History over a century

As the story is told in the house, the firm was started by a Conservative Member of Parliament, a Mr Welsh, and a tailor, a Mr Betteridge — and “Welsh & Betteridge” not sounding quite right, “Jefferies” was invented. The trade behind the name was real enough: from 1901 a Welsh & Jeffries shop on Eton High Street cut uniforms for the boys of Eton College.

Welsh and Jefferies Limited was incorporated on 21 March 1917 and took No. 15 Duke Street, St James’s. The first war made the house: dress and service uniforms for officers of many regiments, the Rifle Brigade and the Coldstream Guards among them — and, as the boast ran, more British Army generals on its books than any other house in Mayfair.

Military tailoring remained the backbone. In 1990 HRH The Prince of Wales granted the firm his Royal Warrant as military tailor. The house keeps, among its heirlooms, a tunic worn by the young Winston Churchill as an officer of the 4th Queen’s Own Hussars.

In 1999 the firm acquired Lesley & Roberts of Hanover Square, whose books had carried diplomats and aristocrats, folding one old house into another.

The modern chapter began in January 2012, when James Cottrell — Kilgour at sixteen, Tommy Nutter’s workshop, eighteen years at Henry Poole — took over the firm with Yingmei Quan, trained at Central Saint Martins and winner of the 2011 Golden Shears, widely reported as the first Chinese female master cutter on Savile Row. Under them the house built a strong ladies’ clientele and deep roots in China and Hong Kong.

In November 2025 Welsh & Jefferies moved to 10A Charles II Street — minutes from the Row where it cut for a century, and back in the St James’s parish where it was incorporated. “One hundred years is not only a milestone, but a new start.”