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Edward Octavius Douglas is the son of
Henry Alexander Douglas and his wife, Elizabeth Dalzell. Henry is a
descendant of William Douglas, 1st earl of Queensberry and Elizabeth is
a granddaughter of Alexander Dalzell, Earl of Carnwath.
[With] £2000 for acquiring land, the brothers Edward and
John sailed
for Sydney as cabin passengers in the Malacca and arrived in August
1851. In 1854 they went to the Darling Downs and bought, reputedly for
£50,000, the 64,000-acre (25,900 ha) station Talgai which in 1853 ran
20,900 sheep. The Douglas brothers found congenial acquaintances among
the squatters, many of them newly arrived from Scotland.
Douglas
mortgaged them in 1860 to Gilchrist, Watt & Co. to raise £5000, they ran
1991 cattle. He had probably over-stocked and the evidence suggests that
the Douglas brothers had not made the profits they expected from
squatting. In 1861 Edward returned to Scotland where he purchased
Killiechassie House.
Extract from the diary of his wife, Hannah Charlotte Scott-Douglas,
(died 1921):
I
 am the youngest daughter of Sir John Scott
Douglas, 3rd Baronet of Springwood Park near Kelso. When I was very
young my father died and my mother married Mr William Scott Kerr of Sunlaws, also near Kelso. They had a daughter, who is my younger sister
Mary.
My dear mama died six years ago very suddenly when we were
travelling in France, and since then I have been living with Mary and Mr
Kerr. My elder brother George lives at Springwood Park with his wife
Mariquita (whom he met in Gibraltar), and my elder sisters Catty and
Sholta live in London. Last year Mr Kerr married Mary's governess Miss
Fenessey.
My life is the life of any young lady of the
aristocracy. I am privileged and educated, and I spend my day in
ladylike pursuits such as drawing, playing music or taking scenic walks.
When I am in Edinburgh I attend parties, concerts and balls, but I also
go to educational lectures and visit museums. When at home in the
Borders, I go walking, and visit our friends. I take my religion
seriously, and frequently I wish I were a better person.
However,
life is about to become very complicated for me, as you will see. This
is the story of my pursuit of love, and my dreadful secret. Through my
diary and the letters of my family you can see events unfolding,
starting with my meeting Baron Hermann von Liebig in Edinburgh in
December 1856.
His brother, Henry,
was Bishop of Bombay.
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