The members of the Australian Parliament assembled for the first time in Melbourne on 9 May 1901. One hundred and eleven members, comprising 36 senators and 75 members of the House of Representatives, had been elected in polls held in all states on the 29th or 30th March.
111 First Australian Parliament Geocache series. BYO PEN
Born at St Erth, in Cornwall, England, David Charleston was an engineer who worked in the United States of America as a marine engineer before migrating to South Australia in 1884. A United Trades and Labor Council delegate and President (1889-90), he was active in the early labour movement in Adelaide in the 1880s and 1890s, and was elected for the United Labor Party to the South Australian Legislative Council in 1891. He served in the South Australian Parliament as a member of the Legislative Council 1891-1901.
Charleston was elected as a Freetrader to represent South Australia in the Senate in 1901. He was defeated at the election of 1903, and subsequently made unsuccessful attempts to return to the Senate in 1906 and 1910. His main interests in Parliament were issues dealing with electoral and franchise laws.
Charleston had become a large rural property owner and after leaving the Senate he remained involved in union matters which related to his rural and mining interests.