[1] One brother, John, was a writer of legal books, and another, Richard Henry was a naval officer who served under Philip Broke – a former pupil at Ipswich School – during the capture of USS Chesapeake.

King was born in Lower Brooke Street, Ipswich, Suffolk, but the family subsequently moved nearby to Witnesham when his father retired to the rectory there in 1798.

[2][3] He was educated at Westminster School in London, and then Peterhouse at the University of Cambridge where he obtained a BA and MA.

He subsequently studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London and then in France in both Paris and Montpellier before returning to Peterhouse where in 1819 he graduated as a Doctor of Medicine.

King's overriding rationale for the movement is best illustrated by the phrases repeated on the masthead of every issue of The Co-operator: However he faced some criticism in other co-operative publications for his views on radical Owenism and stopped publishing the paper in August 1830 and distanced himself from the movement, in part because his views, including his support of Catholic emancipation, were affecting his professional reputation.