The jacket was given to Mr Frederick Budge of Farina, South Australia, by a Muslim (‘Afghan’) trader he knew who went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, at some time in the 1890s.
Carpenters, tailors, bakers, carriers, cordwainers and coachmakers had formed unions within ten years of European settlement of South Australia, and by the 1870s there were thousands of union members in the colony.