Alfred Dampier was born in England, obtaining his initial experience as an actor in English repertory theatre. He subsequently became one of the leading actors of late nineteenth century Australia. Dampier arrived in Melbourne with his wife, Katherine Russell, and children in 1873 to begin a three year contract at the Theatre Royal in Melbourne as the leading actor and manager. At the Theatre Royal, Dampier experimented with adapting texts such as Goethe's Faust and Hugo's Les Miserables for the stage. These productions were not well received and so Dampier sought literary collaborators for later adaptations. After the contract expired, he formed his own company, which included his wife and daughters, and toured widely in Australasia and elsewhere from 1877- 1885. He combined performances of Shakespeare's plays with seasons of popular melodramas and continued to adapt novels for the stage. Through his collaborations with Australian writers in these adaptations Dampier became a major supporter and promoter of Australian playwrights. He produced work by writers such as F.R.C. Hopkins and Garnet Walch among others.
Dampier's support for Australian writers was consolidated when his company was in residence in Sydney from 1885 to 1888. In 1886 he co-wrote, directed and starred in a stage adaptation by Thomas Somers of Marcus Clarke's For the Terms of His Natural Life. This was not the first adaptation of Clarke's novel but it was the most popular and successful and continued to be produced on Australian stages for the following forty years. Dampier also organised a centennial competition for an Australian play and staged the winning work, John Perry's The Life and Death of Captain Cook. Dampier gave a series of seasons at the Alexandra Theatre in Melbourne between 1888 and 1892. He presented Marvellous Melbourne by himself and J.H. Wrangham, his business manager and followed this in 1890 with their version of Rolf Boldrewood's Robbery Under Arms. These productions were sometimes criticised for their 'rough and ready' construction but they were very successful.
Despite these successes, the economic depression of the 1890s hit Dampier's company badly and he went bankrupt. After this setback he focused on touring, with his company taking shows such as Robbery Under Arms not only around Australasia but to England as well. A 'courtly gentleman and a scholarly actor' Dampier was a sentimental favourite of the Australian stage in his later years. His company broke up almost immediately after his death. His daughter Lily Dampier and her husband Alfred Rolfe used his scripts as the basis for several early silent films, and later prominent Australian actors such as Edmund Duggan and Bert Bailey acknowledged their artistic debt to him.