William Hampton King (October 1, 1909 – May 8, 1991) was an American auditor who served as

State Auditor State auditors (also known as state comptrollers, state controllers, state examiners, or inspectors general) are fiscal officers lodged in the executive or legislative branches of U.S. state governments who serve as external auditors, financial ...

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

from 1964 to 1984.

Early life

W. Hampton King was born on October 1, 1909 in

Heidelberg, Mississippi Heidelberg is a town in Jasper County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 718 at the 2010 census, down from 840 at the 2000 census. Geography Heidelberg is located in southeastern Jasper County at (31.891249, -88.990952). The town l ...

. He attended local public schools and Hinds Junior College before earning a bachelor's degree at the University of Mississippi and a graduate degree from the Nashville YMCA Night Law School. He became a

certified public accountant Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the title of qualified accountants in numerous countries in the English-speaking world. It is generally equivalent to the title of chartered accountant in other English-speaking countries. In the United Sta ...

in 1955. He married Douglas Banks in July 1938 and had two daughters with her. After living in Tennessee and North Carolina, he returned to Mississippi in 1947, moving to

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. In 1956 he moved to

Jackson Jackson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Q ...

Career

King worked variously as a schoolteacher, social worker, concrete inspector, and cannery manager before being hired by the Mississippi State Department of Audit in 1953 as a field

auditor An auditor is a person or a firm appointed by a company to execute an audit.Practical Auditing, Kul Narsingh Shrestha, 2012, Nabin Prakashan, Nepal To act as an auditor, a person should be certified by the regulatory authority of accounting and au ...

. In 1956 he was made an assistant director before being promoted to director six years later. King ran for the office of

in 1963, defeating Dewey Mark Norton in the Democratic primary. He was sworn-in in January 1964, becoming the first certified public accountant to hold the office. He was reelected to the office four times, serving until 1984. He reportedly favored Mason Shelby as his successor, but Shelby was defeated in the 1983 Democratic primary by

Ray Mabus Raymond Edwin Mabus Jr. (; born October 11, 1948) is an American politician and lawyer. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Navy from 2009 to 2017. Mabus previously served as the State Auditor ...

. At the time he left the auditorship, the office was delinquent for 581

fiscal year A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many ...

s worth of audits.

Later life

King died from heart failure on May 8, 1991. The Mississippi Society of Certified Accountants created the Hamp King Award—named in honor of the auditor—to recognize talented accounting students.

References

Works cited

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:King, Hamp State Auditors of Mississippi 1909 births 1991 deaths 20th-century American politicians Mississippi Democrats University of Mississippi alumni People from Jasper County, Mississippi