Charles Cameron Kingston (22 October 1850 – 11 May 1908) was an Australian politician. From 1893 to 1899 he was a radical liberal Premier of South Australia, occupying this office with the support of Labor, which in the House of Assembly was led by John McPherson from 1893, and by Lee Batchelor upon McPherson's death in 1897.
Kingston won the 1893, 1896 and 1899 colonial elections against the conservatives. During his time as Premier, Kingston was responsible for such measures as electoral reform including the first law to give votes to women in Australia (and second in the world only to New Zealand), a legitimation Act, the first conciliation and arbitration act in Australia, establishment of a state bank, a high protective tariff, regulation of factories, a progressive system of land, and income taxation, a public works program, and more extensive workers' compensation.
A leading advocate of federation, Kingston contributed extensively at a practical level to bringing it about. Elected to the House of Representatives with the most votes amongst the seven candidates in the single statewide Division of South Australia at the 1901 national election, he aligned himself with the Protectionist Party, going on to represent the Division of Adelaide at the election two years later.
He was also one of the main proponents of what was later termed the White Australia policy, arguing strongly against Chinese immigration. In his capacity as representative of South Australia — in 1888 he attended a conference in Sydney that proposed changes in the migration laws of the time.
Early life
Kingston was born in Adelaide on 22 October 1850. He was the youngest of six children born to Luduvina Catherina Da Silva () and George Strickland Kingston. His father, a widower who had re-married, was born in Ireland and trained as an architect and engineer in England. He was appointed deputy surveyor-general for the new Province of South Australia and arrived in 1836 on board the First Fleet. Kingston's mother was the daughter of military officer Charles Cameron and his Portuguese-born wife Luduvina Rosa Da Silva, who married in 1812 during the Peninsular War. She later became the step-daughter of seaman and pastoralist John Finnis, following her father's early death.
Kingston's mother died in 1851 at the age of 27, after which he and his siblings were probably raised by servants as their father was heavily involved in business and political activities. In 1856 he married Emma Berry, the widowed daughter of harbourmaster Thomas Lipson, but had no further children. Kingston formed a close bond with his older brother Strickland. At an early age he was sent to John Lorenzo Young's Adelaide Educational Institution, where he regularly won awards and had a talent for mathematics. His schoolmate Joseph Verco later recalled him as "distinctly rough in manner and rather disposed to bully those younger and smaller than himself [...] very disposed to mischief, practical and horse-play". He left the school at the end of 1867 and decided to study law, beginning his articles of clerkship in March 1868 with future attorney-general Samuel Way.
Kingston was called to the bar in 1873, despite the objection of the elder brother of his future wife, Lucy May McCarthy on the grounds of Kingston's alleged seduction of her. He became a QC in 1889.
In 1873 Kingston married Lucy McCarthy, who was disabled for much of her life. They had no children, but in a remarkable gesture, Lucy took in a child, Kevin Kingston, whom Kingston had fathered with another woman, Elizabeth Watson, in 1883. As a result of the scandal, Kingston was ostracised by Adelaide "society", his contempt for whom he never troubled to conceal. Kevin died in 1902.
Kingston and his older brother Strickland Gough "Pat" Kingston (1848 – 3 October 1897) formed a business partnership Kingston & Kingston in 1879 which they dissolved in July 1884. S. G. Kingston was a brilliant lawyer but unstable. He was jailed for the gunshot wounding of a cabdriver in June 1884 and killed himself after losing an important case in Port Augusta.
Kingston had a passion for Australian rules football in South Australia and helped formulate its code and was president of the South Adelaide Football Club and chief patron of both South Adelaide football and cricket clubs.