Wentworth Chambers was officially opened in the afternoon of 20 August 1957 by the Honourable J. J. Cahill, then Premier of New South Wales. The Right Honourable the Lord Morton of Henryton attended specially for the occasion and formally handed over the carved replicas of the Arms of the Inns of Court. One Sydney journal reported of the ceremony that “there were more black homburgs than at a hatters' convention and more flowered bonnets than you would see on and off day at Randwick races” and further recorded that the Police Band played fragments of “Sympathy” and “Trial by Jury”.

The building of Wentworth Chambers was largely due to the enthusiasm and energy of Barwick and Manning who worked together for many years to provide a home for the Bar and to advance its corporate existence. Theirs was the vision – they dreamed the dreams and by their foresight, wisdom and untiring efforts converted those dreams into reality. The Association, in acknowledgement of this, commissioned the artist W. E. Pidgeon to paint Barwick's and Manning's portraits which were unveiled at a ceremony in the Common Room in October 1959.

The Honourable Societies of the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn presented to the Association replicas of their Arms cut and coloured under the supervision of Sir Edward Maufe. These were placed in the south boundary wall at the end of the concourse. A splendid replica of the Association's Arms carved in timber was given by the company's architects and was similarly displayed. Benchers of the English Inns of Court presented several historic stone relics. The first, a purbeck marble base of one of the columns of the Round Church in the Temple placed there by the Knights Templars before 1185 was formed into the threshold of the Association's premises in the basement. A capital of one of the original columns of the rectangular choir dedicated in 1240 was also donated with a piece of the arch of one of the lancet windows of the organ bay of that church and a carved pediment which formerly stood over the doorway of the students' entrance to the Holker Library in Gray's Inn.