Researching Charles Kemp

He was born in London to carpenter Simon Kemp and Mary Ann Cox. He and his family migrated to Port Stephens; he moved to Sydney in 1831 and, after a period in a carpenters' shop, was the colony's first parliamentary reporter. In 1838, he married Stella Christie; they adopted one daughter.

Kemp was the proprietor of The Sydney Morning Herald from 1841 until 1853. Kemp also worked as an underwriter and also went into real estate and the stock market. From 1855 to 1856, he was an inaugural railway commissioner, the government having assumed control of the Sydney and Hunter River Railway Companies, which he had founded. He stood unsuccessfully for the New South Wales Legislative Council for the North Eastern Boroughs (Newcastle and Raymond Terrace) at the 1851 election, for Maneroo in April 1854, and for City of Sydney in May 1854. Kemp was a candidate for the 1859 general election for East Sydney, but was again unsuccessful.

In 1860, he was elected in a by-election to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for Liverpool Plains, but parliament was dissolved in November 1860 and he was defeated at the general election in December 1860.

From 1860, he was Deputy Chairman of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. In April 1861 he was again unsuccessful in a by-election for Parramatta, before being appointed to the Legislative Council in September 1861.

Kemp died in 1864 at Sydney.

Kemp was educated at Harrow School, where he was captain of the cricket team in 1875, and at Oriel College, Oxford. His first-class cricket was confined to the 1878 season, when he appeared in three Oxford University games, once playing for MCC against the Oxford team, and a single match for Kent. A right-handed lower-order batsman and a right-arm slow round-arm bowler, he had little success as batsman or bowler; in the 1878 University Match against Cambridge University, he was the not-out batsman when Oxford were dismissed in their second innings for just 32 to lose the match by 238 runs.

Two of his brothers, Manley and Arthur, also played first-class cricket for Kent, and Manley, an all-round sportsman, played for and captained Oxford University too.

Kemp was educated at Glamorgan and Scotch College. After taking a Commerce degree at the University of Melbourne, he then worked in economic advisory roles in private enterprise, including as personal assistant to Sir Herbert Gepp, then managing director of Australian Paper Manufacturers. In 1940 he married Elizabeth Noel Wilson, and together they had two sons and a daughter.

With Gepp's encouragement, Kemp was instrumental in the founding of the IPA in 1943, of which he was later an economic adviser and director. His 1944 economic strategy, "Looking Forward" was described by Robert Menzies as ‘the finest statement of basic political and economic problems made in Australia for many years’, and arguably served as a central source of Menzies' later economic thought as Prime Minister.

In 1947 Kemp started publishing the IPA Review, initially as a means of disseminating his own ideas on industrial and economic policies, but later taking on a broader range of authors. The IPA Review remains in print as the IPA's flagship publication to this day.

Kemp was appointed CBE in 1959, retired as director of the IPA in 1976, and died in 1993. The IPA's annual C. D. Kemp lecture was named on his honour. His two sons, Rod and David Kemp, were the first siblings to hold simultaneous Australian Federal ministerial office. Rod Kemp also served as director (1982–89) and chairman (2008) of the IPA, while David Kemp is the current Chair of the Scotch College Board.