David Morley Charleston (27 May 1848 – 30 June 1934) was a Cornish-born

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n politician. Born in St Erth,

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

, he received only a primary education before becoming an apprentice engineer at

Harvey & Co John Harvey was a Cornishman whose career started as a blacksmith and engineer at Carnhell Green near Hayle, in west Cornwall. In 1779 he established a foundry and engineering works at Hayle called Harvey & Co. By 1800 the company employed more ...

ironworks, and later an engineering unionist in the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in London. In 1874 he moved to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

and worked as a marine engineer for

Pacific Mail Steamship Company The Pacific Mail Steamship Company was founded April 18, 1848, as a joint stock company under the laws of the State of New York by a group of New York City merchants. Incorporators included William H. Aspinwall, Edwin Bartlett (American consul ...

. Migrating to

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

in 1884, he continued his engineering work initially on the Hackney Bridge for the Road Board then with the Adelaide Steamship Company, but resigned in 1887 after labour troubles. He subsequently became President of the

United Trades and Labour Council of South Australia SA Unions (originally the United Trades and Labour Council of South Australia) is the peak body for trade unions in South Australia. It coordinates political, social, economic, and industrial campaigns between its affiliate members and implements ...

for a year from February 1889. In 1891 he was elected to the

South Australian Legislative Council The Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. Its central purpose is to act as a house of review for legislation passed through the lower house, the House of Assembly. It sits in Parli ...

as a Labor member, but he left the

United Labor Party The South Australian Labor Party, officially known as the Australian Labor Party (South Australian Branch) and commonly referred to simply as South Australian Labor, is the South Australian Branch of the Australian Labor Party, originally formed ...

in 1897 and resigned his seat. He was re-elected as an independent at the resulting by-election. Leaving the Council in 1901, he was elected to the

Australian Senate The Senate is the upper house of the Bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives (Australia), House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Chapter ...

as a

Free Trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold econo ...

r. He was defeated in 1903, and was later General Secretary of the

Farmers and Producers Political Union The Farmers and Producers Political Union (FPPU) was an independent conservative agrarian political party founded in South Australia in reaction to Labor, keen to fend off a perceived threat to the FPPU's interests against a rising labour moveme ...

. Several attempts to re-enter the Senate were unsuccessful. Charleston died in 1934.

Personal

Charleston married Mary Foster née Cooke on 24 December 1895. Mary was the daughter of William Cooke of the Britannia Iron Works, Melbourne, and a well-known singer and widow of

Fanny Simonsen Fanny Simonsen (née Françoise De Haes or Dehaes) (c. 1835 – 19 September 1896), also written Fannie Simonsen, was a French soprano singer who had a substantial career on the Australian stage, later a concert manager with her violinist husband M ...

's pianist Charles Bunbury Foster, who may have died in Queensland in 1894, but details are elusive. Charleston's sister was the suffragist Nellie Martel.

References

1848 births 1934 deaths Australian people of Cornish descent British emigrants to Australia Free Trade Party members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Australian Senate for South Australia Members of the Australian Senate Members of the South Australian Legislative Council Australian trade unionists Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of South Australia 20th-century Australian politicians {{Australia-FreeTrade-politician-stub

Personal

See also

References