[5][6] His father, Dennis, was an expert horseman, particularly in polo, racing and the hunting circles, and had been Reader of the House of Representatives and Record Clerk for several years in the early 1890s.
O'Rorke and Peacock, won one of three third awards, alongside Percy Thomas and Ernest Prestwich, and Frank Roscoe and Duncan Wylson.
Colin Anderson, a director of Orient Steam Navigation Company, had seen opportunity in the future of passenger ships and in the search for an architect who could assist him in his idea of RMS Orion being a truly modern ocean liner of the best contemporary design, had put aside a few modernist notables.
O'Rorke had been working on Ashcombe Tower, their new modern home complete with furnishings, in Devon, and suitably possessed the suite of capability that Anderson had been looking for.
[1]: 22 In August 1935, the result of O'Rorke's interior design was an open air layout, making use of removable and folding walls, sliding glass doors, and relatively enormous promenade decks to keep cooling breezes flowing through spaces passengers could relax in.
He knew what talent lay unused in Australasia and included Australians and New Zealanders amongst project artists and designers—Margaret Preston, Douglas Annand, Keith Murray, Paul Pascoe,[34] John and Helen Hutton, Frederick Halford Coventry.
[29][36][37][38] His modern approach intended to set a new standard for aircraft, in contrast to the tendency for ornate passenger transport interiors of recent periods.
On 19 January 1929, O'Rorke married illustrator and decorative artist Juliet Mabel Olga Wigan (1903–1988), elder daughter of solicitor Ernest Edward Wigan, MA, of Oakley Lodge, Weybridge, Surrey, and his wife Mabel Helen, daughter of Robert Watson Willis of Hinxton House, East Sheen, Surrey.