Early Life
Kingston was born in Adelaide, the son of Sir George Kingston, a Protestant Irish-born surveyor, architect and landowner in the early days of British settlement in South Australia and later a member of the first South Australian Parliament. His mother, Ludovina Cameron, was of Portuguese descent. George Kingston boasted that he was "the first Irishman to set foot in the colony" and it is true that the Kingstons were among Adelaide's founding families. Charles was educated at the Adelaide Educational Institution and served his articles with Sir Samuel Way, Adelaide's leading lawyer and later Attorney-General. He 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. Lucy was an invalid for much of her life and they had no children. In a remarkable gesture, however, Lucy took in a child, Kevin Kingston, whom Kingston had fathered with another woman, Elizabeth Watson, in 1883. As a result of this 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.
Read more about this topic: Charles Kingston (politician)
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