Richard King
| Richard King MD | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| File:King, Richard.jpg | |||||||||||||||
| Born | 1811 | ||||||||||||||
| Died | 1876 | ||||||||||||||
| Residence |
12 Bulstrode Street Cavendish Square; 26 Queen Anne street; 17 Savile Row [1862] 22 Queen Anne Street [1869] crossed out in A31/2/4 12 Bulstrode Street Cavendish Square [1869] 1 Blandford Street, Manchester Square, W. [1875] | ||||||||||||||
| Occupation |
medical explorer | ||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Contents
[hide]Notes
Office Notes
APS Council 1838 member
APS Council 1839 member
APS Council 1840 member
APS Council 1847 member
ESL Council 1843-44 Secretary
ESL Council 1844-45 Secretary
ESL Council 1845-46 Secretary
ESL Council 1846-47 Secretary
ESL Council 1847-48 Secretary
ESL Council 1848-49 Secretary
resigns 1849.06
ESL Council 1868-69 Member
ESL Council 1869-70 Member
ASL Council 1867 Member
ASL Council 1869 Member
AI Council 1871 Member
AI Council 1872 Member
House Notes
MRCS LSA, Corr. Mem. Eth. S.N. York and Stat.S. Darmstadt, Hon. Fel. Eth. S. Paris
HM Medical Inspector of Factories
Founder member ESL
1844.04.09 Publication Committee: Thomas Hodgkin, MD, George Ramsay Esq., J.A. St John Esq., W. Holt Yates, MD, Hon. Mr Elphinstone, Walter K. Kelly Esq., William Aldam, MP, Richard King, MD
1844.04.09 Library Committee: George Ramsay Esq., Bayle St John Esq., Thomas May Esq., Joseph Charles King Esq., Thomas Hodgkin, MD, Walter K. Kelly Esq., J.A. St John Esq., Richard King, MD
1844.04.09 House Committee: Sir James Clark Bart., Thomas May Esq., Thomas Hodgkin, MD, Richard King, MD
1844.06.22 G.B. Greenough Esq., Captain Grover & Dr King were appointed Delegates to the British Association meeting at York.
1845.06.11 Sir Charles Malcolm, Captain Grover, and Richard King, MD were appointed delegates from the Society to the British Association meeting at Cambridge
1849.06.14 The resignation of Dr King as Secretary was announced.
ASL proposed 1866.02.06
1876.02.22 death noted
Notes From Elsewhere
Richard King (1811?–1876) was an English surgeon, Arctic traveller and early ethnological writer.
King's reputation as argumentative is well-established
King, Richard (1810/11–1876), Arctic traveller and ethnologist, was born in London, the son of Richard King. He was educated at St Paul's School, London, and in 1824 began a seven-year apprenticeship to an apothecary. In 1832 he was made licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries and member of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was appointed surgeon and naturalist to the expedition led by George Back to look for John Ross, who had been gone four years on a search for the north-west passage. Although only second in command, King had a much more arduous share of the work than Back and was largely responsible for the success of the expedition. Back's Narrative (2 vols., 1836) contains meteorological and botanical appendices by King who also wrote his own Narrative (2 vols., 1836). King's is in many respects the better book, since he showed a far deeper understanding of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic and did not indulge in dramatic exaggeration. His narrative made clear that, had the journey been better organized, more could have been accomplished. He resolved to return and complete his discoveries, a resolution which remained unfulfilled, not least because Back prevented his gaining the support of potential sponsors. In 1836 King proposed an expedition to clear up the uncertainty surrounding the Boothia isthmus, which he rightly suspected was the extreme north-eastern point of the continent. After the colonial secretary rejected his proposal, King took the highly unusual step of opening a public subscription for the £1000 he needed. The subscription went well until the Admiralty and the Hudson's Bay Company each decided to send an expedition to the area, neither under King's command but both, as he thought, inspired by him. The Admiralty expedition was a failure but the company, using the methods and even some of the personnel that King had suggested, achieved complete success. In 1842 King again proposed an expedition and was again rebuffed.
King took great interest in Franklin's expedition and was one of the first to raise the alarm when he failed to return. He insisted, at first on very slender evidence, that Franklin's party would be found near the mouth of the Great Fish River. His opinion was discounted and in 1847 and 1856 his offer to lead a search party was refused. His loud and continued insistence on the need to search his favoured site increased the animosity of the Admiralty, the Hudson's Bay Company, and the Royal Geographical Society, who were also irritated by popular journals which took up King's point of view. Matters were not helped by King's Franklin Search from First to Last (1855) which set out his own convictions and dwelt on the obduracy of those who would not listen to him. Franklin's party was finally found by M'Clintock in 1859 in the spot King had suggested eleven years earlier. The delay, however, probably made no material difference since, even if his advice been taken immediately, it would probably have come too late to save any of Franklin's men.
King took no further part in Arctic affairs but was active in his profession and in learned societies, notably the Ethnological Society (later the Royal Anthropological Society), which he helped found in 1842. He served on the council and contributed several valuable works on the Inuit (1844), North American Indians (1869), Manxmen (1870), and the Sami (1871). His medical works on the cause of death in stillborn babies and on cholera were much respected at the time and he received several medical honours. In 1857 he married Elizabeth Lumley and they had at least one son, Richard. He died at his home at 1 Blandford Street, Manchester Square, London, of cerebral congestion on 4 February 1876.
Publications
External Publications
• The Physical and Intellectual Character and Industrial Arts of the Esquimaux, 1844.
• The Natives of Vancouver's Island and British Columbia, 1869.
• The Manx of the Isle of Man, 1870.
• The Laplanders, 1871.
House Publications
On the Physical Characters of the Esquimaux
JES Vol. 1 (1848), pp. 45-59
On the intellectual character of the Esquimaux READ 19 JUNE 1844
On the industrial arts of the Esquimaux
Obituary notice of George Frederic Ruxton. Read 20 Dec. 1848. Printed
On the Manx of the Isle of Man 1872
Related Material Details
RAI Material
Other Material
British Library [letters]
