Rare 1956 Olympic Delegation Blazer Owned by A.W. Coles

1956 Melbourne Olympic Games: The official Olympic Delegation blazer made by David Lack Pty Ltd for the Chairman of the Olympic Organizing Committee, Mr Arthur W. Coles. With Coles' name in pen on the ownership panel in the inside pocket, and numbered '1339'. The first 'Delegation' blazer we have offered; extremely rare. Sir Arthur William 'A.W.' Coles [1892, 1982] was a prominent businessman and philanthropist, a son of Victorian shopkeeper George W. Coles (who had died in 1932). With his brothers, A. W. Coles founded Coles Variety Stores in the 1920s, which was to become the Coles Group, one of the two largest supermarket chains in Australia. He served as Lord Mayor of Melbourne from 1938 to 1940. In 1940 he was elected to the federal parliament as an Independent from Henty. In 1946 Coles was appointed chair of the Australian National Airways Commission, which founded Trans Australia Airlines (later known as Australian Airlines, which became the domestic arm of Qantas). In 1944, Coles retired from business and devoted himself to public works, becoming the chair of both the Commonwealth Rationing Commission and the War Damage Commission. He was appointed chair of the Melbourne Olympic Games Committee in 1952, and a member of the Csiro Advisory Council in 1956. He was knighted in 1960 and retired in 1965.