Philip King (Australian politician)
Philip Gidley King was a pastoralist and politician in New South Wales, Australia. He was a Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council.Early life
Philip Gidley King was born on 31 October 1817 at Parramatta to Philip Parker King and Harriett Lethbridge; his grandfather, Philip Gidley King, was Governor of New South Wales from 1800 to 1806. He was educated at Deptford in England from 1824 to 1825, and at the age of nine sailed with his father on the ship Adventure surveying the coast of South America.
In December 1831 he sailed as midshipman on HMS Beagle where he befriended Charles Darwin who he remained in contact with over the course of his lifetime. In January 1836 he returned to Parramatta, and subsequently he worked on pastoral stations on the Murrumbidgee River and around Port Phillip. In 1842 he took charge of horse and cattle studs at Stroud for the Australian Agricultural Company. He married Elizabeth Macarthur in 1843; they had four children. From 1854 King managed a property near Tamworth.Politics
King was the inaugural mayor of the town of Tamworth from 1876 to 1880. In 1880 he was appointed by Sir Henry Parkes, the Premier, to the New South Wales Legislative Council, where he was generally associated with the Free Trade Party.Later life
In 1892, at the request of the publisher John Murray, King was asked for recollections as a possible supplement to the new illustrated edition of Darwin's voyage of the Beagle. These reminiscences are now held at the State Library of New South Wales along with an unpublished autobiography written in 1894. King died at Double Bay in Sydney on the 5 August 1904.
