James King (priest)

James King (1715–1795) was a Canon of Windsor from 1774 to 1776 and Dean of Raphoe from 1776 to 1795.

Family and early career

He was the only surviving son of Thomas King, of Kirkby Malham, Yorkshire, where the family had lived since Rev. Robert King had arrived there as minister in 1573, in the aftermath of the Rising of the North. He attended Ripon Grammar School with his cousin, Fletcher Norton, and then accompanied Norton to St John’s College, Cambridge, where they matriculated in the summer of 1734. He took his B.A. in 1738 and was ordained to a curacy at Hamerton, Huntingdonshire. Two years later he was ordained priest and the following year took his M.A. and moved to another curacy at Barrow upon Soar in Leicestershire. In 1743 he was appointed by Sir Nathaniel Curzon to the perpetual curacy of St Mary Magdalene's Church, Clitheroe, Lancashire. In 1744 he married his cousin, Anne Walker, of Hungerhill, Yorkshire, and they had a family of five sons and one daughter. At Clitheroe he was known as the "keeper of the football" since, on winter Sundays, he held a football in safe keeping, to prevent the game starting until after Evensong, at which point he would kick it from the church gates.

Later career

In 1770 Fletcher Norton, now a successful lawyer, was elected Speaker of the House of Commons and invited King to be his chaplain and, two years later, to take up the post of vicar of St Mary’s and Holy Trinity in Guildford.