C.Rogers & Co. Goulburn.

Charles Rogers (1844-1909), cabinet maker and merchant, was born on 18 November 1844 at 17 Sweet Apple Court, Hackney Road, Middlesex, London, son of Charles Rogers (1805-1864), furniture maker, and his wife Margaret, née Edmundson (1812-1870). After some elementary schooling he began training as a cabinet maker.

About 1859 Rogers arrived in Australia with his family. They settled at Goulburn, New South Wales, where his father set up a small cabinet-making business and Charles continued to learn his trade. Rogers prospered and the cabinet-making factory employed thirty workers. He had his own network of horse-drawn vans to supply furniture to his agents dispersed from Cooma to Wagga Wagga. Also a retailer and importer, he established a sixty-horse coachline between Goulburn and Yass and ran a livery stable. A great lover of horses, he took pride in driving his own four-in-hand and enjoyed the good things of life. In 1879 he moved into new premises known as the Goulburn Arcade in Auburn Street, designed and built under his own meticulous supervision, and there he became the ‘universal provider’. The reputed value of the building, site and stock-in-trade was £90,000. From 1885 his business enterprises expanded south with the railway.