Author: King, Edward
Biography:
KING, Edward (1735-1807: findmypast.com)
The son of Sarah and Edward King, he was baptised in Norwich on 22 Jan 1734. He had his schooling at Harrow, graduated from Clare College, Cambridge, in 1752, and entered Lincoln’s Inn in 1758. He was called to the bar in 1763 and practised law on the Norfolk circuit before becoming recorder at King's Lynn, but he was wealthy and did not need to make a living from the law. Instead he cultivated a range of interests from antiquarian research and theology to politics and economics. He seems to have been an independent, not to say eccentric thinker, with some valuable original ideas. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1767 and of the Society of Antiquaries in 1770. He served as interim President of the SA for two months in 1784 but failed in his bid for election to the post and fell out with his colleagues. While on the Norfolk circuit he is said to have "defended a lady from a faithless lover" and then married her himself (GM). ODNB gives her name as Susanna but no record of a marriage between Edward King and a woman named Susanna in the right time frame has been found. They settled in London with a country house in Beckenham, Kent; there appear to have been no children. Part of his collection of prints and drawings, sold at auction in 1808, went to the British Museum. (ODNB 30 May 2021; britishmuseum.org 30 May 2021; findmypast.com 30 May 2021; GM Apr. 1807, 388-90)