Richard John King

He was the eldest son of Richard King and his wife Mary Grace Windeatt, and was born on 18 Jan. 1818 at Montpelier, Pennycross, a chapelry attached to St Andrew, Plymouth.

[1][2] On his father's death King inherited a substantial property, including the estate of Bigadon in Buckfastleigh, Devon, where he lived until 1854.

The lands, however, were heavily mortgaged, and in that year they were sold under pecuniary pressure, when he was also forced to part with his father's collection of pictures and the magnificent library which he himself had amassed.

He contributed to Murray's Handbooks for Travellers with Kent and Sussex (1858), Surrey and Hampshire (1858), Eastern Counties (1861), and Yorkshire (1866–8).

[1] A novel Anschar: a Story of the North (Plymouth 1850), was published anonymously in 1850, based on Ansgar's mission of converting the Norsemen to Christianity.

[1] The Supernatural Beings of the Middle Ages and The Origin of the Romance Literature of the XII and XIII Centuries, dedicated to Richard Cowley Powles, were lectures read before the Essay Society of Exeter College, printed by King in 1840, for private distribution.