Alfred Douglass

Alfred arrived in Tasmania from England in 1834 aged 14 and moved to Victoria in 1850. Married in 1853 to Elizabeth de Little of Launceston, he established a wool scouring business on the Barwon River at Breakwater, but really made money from the gold-rushes. In 1852, he took gold dust to Adelaide and brought commodities back to sell to the diggers; a successful business venture which he repeated several times. He made enough money to buy the Geelong Advertiser in 1864 and also became commodore of the Geelong Yacht Club.

It was Alfred who bought the prefabricated iron house that had been left unclaimed on the Geelong wharf, and had it erected on the cliff above Eastern Beach, even though there were no directions. This is now Corio Villa, the family’s home where Alfred died in 1885.

After his death, Corio Villa was owned by his son, then his grandson, who died there of wounds from the First World War shortly after that the family’s connection with Corio Villa ended.

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