Family history

Australia’s entrepreneurial pioneers

Ray White was one of Australia’s entrepreneurial pioneers.

From the now-famous shed — which started life as a railway siding building at the end of a line — Ray’s business journey began.

He started with numerous different activities, including selling farm machinery and insurance, and holding a weekly pig auction.

He was the first in the town to understand the benefits of offering a broad range of services to the local community.

He also had an innate understanding of the auction process and its benefits.

Ray White was renowned for his community spirit. There are many stories of him assisting those in need. Ray was particularly generous if they were clients of his! Pig farmers had their butcher and grocer accounts covered by him during periodic hardships.

Legend has it that families in Crows Nest used to go to bed every night praying for their children, for mother and father — and for Mr Ray White.

Links to the community are still a big part of Ray White’s business culture today, with the family and the company major charitable benefactors across Australia.

The second generation

Ray and Florence had two sons, Max and Alan who both became real estate agents and two daughters Marjorie and Joyce.

Eldest son Max White, born in 1908 in Toowoomba, was in fact a powerfully built and fiery middle-row / back-row forward who played for the Wallabies.

He performed with great distinction on Australia’s first ever tour to South Africa when thrust into the unfamiliar loose-head prop position against the toughest scrummagers in world rugby. He was also a fighter pilot in World War II.

Ray’s second son Alan, in particular, played an important role in revitalising the business after the difficult years of the Great Depression and World War II.

The Second World War had decimated and damaged all businesses. Suddenly there was post war optimism. Businesses could now be rebuilt. Ray’s son Alan joined the business that had been severely restricted during the war years. Market leadership was wide open. Alan’s hands on drive and energy was what was needed. He was the right man in the right place.

Alan embraced Ray’s instinctual understanding of the value of property marketing. Ray White had become a stand out agency in the 1950s. By then, his brother Max had joined the business. Expansion began with the first 15 company owned offices by the late 1970s.

Much of the success of the business is down to the work of the first two generations.

Ray and Alan created the springboard. The job of the third generation was to jump on it and Brian and Paul did.

The third generation

In 1994, Paul White established Ray White Rural. 

Prior to joining the Ray White business, Paul worked in rural Queensland, owning and running a cattle and grain property in the Condamine district. Paul is still the chairman of Ray White Rural and Livestock today.

From a single office in country Queensland, to a network that extends across ten countries, the White Family Group is a true Australian success story that has since expanded to New Zealand and across Asia. But far from losing touch with our roots, the group has a proud rural and livestock network which continues to grow.