Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/King, Samuel William
KING, SAMUEL WILLIAM (1821–1868), traveller and man of science, eldest son of W. H. King, vicar of Nuneaton, Warwickshire, was born in 1821. He graduated B.A. 1845, and proceeded M.A. 1853 from St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. He became rector of Saxlingham Nethergate, Norfolk, in 1801. King was an enthusiastic entomologist and geologist, and helped Sir Charles Lyell, who was a personal friend, in his investigations both in England and abroad. In 1860 the two explored the deposits at Hoxne, Suffolk, together, and in 1865 King investigated the cave at Aurignac (cf. Professor Boyd Dawkins in Nature, 13 July 1871). King travelled frequently on the continent, and was an enthusiastic mountain climber. His wife usually accompanied him, and the records of a long expedition made about 1855 are contained in King's only book, ‘The Italian Valleys of the Pennine Alps,’ London, 1858. It is illustrated from drawings made by the author. King was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (1858), the Geological Society (1860), and of the Society of Antiquaries. He died at Pontresina in 1868, and was buried there. His collection of fossil mammalia from the Norfolk forest beds he bequeathed to the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street, London.
[Information from Colonel W. Ross King; Crockford's Clerical Directory; Lyell's Antiquity of Man, 4th ed. pp. 132, 219, 261, 268.]