Richard Baker dodges Charles Kingston's bullets challenge in Adelaide in 1892 to leave key national legacies
Richard Baker (left) ignored Charles Cameropn Kingston's 1892 duel challenge and lunched instead at the Adelaide Club on North Terrace. Baker notified the police, who arrested Kingston with a loaded weapon in Victoria Square.
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia
Richard Chaffey Baker was the no show when challenged to a gun duel in Adelaide’s Victoria Square by South Australian parliamentary opponent Charles Cameron Kingston in 1892.
Baker, the son of South Australia’s second premier John Baker, would go on to leave more significant political legacies by helping write the Australian constitution and creating of a coherent set of conservative values crystallised in the National Defence League, an early precursor of the Liberal Party that spread nationally.
Born at North Adelaide in 1841, Baker came from a family environment that made it easy for him to choose public life over a business or legal practice. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, England, he followed his father in becoming independently wealthy through investments in the pastoral and mining industries. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1864 but returned to Adelaide to set up a practice.
In 1865, he married Katherine Edith Colley and, three years later, he was elected to the House of Assembly for the seat of Barossa and, in 1870, as attorney-general, he became the first South Australian-born government minister. After a six years out of politics, Baker was elected to the Legislative Council in 1877, where he remained until 1900. In 1893 he was elected as the council’s president.
Socially and politically conservative, but not reactionary, Baker had a willingness to compromise that made him an effective contributor later to the Australian federal movement. But Baker fought hard for his ideas, often rousing opponents’ anger and earning him the epithet “Bully Baker”.
One of the few on the other side of politics who could upset Baker’s was Charles Cameron Kingston, future radical liberal premier of South Australia and, like Baker, a leading federationist. In December 1892, after exchanging abuse in parliament, Kingston sent Baker an English bulldog revolver, challenging him to a duel. Baker chose instead to lunch at the Adelaide Club on North Terrace and notified the police, who arrested Kingston with a loaded weapon in Victoria Square. For the rest of his life, Baker boycotted Kingston, refusing to deal with him except on official occasions.
Baker was a member of the 1891 and 1897-98 federal conventions. For the 1891 event, he prepared a widely-used and influential booklet on the pros and cons of forms of federation and he later produced several other pamphlets on the subject. He argued for a strong senate to protect the rights of the smaller states and rejected the British form of responsible government on the grounds as incompatible with federation.
He unsuccessfully proposed that the senate be given equal power with the lower house in all legislation, including money bills, and advocated an equal number of ministers elected by both houses of parliament. Reelected to represent South Australia at the 1897-98 convention, he became chairman of committees.
Without irony, Baker considered himself a republican as well as a monarchist. He believed Australian colonists already had republican government. In 1901, he was elected to the senate in the first commonwealth parliament and was its first president until retiring, due to ill health, in 1906. He was widely respected for his decisiveness and fairness.
A committed Anglican, he had many interests that reinforced his conservatism. He was chairman of the Adelaide Club and the Adelaide Jockey Club, president of the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society and a trustee of the Savings Bank, as well as sitting on the boards of several pastoral and mining companies.
