John King

Who was John King?

John King was an English churchman, patron of the Church of Pertenhall in Bedfordshire.

The son of John King of Manaccan, Cornwall. He matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford as a poor scholar on 7 July 1674. He graduated BA in 1678 and proceeded MA in 1681. He took the degree of Doctor in Divinity in 1698 at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where his friend Sir William Dawes was master. He had the curacy of Bray in Berkshire, by his second wife he acquired the patronage of Pertenhall in Bedfordshire, and was instituted in that rectory in June 1690. In 1694 he exchanged to Chelsea. in 1731 he was collated to the prebend of Wighton in York Cathedral by Sir William Dawes, Archbishop.

King died at Church Lane, Chelsea, on 30 May 1732, and was buried in the chancel of Pertenhall church on 13 June; a large mural monument was erected to his memory. His wife died at Chelsea on 22 June 1727, aged sixty-one, and was also buried at Pertenhall. King was survived by three sons, among them the classical scholar and physician John King, and three daughters, one of whom, Eulalia, was married to John Martyn, the botanist and author of the Historia plantarum rariorum.