing, work is work!”, followed by a turn of luck that saw him managing a farm at the age of just 28-years-old. Knowing full well that agriculture was an up-and-down venture Cow was determined to turn a buck and make a penny in every way possible. He kept all sorts of livestock, especially pigs, started a small dairy and converted a sailing fishing boat with an outboard engine to fish commercially with three fishermen. Cow’s brother, Richard, who was working in Florida at the time, called to say there was a lot of Caterpillar equipment, which had been spirited out of Cuba when Castro was nationalising the country. He explained that it was the equivalent of a “yard sale” and asked Cow if he would like him to buy one of the machines? Cow was able to borrow $5,000 and buy a 15-year-old D6 Caterpillar, at the same time Richard Costain, a construction company in England, was at this time building the new deep water harbour and was looking for a dozer to spread the dredge fill and demolish some unbelievably outstanding old Barbados homes. Cow negotiated to demolish the homes and get the contract to put his tractor in the seawater to spread the fill. This was, you would understand, a 24-hour job and he had to fit in many a time to help exhausted operators, but earned enough profit to equip the tractor through the Caterpillar agency with all the necessary agricultural implements. It was then that C.O. Williams Construction Company was born. In 1966, while on vacation, fishing with friends from Trinidad, Hugh Gransaul asked him if he knew that General Crude, an oil company from Texas, was going to drill for oil in Barbados. He said no. Hugh immediately volunteered to write to the president of the company and introduce Cow. Cow got the contract to prepare the locations with the help of his then father-in-law, Carson Walcott, and a young operator whom he had taught to operate, Wendall Butcher. It was here that Cow learned that there was no such thing as ‘time’ in an oil company’s modus operandi. It had to be done, period. Cow formed a limited liability company in 1969 with a young man called Micky Hutchinson and C.O. Williams Construction Limited was on the way. Both men had very similar work practices and ambitions and the company grew to become one of the largest civil construction firms in the West Indies, working from St Vincent and the Grenadines to the Bahamas.

The day that Cow went to work in 1951, his mother gave him the best advice that he has ever had: “Son, save your money and buy land. The Lord is making no more.” Cow never departed from that policy. Apes Hill was a sugar plantation, which he bought in 1981 and converted into a dairy farm, which Stephen, his eldest son, then managed. It was at this time that he realised that the production of sugar was a dying means of earning a living and agriculture, on the whole, was difficult. And so his construction operation led him to Apes Hill, the dairy farm from which he relocated the cows and turned the property into an amazing polo, golf and residential community.

In the polo world we remember Sir Charles ‘Cow’ Williams as a polo player who has played in Barbados and throughout the Caribbean all his life, with strong connections with the UK – he played here extensively from 1973 to 1991 and in later years he was known for his support of the English high goal. In 2006 Cow went to the Gold Cup with the Hipwoods, the Morleys and the Vesteys, and watched the game with a real feeling of disbelief, “There I was sitting in the grandstands watching the British Open and the game was being played by six Argentines, an Aussie and a Swiss and I felt nostalgic because I remembered the days of when I first started out in English polo. I couldn’t understand why some Englishman with deep pockets didn’t help these English boys out. I was accustomed in the ’70s and ’80s to seeing people like Mr Ronnie Driver, Mr Moller, Mr Galon Weston, Harold Bamburg, Anthony Embericos, David Jamison, etc, sponsoring the likes of Paul Withers, the Hipwood brothers, Alan Kent, Johnny Kidd, etc, but there I was, sitting with Luke Tomlinson and Malcolm Borwick and they weren’t being supported.” So with his usual enthusiasm he threw himself into the role of patron of the Apes Hill high goal team which included four Englishmen in 2007 and 2008. In 2009 the line up changed to include three Englishmen and an Argentinean who went on to win the iconic Queen’s Cup. As a man of incredible vigour and one of the best advertisements for his favourite adage of: “Wear out – don’t rust out” which he liked to base his work ethos on, Sir Charles became the oldest active polo player in 2015 and was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen in 2000 for his contributions to Barbados’ development. The Barbados and wider polo community lost one of its most ardent supporters and charismatic businessmen after Cow sadly passed away on Friday 19 November at 88-years-old, just a few days from his 89th birthday.