Page:The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.djvu/276

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DICTIONARY OF AUSTRALASIAN BIOGRAPHY.
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pany. He was elected M.L.A. for East Sydney in 1869, and sat till the dissolution. Mr. King visited England in 1874, but returned and settled permanently in Queensland in the following year, being created a Knight of the Crown of Italy on his retirement from the Sydney consulship for Italy. In 1880 Mr. King accepted the Executive Commissionership for Queensland at the Melbourne International Exhibition, and represented the colony on the steel rails inquiry held in London in 1881. He was called to the Legislative Council of Queensland in 1882.

King, Henry Edward, J.P., is a native of Limerick, and was member for Maryborough in the Queensland Legislative Assembly. Mr. King was Secretary for Public Works and Mines in the Macalister Ministry from Nov. 1874 to May 1876. Two months later he was chosen Speaker of the Assembly, and occupied the chair of the House till July 1883. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Maryborough at the general election in 1888.

King, John, was born at Moy, co. Antrim, on Dec. 5th, 1838, and entered the army, serving in India in the 70th Regiment. He arrived in Australia in 1860, having been engaged by Mr. G. T. Landells, who was sent to India to purchase camels for the Burke and Wills Expedition. He accompanied these two unfortunate explorers throughout their fatal journey, and was the only survivor of the party of four which set forward for the Gulf of Carpentaria from Cooper's Creek on Dec. 16th, 1860. He was with Burke when he died, and would himself have perished but for finding a bag of "nardoo," sufficient to last him for a fortnight, in an abandoned native encampment He then returned to Cooper's Creek, and buried the body of Wills, who had been left behind. Subsequently he fell in with some friendly blacks, and was at length rescued by the relief expedition under Mr. Alfred Howitt. The Victorian Government gave him a pension of £180 per annum until his death, on Jan. 15th, 1872.

King, Hon. John Charles, was Town Clerk of Melbourne from the establishment of the municipality in 1842 till 1861, when he was sent to England as the agent of the Victorian branch of the Anti-Transportation Association. He sailed on April 3rd, and rendered good service in thwarting Earl Grey's policy as regarded the despatch of convicts to Tasmania and Moreton Bay in 1862. On his return to Melbourne he entered the Legislative Assembly, and joined the Nicholson Ministry in Oct. 1859 as Vice-President of the Board of Land and Works and Commissioner of Public Works. He only, however, held office till Nov. 25th, when he died.

King, Hon. Philip Gidley, M.L.C., son of Rear-Admiral Philip Parker King, by Harriet, second daughter of Christopher Lethbridge, of Madford, Launceston, and grandson of Philip Gidley King, third Governor of New South Wales, was born at Parramatta, N.S.W., in 1817, and entered the Royal Navy, serving under his father and Captain (afterwards Admiral) Fitzroy, in the Adventure and Beagle. Having retired from the navy, he joined the staff of the Australian Agricultural Company at Port Stephens; and on the formation of the Peel River Company, in 1854, he was appointed manager. In Dec. 1880 Mr. King was called to the Legislative Council of New South Wales. He married in 1843 Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the late Hannibal H. Macarthur, nephew of the late John Macarthur of Camden Park, whose name is associated with the founding of the merino wool industry in Australia.

King, Rear-Admiral Phillip Parker, F.R.S., F.L.S., son of Philip Gidley King, third Governor of New South Wales, by his marriage with Anna Josepha, daughter of Mr. Combes, of Bedford, was born at Norfolk Island, where his father was Lieut.-Governor, on Dec. 13th, 1791, being, it is asserted, the first child of European parents born there—though this can scarcely have been the case if the commonly received date of William Charles Wentworth's birth is correct. He entered the navy in 1807, and from 1817 to 1822 was engaged in surveying the northern coasts of Australia in the ships Mermaid and Bathurst. During this period he made no less than four separate expeditions, all of which he commanded. Subsequently (1825 to 1830) he was engaged with Admiral Fitzroy in surveying the South American coasts in the ships Adventure and Beagle. He ob-

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