William Charles Andrade was born in Collingwood in 1863. Andrade and his brother David Andrade had early associations with freethinking and anarchism; they particpated in the foundation of the Melbourne Anarchists' Club in 1886. Andrade opened a bookshop at 201 Bourke Street in Melbourne in 1898, which became a publishing and distribution centre for Marxist literature, and a meeting place for socialists. From 1911 Socialist leader and IWW activist Percy Laidler was employed at the shop, which also sold plays and other theatrical material, and conjuring and theatrical equipment. Andrade was interested in acting, and his second wife, Hilda Champion Andrade, was a playwright.
Andrade moved to Sydney in 1920 and opened a bookshop at 32 Rawson Chambers. He sold the Bourke Street shop in 1922 but opened another at 52 Swanston Street, Melbourne in 1929. Will Andrade was a publisher on a small scale, in later years concurrently in Sydney and Melbourne.
Andrade's son Bill Andrade took over the Melbourne bookshop in 1936. Soon after Will Andrade's sudden death in 1939 it was sold to Allans, who employed Hilda Andrade as manager. The shop continued to be known as Andrade's for many years.
