Born in London, England, Kingsford traveled to Canada, where he served in the army before engaging in surveying work.
Kingsford believed that the Conquest of New France guaranteed victory for British constitutional liberty and that it ensured material progress.
He assumed the assimilation of French Canadians into a superior British culture was inevitable and desirable, for he envisioned Canada as one nation with one anglophone population.
[1] Born on 23 December 1819 in the parish of St. Lawrence Jewry, London, he was the son of William and Elizabeth Kingsford of Lad Lane.
[2] Kingsford was chief engineer of the city of Toronto for a few months during 1855, but resigned to re-enter the service of the Grand Trunk, in whose employment he remained till 1864.
He acted at first as superintendent of the line east from Toronto, and afterwards as contractor to maintain the section that runs from that city westward to Stratford.
When the Mackenzie government came into power in 1872 Kingsford was appointed dominion engineer in charge of the harbours of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River.
He continued in this post till 31 December 1879, when he was dismissed by Sir Hector Langevin, minister of public works.
[2] Kingsford began writing for the press, and published some pamphlets: and a monograph on Canadian history entitled A Political Coin.
[2] In 1848 Kingsford married Maria Margaret, daughter of William Burns Lindsay, clerk of the legislative assembly of the province of Canada.