It was a staunchly held belief of George Ferguson's that Angus & Robertson could not afford to ‘neglect any reasonable chance’ of selling Australian books overseas, especially in London. MacQuarrie referred to this as Ferguson's ‘overwhelming keenness to sell [his] literary children on this market’. So when long-serving London travelling salesman Sydney A. Sewell returned from a London luncheon with the idea that, through MacQuarrie, Angus & Robertson might take over the Australia House bookstall (located on the Strand) in lieu of developing a new Australia Bookshop, Ferguson replied that he was ‘absolutely all for this’. Having only a ‘grim’ relationship with the current bookstall operator, who occasionally defaulted in paying for stock obtained on credit from the London office, MacQuarrie took the idea to C. L. Hewitt, Official Secretary for Australia in London and made a case that Angus & Robertson's management of the small store at the entrance to Australia House would be of ‘immense propaganda value to the country’. Moreover, it would incorporate a ‘glowing display of all the best and most exciting books published in Australia, and about Australia’.

As a ‘lasting monument to the importance of the Commonwealth and a splendid addition to the architecture of London’, built on what was formerly described as a ‘rustic spot in urban surroundings’, Australia House was Australia's High Commission in the United Kingdom.