William King (geologist)

William King (22 April 1809 – 24 June 1886), was an Anglo-Irish geologist at Queen's College Galway.

[2] In 1849 he joined Queen's College Galway and during his long career there published nearly 70 papers and established a museum.

His research included topics such as the structure of the brachiopod shell,[3][4] rock cleavage[5] and the uplift of the Burren[citation needed].

He supported a modified version of Darwin's Origin of Species but he gave considerable emphasis to place the Neanderthal as being close and on a "lower scale" than Andaman and Australian aborigines and suggested that like them, the Neanderthal was "incapable of moral and theoistic conception".

[2] His speculation on their theological beliefs did not go without critical comment from contemporaries like Charles Carter Blake.