Alfred Lovett was the son of William Lovett, Auditor-General for Tasmania, and a Tasmanian-born mother. He was the seventh of fifteen children and grew up in Hobart. At the age of nineteen, Lovett married Julie Frances Wilshire, a girl of 'fifteen summers' and together they were 'blessed with a quiverfull of sons and daughters'.
In 1880 Lovett visited New Zealand where he wrote some poetry for the Otago Witness. Returning to Sydney in 1881 he began to have 'descriptive matter' published in the Australian Town and Country Journal and poetry published in the Bulletin. Lovett went back to Tasmania in 1882 and settled there. He wrote for local journals and had some further work published in the Bulletin.
Source: 'Australian Autobiographies', vol.2, edited by A. G. Stephens.
