Cecil Harmsworth King

Cecil Harmsworth King
Cecil King, circa 19 years old
Born	(1901-02-20)20 February 1901 Poynters Hall, Totteridge, Hertfordshire, England, UK
Died	17 April 1987(1987-04-17) (aged 86) Dublin, Ireland
Nationality	British
Education	Winchester College Christ Church, Oxford
Occupation	Publisher
Spouse(s)	1) Agnes Margaret Cooke (1923-19??; divorced); 4 children 2) Dame Ruth Railton (1962-1987; his death)
Parent(s)	Sir Lucas White King and Geraldine Adelaide Hamilton King (née Harmsworth)

Cecil Harmsworth King (20 February 1901 – 17 April 1987) was chairman of Daily Mirror Newspapers, Sunday Pictorial Newspapers and the International Publishing Corporation (1963–68), and a director at the Bank of England (1965–68).

Cecil Harmsworth King was born on 20 February 1901 at Poynters Hall, Totteridge, Hertfordshire, the home of his grandmother, Geraldine Mary Harmsworth. He came on his father's side from a Protestant Irish family, and was brought up in Ireland. His father was Sir Lucas White King, Professor of Oriental Languages at Trinity College, Dublin and his mother was Geraldine Adelaide Hamilton (née Harmsworth), daughter of Alfred Harmsworth, a barrister, and sister of the mass-circulation newspaper proprietors Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe and Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere.

The fourth child in the family of three sons and three daughters, he was educated at Winchester College and Christ Church, Oxford. According to Geoffrey Goodman: "He believed he was born to rule, an image of himself which never departed."

In 1937, he was an advertising director of one of his uncle's papers when he formed a partnership with journalist Hugh Cudlipp. When he was made a senior director, he chose Cudlipp as his new editor. At the age of 23, Cudlipp became the youngest chief editor in Fleet Street. Between them, both men turned The Daily Mirror into the world's largest selling daily newspaper. In 1967, the Daily Mirror's circulation reached a world record of 5,282,137 copies. By 1963, King was chairman of the International Publishing Corporation (IPC), then the biggest publishing empire in the world, which included the Daily Mirror and some two hundred other papers and magazines (1963-1968).