Alfred Dampier 1847-1908

Dampier lost heavily in the Depression that followed the early 1890s land boom. A disastrous 1893 tour of New Zealand culminated in his bakruptcy, but his tenacity and the goodwill of his colleagues soon got him back on stage. Nevertheless, the early years of the new century were not kind to him. His health deteriorated after a bad fall through a stage trapdoor in New Zealand and, like his contemporaries George Darrell and Bland Holt, he found that the audiences who had flocked to see melodrama were being increasingly seduced by the wonders of the moving pictures; his elaborate stage representations of the bush and city life now seemed passé. He also had to contend with a scandal surrounding his daughter Lily. He retired after a farewell performance of – appropriately – Robbery Under Arms in Sydney on 10 November 1905. Sadly the recording of his voice, which he made in 1890, has been lost.

Alfred Dampier died in Sydney on 23 May 1908. He had spent the best part of 35 years touring Australia, playing not only the big cities, but smaller centres as well. His repertoire was broad – from the fruitiest of melodramas to Shakespeare – and he was not afraid to play villains and oddballs as well as the robust, manly hero roles in which he excelled. Above all, he proved that Australians would support Australian plays. He wrote and produced more than 30 and he presented many more written by others. Joe Slater paid this tribute:

As I turn once more the pages
Of life’s book of memory
From behind Australian footlights
There’s a face that’s missed I see;
’Twas Australia’s greatest actor,
Well remembered here today,
But, alas! His part is finished,
Alfred Dampier was called away

Dampier was survived by his wife, his two daughters and a son, Alfred Junior, all of whom were in theatre. In 1893 after a disastrous first marriage, Lily, Dampier’s elder daughter, had married Alfred Rolfe (the stage name of Alfred Rokker), an actor in her father’s company. After Dampier’s death they toured New Zealand with Philip Lytton’s tent company. In 1911 they rallied what remained of Dampier’s old company and filmed Captain Midnight, the Bush King for Spencer’s Pictures. Rolfe directed and starred opposite Lily. Its success swiftly led to two more features: Captain Starlight; or Gentleman of the Road, adapted from Dampier’s play Robbery Under Arms, and The Life of Rufus Dawes, adapted from Dampier’s For the Term of His Natural Life. None of these films has survived. Rolfe went on to direct many more Australian features. Lily produced Robbery Under Arms in Brisbane in 1914. Never strong, she was only 47 when she died in Melbourne the following year. Rose made occasional appearances as a principal boy in pantomime. Her brother, Alfred Dampier Junior, had a short career as a comedian. He and Rose were with their mother when she died in Pennsylvania on 8 March 1915.

In 1970 the recently established Australian Performing Group launched the Pram Factory performance venue in the inner Melbourne suburb of Carlton with an irreverent pastiche called – yes – Marvellous Melbourne. Devised by Jack Hibberd and John Romeril, it was by no means an adaptation of Dampier’s play of 80 years before, but it did celebrate the rich tradition of popular local theatre that Dampier had espoused – and the inclusion of a an opium den scene rang a few familiar bells for those who knew their theatre history. Mr Dampier would have been delighted!

Frank Van Straten, 2007