Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/157

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

created a baronet, and appointed governor and commander-in-chief at Newfoundland. He became a vice-admiral on 1 Feb. 1793, and returning to England was elected M.P. for Rochester. In December 1794 he was appointed commander-in-chief at Plymouth, and was advanced to the rank of admiral on 1 June 1795. He died 7 Nov. 1806. He married Susannah Margaretta, daughter of William Coker of Mappowder, Dorset, and left, besides three daughters, a son, Richard (1774–1834) [q. v.], who succeeded to the baronetcy. His portrait by Sir William Beechey is in the possession of the family.

[Charnock's Biog. Nav. vi. 369; Ralfe's Naval Biog. i. 225; Beatson's Nav. and Mil. Memoirs; Chevalier's Histoire de la Marine française (pt. i.); Commission and Warrant Books in the Public Record Office.]

J. K. L.

KING, RICHARD (1748–1810), divine, born on 30 Nov. 1748, was son of Henry King of St. Augustine, Bristol. He was admitted scholar of Winchester in 1762 (Kirby, Winchester Scholars, p. 258), matriculated at Oxford from Queen's College on 4 April 1767, and was elected fellow of New College in 1768, graduating B.A. in 1772, and M.A. in 1776 (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886, ii. 796). In 1782 he resigned his fellowship, receiving the college livings of Worthen, Shropshire, and Steeple Morden, Cambridgeshire. He died at the latter place on 30 Oct. 1810 (Gent. Mag. vol. lxxx. pt. ii. p. 589).

King wrote: 1. ‘A Discourse on the Inspiration of the Scriptures,’ 8vo, London, 1805. 2. ‘Remarks on the Alliance between Church and State, and on the Test Laws,’ 8vo, London, 1807. 3. ‘Brother Abraham's Answer to Peter Plymley [i.e. to the “Letters on the subject of the Catholics to my brother Abraham, who lives in the Country,” by Sydney Smith] … in two Letters; to which is prefixed a “Postliminious” Preface,’ 8vo, London, 1808.

On 17 Aug. 1782 he married Frances Elizabeth, third daughter of Sir Francis Bernard, bart. [q. v.]

His wife, Frances Elizabeth King, was born on 25 July 1757. After the death of her husband she resided at Gateshead, Durham, so as to be near her two married daughters, and died there on 23 Dec. 1821 (Gent. Mag. vol. xcii. pt. i. p. 90). An intimate friend of Hannah More, she established under her guidance societies for visiting the sick poor and schools for their children. To the ‘Reports’ issued by the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor, under the editorship of her brother, Sir Thomas Bernard [q. v.], she contributed many papers. Her other writings are: 1. ‘A Tour in France,’ 12mo, London, 1803. 2. ‘The Beneficial Effects of the Christian Temper on Domestic Happiness,’ 2nd edit. 8vo, London, 1807; 6th edit. 1825. 3. ‘Female Scripture Characters; exemplifying Female Virtues,’ 16mo, London, 1813; 10th edit. 1826, to which her portrait, engraved by Scriven after Hastings, is prefixed. 4. ‘The Rector's Memorandum Book, being Memoirs of a Family in the North’ [anon.], 12mo, London, 1814 (and 1819). Her portrait was also engraved by Woolnoth.

[Memoir prefixed to Mrs. King's Female Scripture Characters, 3rd edit.; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, ii. 233.]

G. G.

KING, Sir RICHARD, the younger (1774–1834), vice-admiral, born in 1774, was only son of Admiral Sir Richard King [q. v.] He entered the navy in 1788 on board the Crown in the East Indies with Commodore (afterwards Sir William) Cornwallis [q. v.], by whom he was made lieutenant in 1791, commander in 1793, and captain in 1794. On his return to England he was appointed in November 1794 to the Aurora for cruising service in the Channel. During the continuance of the war he commanded different ships with credit in the Channel and the North Sea. In April 1804 he was appointed to the Achille of 74 guns, in which, on 21 Oct. 1805, he took part in the battle of Trafalgar. On the death of his father in November 1806, King succeeded to the baronetcy, but continued in the Achille, employed on the west coast of France or Spain till 1811, when he was appointed captain of the fleet to Sir Charles Cotton [q. v.] in the Mediterranean and afterwards in the Channel. He was promoted to be rear-admiral on 12 Aug. 1812, and for the rest of the war had his flag in the San Josef, in the Mediterranean, as second in command to Sir Edward Pellew [q. v.], afterwards Viscount Exmouth. He was nominated a K.C.B. 2 Jan. 1815, was commander-in-chief in the East Indies from 1816 to 1820, and became a vice-admiral on 19 July 1821. In July 1833 he was appointed commander-in-chief at the Nore, and died at Admiralty House, Sheerness, on 5 Aug. 1834. King was twice married, first, in 1803, to Sarah Anne, only daughter of Sir John Thomas Duckworth [q. v.]; secondly, in 1822, to Maria Susanna, daughter of Sir Charles Cotton, and left issue by both wives. His second son by the first marriage, Admiral Sir George St. Vincent Duckworth King, K.C.B. (d. 1891), succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his elder brother in 1847, was captain of the Leander, and afterwards of the Rodney, in