Edward King

Edward King (29 December 18298 March 1910) was a British Anglican bishop and academic. From 1885 to 1910, he served as Bishop of Lincoln in the Church of England. Before his consecration to the episcopate, he was Principal of Cuddesdon College (1863–1873), an Anglo-Catholic theological college, and then Regius Professor of Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford (1873–1885). Life King was the second son of Walker King, Archdeacon of Rochester and rector of Stone, Kent, and grandson of Walker King, Bishop of Rochester; his nephew was Robert King, a priest and canon who played football for England in 1882. His mother, Anne, was the daughter of William Heberden the Younger (1767–1845), Physician in Ordinary to George III. King graduated from Oriel College, Oxford. He was ordained in 1854 and four years later became chaplain and lecturer at Cuddesdon Theological College (now Ripon College Cuddesdon). He was principal at Cuddesdon from 1863 to 1873, when the prime minister, William Ewart Gladstone, appointed him Regius Professor of Pastoral Theology at Oxford and canon of Christ Church. Prominent Anglo-Catholic King became the principal founder of the leading Anglo-Catholic theological college in the Church of England, St Stephen's House, Oxford, now a Permanent Private Hall of the University of Oxford. To the world outside, King was known at this time as an Anglo-Catholic and one of Edward Pusey's most intimate friends (even serving as a pall-bearer at his funeral in 1882), but in Oxford, and especially among the younger men, he exercised influence by his charm and sincerity. King had also been devoted to his mother, who assisted him at Cuddesdon and Oxford by keeping his house and entertaining guests as his position required. King never married and his mother died in 1883.