George King (21 December 1814 – 22 June 1894), was a merchant, pastoralist and politician in colonial Australia, a member of the

New South Wales Legislative Assembly The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament Ho ...

1869 to 1872 and of the

Queensland Legislative Council The Queensland Legislative Council was the upper house of the parliament in the Australian state of Queensland. It was a fully nominated body which first took office on 1 May 1860. It was abolished by the Constitution Amendment Act 1921, which to ...

1882 to 1890. King was born in Riga, Russia (now in Latvia), his father, Robert King, was a partner in the Baltic firm of Balfour & Co., of Riga. George received his education and mercantile training in London and in Europe. King emigrated to Australia in July 1839, and settled in Sydney, where he was a director of the Australian Trust Company, of the

Commercial Banking Company of Sydney The Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Limited, also known as the CBC, or CBC Bank, was a bank based in Sydney, Australia. It was established in 1834, and in 1982 merged with the National Bank of Australasia to form National Australia Bank. Hi ...

, and of the London Chartered Bank of Australia. He was for fifteen years chairman of the

Australian Mutual Provident Society AMP is a financial services company in Australia and New Zealand providing superannuation and investment products, financial advice, and banking products (through AMP Banking) including home loans and savings accounts. Its headquarters is in Syd ...

, for some time a member of the Board of Advice of the Australian Agricultural Company, and has acted as a director of the Clarence and Richmond River Steam Navigation Company, and Chairman of the Melbourne Marine Insurance Company. King was elected a member of the

for East Sydney on 3 December 1869, and sat until 3 February 1872. King visited England in 1874, but returned and settled permanently in

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

in the following year, being created a Knight of the Crown of Italy on his retirement from the Sydney consulship for Italy. In 1880 Mr. King accepted the Executive Commissionership for Queensland at the Melbourne International Exhibition, and represented the colony on the steel rails inquiry held in London in 1881. King was nominated to the

on 26 January 1882, a position he held until resigning on 19 March 1890. Survived by his wife, seven sons and three daughters, King died in

Toowoomba, Queensland Toowoomba ( , nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar') is a city in the Toowoomba Region of the Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. It is west of Queensland's capital city Brisbane by road. The urban population of Toowoomba as of the 2021 C ...

, on 22 June 1894 and was buried in Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery.Cemeteries Online
— Toowoomba Regional Council. Retrieved 20 February 2015. King's eldest son

Robert John King Robert John King (1839 – 25 July 1899) was an Australian politician. He was born in Sydney to merchant George King and Jane Creighton. He was a businessman before entering politics, succeeding his father at the family firm. On 19 December ...

represented the Electoral district of Paddington in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1889 to 1891.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:King, George 1814 births 1894 deaths Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Members of the Queensland Legislative Council Burials in Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery 19th-century Australian politicians