For successfully promoting and organizing one of Canada's first national scientific services, Kingston has been called the father of Canadian Meteorology.

George Kingston was born at the British Factory Chaplaincy, Oporto, Portugal on 5 October 1816, a son of British wine merchant Lucy Henry Kingston and his wife Frances Sophia Rooke, and grandson on his mother's side of Sir Giles Rooke, Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, England.

Recognizing the need for a true description of Canada's climatology, in 1871 Kingston persuaded the government of the advantage of a network of stations to observe and issue storm warnings.

Storm warnings were the more important then and these bulletins were displayed to mariners and sailors by combinations of wicker baskets hung on poles at ports and harbours on the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the Atlantic Coast of Canada.

George Templeman Kingston retired from his posts in 1880, and died of pneumonia on 21 January 1886, at Toronto, Ontario.