E. T. Kingsley

Who was E. T. Kingsley?

Eugene Thornton Kingsley was a founder and leader of the Socialist Party of Canada and an editor of the Western Clarion newspaper, one of the most prominent left wing publications in Canada before World War I, in the first decade of the 20th century. He ran for Parliament in the riding of Vancouver City in the 1908 and 1911 federal elections as a candidate of the Socialist Party of Canada and in the 1926 federal election in the riding of Vancouver Centre as a candidate of the British Columbia Independent Labour Party. He also ran for the British Columbia Legislative Assembly in the 1907 and 1909 provincial elections. He served as editor of the Western Clarion from 1903 until 1908 and was later active in the British Columbia Federated Labour Party where he served as a vice-president and eventually the British Columbia Independent Labour Party. In 1919, he edited the weekly paper, Labour Star, which survived for a few months.

Born in the United States, he had previously been a member of DeLeon's Socialist Labor Party of America and had been a candidate for the United States Congress several times including in the Fourth Congressional District of California in 1896 and the Fifth Congressional District of California in 1898. Noted for his fiery speaking style, he lost his limbs in a rail accident in California.