William H. King

William Henry King (June 3, 1863 – November 27, 1949) was an American lawyer, politician, and jurist from Salt Lake City, Utah. A Democrat, he represented Utah in the United States Senate from 1917 until 1941.

Life

King was born in Fillmore, Utah Territory in 1863. He attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He served as a missionary of the LDS Church in Great Britain from 1880 to 1883.

After holding local offices and serving two terms in the territorial legislature, he graduated form the law department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, joined the Utah bar and practiced law. He held other territorial offices and then served as an associate justice of the Utah Supreme Court between 1894 and 1896. After Utah became a state in 1896, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives and served in the 55th Congress from March 4, 1897 to March 4, 1899. He was not nominated for a second term, but when his replacement, Brigham H. Roberts was denied his seat because he was a polygamist, King was elected to complete Roberts' term and served from April 2, 1900 and March 4, 1901. He ran for the same position in 1900 and again in 1902, but lost both times.

King was elected to the Senate four times and served between March 4, 1917 and January 3, 1941. He failed to win renomination in 1940. In 1918 and 1919, he served on the Overman Committee, which investigated seditious pro-German activity during World War I and Bolshevik-inspired anti-Americanism in the months following the war's end. He served as the President pro tempore of the Senate in 1939-41 during the Seventy-sixth Congress.

He practiced law in Washington, D.C. until April 1947. He then returned to Utah and died there in 1949. He was buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery. His son, David S. King, also served in Congress.

King was a direct descendant of Edmund Rice, an English immigrant to Massachusetts Bay Colony, as follows:^[1]

• William H. King, son of

• William King (1834 – 1892), son of
• Thomas Rice King (1813 – 1879),^[2] son of

• Thomas King (1770 – 1845), son of
• William King (1724 – 1793), son of

• Ezra Rice King (1697 – 1746), son of
• Samuel Rice King (1667 – 1713), son of
• Samuel Rice (1634 – 1684), son of

• Edmund Rice (1594 – 1663)

References

External links

• William H. King at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress