[2] He was educated at Deptford in England from 1824 to 1825, and at the age of nine sailed with his father on the ship HMS Adventure surveying the coast of South America.

[3] In December 1831, he sailed as midshipman on HMS Beagle where he befriended Charles Darwin who he remained in contact with over the course of his lifetime.

[4] In January 1836, he returned to Parramatta, and subsequently he worked on pastoral stations on the Murrumbidgee River and around Port Phillip.

In 1880 he was appointed by Sir Henry Parkes, the Premier, to the New South Wales Legislative Council, where he was generally associated with the Free Trade Party.

[5] In 1892, at the request of the publisher John Murray, King was asked for recollections as a possible supplement to the new illustrated edition of Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle.