You may well know of my fascination with Sir Titus Salt the first person to exploit alpaca fibre on a commercial scale.

Way back in the 1850's Sir Titus who lived in the UK acquired alpacas from the Earl of Derby. Before Titus died he shipped most of them off to Australia or South Africa, both part of the British Empire at that time.

I recently heard about some of those shipments.

The first arrival of alpacas to Australia was one male and two females imported from England to South Australia in 1856 by John Haigh, nephew of Sir Titus Salt. apparently he sold them to Sir Thomas Elder, best known for starting a camel stud operation 400 kilometers north of Port Augusta in 1866.

We also know that in 1844, only 3 alpacas out of a shipment of 400 alpacas from Peru survived the voyage to England.

So I am, back on the trail again trying to work out where the 13th earl of Derby got his alpacas from and where they went when they eventually left Sir Titus. I think the poor people at Liverpool library in England are sick of hearing from me.