KING, James King (1806-1881), of Staunton Park, Herefordshire

In 1852 King summarised his opinions as ‘in a word Conservative, Protectionist and Protestant’, though these were rarely expressed outside the division lobby. A typical silent county member, King generally voted with his leadership on most party issues, but his parliamentary attendance occasionally provoked dissatisfaction among his constituents, although he was never seriously in danger of losing his seat.

King’s father, the Rev. James Simpkinson changed his name to King on succeeding to his maternal uncle’s Staunton Park estate in Herefordshire in 1837. The land and seat passed to his son and heir on his death in 1842. King offered for the county on protectionist principles at the 1852 general election, declaring that the question of the corn laws must be ‘re-opened and re-discussed in the next session’.1Hereford Journal, 25 Feb. 1852. He described his opponent the Whig Sir George Cornewall Lewis as the ‘bitterest enemy’ of the agricultural interest, while he and his fellow Conservative candidates were the ‘farmers’ friends’.2Hereford Journal, 14 July 1852. This appeal was sufficient for King to top the poll, ousting Lewis in the process. However, the Liberal George Clive, future MP sniped that King was a nonentity, declaring that he was ‘a gentleman of whom he could say nothing, because he knew nothing’.3Hereford Times, 10 July 1852.

As King does not appear to have made any speeches, his political activity was largely limited to the division lobby. He opposed Villiers’s free trade motion but endorsed Disraeli’s budget when the new parliament met, 26 Nov., 16 Dec. 1852, and his Protestant views were expressed in his votes against the endowment to the Catholic seminary at Maynooth and the admission of Jews to Parliament, 23, 24 Feb. 1853. He resisted the programme of financial measures introduced by the Aberdeen coalition to fund the Crimean War, 9, 15, 22 May 1854, but was absent from the crucial division that ejected the ministry from office, 29 Jan. 1855. He was present, however, to back Disraeli’s censure motion on Palmerston’s prosecution of the war, 25 May 1855. He voted against the abolition of church rates and the ballot as a matter of course.

King again missed the division on Cobden’s Canton motion that defeated Palmerston’s government, 3 Mar. 1857. Although his absence was criticised by some constituents it proved to be an advantage at the ensuing general election, due to the popularity of Palmerston in Herefordshire.4Hereford Times, 14 Mar. 1857. King and his colleagues were also criticised for having done little to promote protectionism, which they had noisily championed during the previous election campaign.5Hereford Times, 21 Mar. 1857. In his nomination speech, King argued that free trade was the law of the land so it was pointless to revisit the issue. He studiously avoided discussing his absence on the Canton division, preferring to stress his local credentials.6Hereford Journal, 1 Apr. 1857.

Re-elected in third place (Herefordshire had three MPs), King opposed the abolition of the property qualification for MPs even though it was supported by Lord Derby, 10 June 1857, but was in the opposition majority that ousted Palmerston over the conspiracy to murder bill, 19 Feb. 1858. Essentially a party loyalist, King supported his government’s 1859 reform bill and was returned unopposed at the subsequent general election. At the nomination he contrasted the Conservatives’ conduct on reform with that of their opponents, ‘men who talked loudly of reform upon the hustings, and whispered it in the clubs, but who always found that the time was very inconvenient to bring in a bill’. Rather than amend the bill in committee, Lord John Russell had cynically drafted a ‘craftily worded resolution’ to defeat the measure to boost his own claims to lead the Liberal party, King complained.7Hereford Journal, 4 May 1859. King continued to vote with the Conservative leadership in the key party divisions of the early 1860s, including Disraeli’s censure motion on Danish policy, 8 July 1864. He opposed the borough and county franchise bills introduced by Liberal backbenchers at this time.

Again returned unopposed at the 1865 general election, King supported the reduction of malt duty, 17 Apr. 1866, a key demand of many of his constituents. He divided in favour of Earl Grosvenor and Lord Dunkellin’s amendments to the Liberal government’s reform bill for a parallel redistribution scheme and a rateable rather than rental franchise, 27 Apr. 1866, 18 June 1866. In the votes on the Conservative government’s ensuing 1867 representation of the people bill, he opposed the enfranchisement of compounders, lodgers and women and increasing the representation of the largest towns at the expense of the smaller boroughs. In this as much else, King was squarely in the mainstream of Conservative parliamentary opinion. He resisted Gladstone’s resolutions on the Irish church, 3 Apr. 1868, and retired at the general election later that year.

King’s 2,000 acre estate was estimated to have an annual rental of £3,043 in the 1870s.8J. Bateman, The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. D. Spring (1971), 252. On his death in 1881, his estate and a personalty of £45,231 passed to his eldest surviving son, William Edward King King (1843-1911).9Burke’s landed gentry (1937), i. 1296; National Probate Calendar, 13 Oct. 1881.