Australian colonial premier dug up for paternity test

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2008

SYDNEY (AFP) — The exhumation of a lecherous Australian colonial leader for a paternity test has angered his acknowledged relatives who Tuesday described the process as "appalling."

The remains of South Australian premier Charles Cameron Kingston, who died a century ago, were dug up in March at the request of an unnamed businessman and his sister who claim they are his descendants.

Kingston, whose government was the first to introduce legislation to give women the vote in Australia, was a known womaniser before his marriage to Lucy McCarthy.

"His marriage was not a happy union and he soon returned to lechery," the Australian Dictionary of Biography notes.

Although his only child with McCarthy did not survive infancy, historians believe Kingston...