Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/King, William (1701-1769)
KING, WILLIAM (1701–1769), independent minister, was born in Wiltshire on 9 June 1701, and educated at a local school, and afterwards at the university of Utrecht. He passed his trials there, returned to England in 1724, and was at once called by the independent church at Chesham, Buckinghamshire, where he was ordained on 25 April 1725. He removed to London in 1740, and on 14 Feb. in that year became pastor of the independent church in Hare Court, Aldersgate Street, as successor to Samuel Bruce. Shortly afterwards he received from a Scottish university a diploma creating him D.D. On 14 Jan. 1748 he was chosen Merchants' lecturer at Pinners' Hall, where he died on 3 March 1769. He was buried in Bunhill Fields. Besides 192 lectures at Pinners' Hall, of which at his death he was the eldest lecturer, he delivered evening lectures at Silver Street and Lime Street chapels. An oil-portrait of King, which has been engraved by Hopwood, is preserved in the vestry at Hare Court.
[Musgrave's Obituaries; Wilson's Dissenting Churches, iii. 299; Jones's Bunhill Memorials, p. 135; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, i. 196; Gent. Mag. 1769, p. 168; London Mag. 1769, p. 333; Funeral Sermon by Dr. James Watson, from Isaiah lx. 19.]