KINGSTON, the chief city of Frontenac county, Ontario, Canada, is situated at the north-eastern extremity of Lake Ontario, at the point where the St Lawrence issues from it, and at the mouth of the Cataraqui Creek, about 160 miles east of Toronto by the Grand Trunk Railway. Of the many fine buildings the chief are the city-hall, the market, the custom-house, the court-house and jail, the post-office, and the university. Among the charities are a hospital, an orphanage, a combined hospital and orphanage, a house of industry, and a house of refuge. The penitentiary and the lunatic asylum are at a little distance from the city. Kingston is the seat of Queen’s university and college, and of a medical college affiliated to the university. The Roman Catholic Regiopolis college has been closed since 1869. The royal military college of the Dominion is at Kingston. The harbour is deep, spacious, and sheltered, and brisk trade is carried on. As a naval station Kingston occupies an important position. It commands the entrance to the Rideau Canal, and is strongly fortified. Shipbuilding, iron-founding, and the manufacture of locomotives, steam-engines, and machinery, leather, soap and candles, boots and shoes, cotton, and wooden goods are carried on by the inhabitants. Kingston is the seat of an Anglican and of a Roman Catholic bishop. The population in 1881 was 14,093.

Kingston occupies the site of the old French fort Frontenac. It received its present name after it was taken by the British in 1762. For three years (1841-44) it was the capital of Canada.

KINGSTON, the capital of Jamaica. See Jamaica.

KINGSTON, William Henry Giles (1814-1880), boys’ novelist, was born in London, February 28, 1814. Much of his youth was spent at Oporto, where his father was a merchant, but when he joined his father in business, and afterwards when he carried on business for himself, he lived chiefly in London. In 1844 his first book, The Circassian Chief appeared, and its success led to the publication in 1845 of The Prime Minister, a Story of the Days of the Great Marquis of Pornbal. The Lusitanian Sketches that appeared soon after describe Kingston’s travels in Portugal. In 1851 Peter the Whaler, his first book for boys, came out. That and its immediate successors were received with such unequivocal popularity that Kingston retired from business, and devoted himself to the production of tales of adventure for boys. Within thirty years he wrote upwards of one hundred and thirty such books. He travelled at various times in many of the countries of Europe, and lived for a while in Portugal during the civil war there. His Western Wanderings, published in 1856, describes a tour in Canada. In all philanthropic schemes Kingston took deep interest; he was the promoter of the mission to seamen; and he acted as secretary of a society for promoting an improved system of emigration. He was a supporter of the volunteer movement in England from the first. For his services in bringing about a commercial treaty between Portugal and Britain he was knighted by the queen of Portugal; and his literary merits were recognized at home by a grant from his own sovereign. He died at Willesden, August 5,1880.

Kingston’s boyish ambition had been to enter the navy, and he always kept his affection for the sea. As he advanced in life he had opportunities of cruising in men-of-war, besides sailing in merchantmen and his own yacht; and it was thus that he gained the knowledge of practical seamanship that he used so graphically in his books. Most of his stories are stories of the sea; and he generally laid his plots in the old romantic days before England’s wooden walls had given place to iron-clads. He was a master of the simple romance in which boys delight, and knew well how to draw the peculiar compound of valour and magnanimity that forms the hero to healthy boyhood. He had great assimilative power in using the accounts of travellers in countries where he had never been; and his imagination supplied him abundantly with gallant adventures, thrilling dangers, and hairsbreadth escapes. His books are useful in insinuating knowledge whilst they are giving pleasure, and they are valuable inasmuch as their whole tone is pure, wholesome, and manly. Characteristic specimens of his works are The Three Midshipmen; The Three Lieutenants; The Three Commanders ∙, and The Three Admirals. Occasionally his books were not in the form of a story; and some of them are designed for adult readers.

Kingston doubtless derived its name from the fact that at an early period it was a royal demesne. On digging the foundation for the new bridge a large number of important Roman remains were discovered, and on this account many believe that it was at this spot that Caesar crossed the Thames when in pursuit of Cassivelaunus. In 838 it was the seat of a witenagemot convened by King Egbert. From lidwin in 901 to Ethelred in 978 it was the place where the Anglo-Saxon kings were crowned. Kingston returned members to parliament from the 4th of Edward II. to the 47th of Edward III. It received a charter of incorporation from King John, which was confirmed and extended by several subsequent monarchs. In 1264 the castle of Kingston, no trace of which now remains, was taken by Henry III. In 1648 it was made the rendezvous of forces designed for the release of Charles I. from the Isle of Wight, but in the skirmish near the town the Royalists were defeated, and Lord Francis Villiers was killed.

See Roots, Charters of the Toten of Kingston, 1797, and the histories of the town by Anderson, 1818, and Biden, 1852.