The Rowley Gallery was founded in the same year that the couple married, as a small business specialising in picture framing, mounting, restoration, carving, gilding and exhibitions of paintings.
One of the first and most prolific of these artists was William Chase, who as well as creating many designs for inlay panels was also responsible for the distinctive Pan label used by The Rowley Gallery from 1912.
According to Dennis Gale,[1] workshop manager at Addison Bridge Place for several years during the 1930s, and husband of Rowley's daughter Betty, there were six cabinet makers, three French polishers, five workers in the paint shop and five seamstresses making curtains.
By 1933 such was the success of the business that the premises at 140-142 Church Street were rebuilt in Portland stone, featuring a frieze designed by Brangwyn of three life-size carved wooden panels depicting sawyers, painters and carpenters.
The interior decoration of the galleries featured walls "panelled in Japanese golden senwood with burnished silver fittings and black floors" (The Studio, 1933).
In the wake of this catastrophe The Rowley Gallery moved to their workshop premises at 86 & 87 Campden Street and from that time concentrated mainly on picture framing.
The Kensington News & West London Times noted The Rowley Gallery's return to Church Street - "The interior decoration of these new commodious and well-lit showrooms is befitting a company of artistic skill and taste.
He sold the business to three employees, Chris Hamer, Kai Yin Lam and Cathy Williams who carried on trading as framemakers, gilders and restorers.
Williams retired in 2003 and Hamer and Lam continue as The Rowley Gallery's present directors, nowadays not only framemaking, gilding and restoring, but also exhibiting contemporary paintings and prints.