W Chorley and Co Ltd

William Chorley was born in Wiveliscombe, Somerset, in 1860. A tailor by trade, working in Cheltenham, he and his family migrated to Sydney in 1883.

He bought out the tailor he worked for in Sydney a few months after his arrival creating the firm 'W. Chorley and Co. Tailor and Robe Maker’ in George Street, Sydney. The company soon had Vice-Regal patronage and when it closed after nearly one hundred years of business in 1980, it boasted it had tailored by appointment to every New South Wales Governor since 1883 and every Governor-General since Federation. The firm specialised in formal court dress and service uniforms.