Richard King (traveller)

Richard King (1811?–1876) was an English surgeon, Arctic traveller, and early ethnological writer.

King was born circa 1811, the son of Richard King, a Londoner. He was educated at St Paul's School, London, and then was apprenticed to an apothecary in 1824. He also trained at Guy's Hospital and St Thomas's Hospital in London. He studied at Guy's under Thomas Hodgkin, later to be a colleague in the development of ethnology.

King became M.R.C.S. on 29 June and L.S.A. on 16 August 1832, and obtained the honorary degree of M.D. of New York in 1833. He was subsequently made a member of the court of examiners of the Apothecaries' Society in London.

Shortly after qualifying as a medical man King obtained the post of surgeon and naturalist in the expedition led by Captain George Back, to the mouth of the Great Fish River (now known as the Back River) between 1833 and 1835, in search of Captain John Ross. He took a prominent part in the expedition and is frequently mentioned in Back's Narrative (1836), to which he contributed botanical and meteorological appendices.

On 20 July 1842, King issued the prospectus which originated the Ethnological Society of London. In 1844, he published an address to the society, of which he was the first secretary.

In 1850, King was appointed assistant-surgeon to the HMS Resolute, in the expedition sent out to search for Franklin under Captain Horatio Austin, and in 1857 King received the Arctic Medal for his services. In 1870, when the Ethnological Society of London and its successor, the Anthropological Society, merged in the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain, King became a member of the council of the institute. He was also a member of the general council of the British Association.

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