Charles Cameron KingstonPrint Page

The statue commemorates former Premier, Charles Cameron Kingston (1850 - 1908).

Charles Cameron Kingston was an early liberal Premier of South Australia serving from 1893 to 1899 with the support of Labor led by John McPherson from 1893 and Lee Batchelor from 1897 in the House of Assembly, winning the 1893, 1896, and 1899 state elections against the conservatives.

He was a leading proponent of and contributed extensively on the Federation of Australia, and was elected to the Federal House of Representatives with the most votes amongst the seven elected in the single South Australian division at the 1901 federal election, serving under the Protectionist Party.  He was considered the originator of the Immigration Restriction Act (known as the White Australia Policy) and was opposed to Chinese immigration to Australia.

The memory of several history makers has already been perpetuated in Victoria Square by statues. Another is in course of erection. When completed it will be a fine memorial to the late Right Hon. Charles Cameron Kingston, whose name is indelibly printed upon the annals of both the Federal and the South Australian Parliaments. He was universally recognised as a brilliant statesman. In addition to several other political positions he was Premier of this province for more than six years continuously, and afterwards the first Minister of Trade and Customs in the Commonwealth. The outcome of leading citizens' efforts after his death was a fund, raised by public subscription, for the purpose of erecting a statue.
The Register (Adelaide, SA), 2 October 1915.

The statue of Charles Cameron Kingston, which was unveiled by the Governor-General last Friday, is a distinct ornament to the city. Next to the Soldiers' Memorial and the statue to Sir Thomas Elder, it is the most artistic memorial yet unveiled in Adelaide, and it may indeed be placed on an equality with the latter—for it is by the same artist. The position is unique, for it is in the street where Mr. Kingston was born and looks towards the constituency which he so long represented in the State Parliament, while it is in the centre of the district for which he sat in the Legislative Council and in the House of Representatives.
The Mount Barker Courier and Onkaparinga and Gumeracha Advertiser (SA), 2 June 1916.

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