sketcher, sailor and station manager, was born at Parramatta, New South Wales, on 31 October 1817, son of Phillip Parker King and Harriet, née Lethbridge. He returned to England with his father in 1823 then sailed with him in the Adventure to survey the southern coast of South America in 1826 30. In 1831 P.G. King joined the Beagle as a midshipman and again travelled to South America before leaving the ship at Sydney in 1836. On board he formed a life-long friendship with Charles Darwin. Arriving at Sydney, King made his way to the Bridge Street studio of another former ship-mate, Conrad Martens , with whom his father had left directions for reaching the family property, Dunheved at St Mary’s, between Parramatta and Penrith. There King was employed transcribing his father’s notes made on the Adventure voyage and preparing them for publication. He also made tours around the countryside; four watercolours dated 1837 show Views in the Cavan Caves near Yass (DG).
After fulfilling the role of amanuensis, King tried a 'squatting life’ which he later described as 'one of great privations’. He also did some surveying work before his father found him a job with the Australian Agricultural Company at Stroud in 1842. Ten years later he became manager of a newly formed offshoot of the company in which the family had a major interest, the Peel River Land and Mineral Company, with headquarters at Goonoo Goonoo, near Tamworth. He remained there until 1881. Then his son took over as manager while King served as an appointed member of the Legislative Council of the New South Wales Parliament.
Engravings after drawings made by King while the Beagle was in the Galapagos Islands appeared in the second volume of the Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty’s Ships Adventure and Beagle (London 1839). Original sketches and watercolours are in the King family sketchbooks and papers (DG; ML), although many are unsigned and difficult to attribute. Signed works include the ink and wash drawing Williamstown from Hobson’s Bay (ML), the watercolour (1847, p.c.), and a pen, ink and wash portrait of Captain FitzRoy of the Beagle (ML) made when FitzRoy revisited Sydney in 1838. Watercolours painted on the Beagle voyage (ML) include a drawing of a butterfly (1834) and studies of fish (1833, 1834). In 1890 at the behest of the London publisher Hallam Murray, King reworked 'old drawings and recollections’ of the Beagle expedition for an illustrated edition of Darwin’s Naturalist’s Voyage . His sketches are usually rather crude and he was aware of his limitations, stating that his father 'used to encourage me to draw but [I] never made much progress’.
King had married his cousin Elizabeth, daughter of Hannibal and Anna Maria Macarthur, in St John’s, Parramatta in 1843; they had four children. He died in Sydney on 5 August 1904.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
