Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/79

King  with Miss Glyn, King remained there after her departure, and on 18 Nov. played Colonna in 'Evadne.' On 3 Dec. he was seen as John Mildmay in 'Still Waters run deep,' and as Quasimodo in 'Esmeralda.' On 6 July 1857 he made his first appearance in Manchester, in association with Miss Marriott and Robert Roxby [q. v.] Returning to Birmingham on 26 Sept. as Hamlet, he appeared there on the 27th as Mephistopheles in Boucicault's version of 'Faust and Marguerite,' which was played for forty-eight nights at a profit of 2,000l.

During 1859 King fulfilled several engagements at the Queen's Theatre, Dublin. On 16 April he played there Serjeant Austerlitz in 'Theresa's Vow,' to the Theresa of his daughter Bessie. On 26 July he was seen as Martin Heywood in the 'Rent Day,' and on 14 Dec. as Estevan in the 'Broken Sword.' On 30 April 1860 he began an important engagement at the City of London Theatre as Hamlet, returning thither in December. On 24 Sept. intervening he returned to the Queen's at Dublin as Ruthven in the 'Vampire.'

From 1861 to 1868 King's record was one of splendid strolling. On 15 March 1869 he was given a trial engagement at Drury Lane by F. C. Chatterton, opening there as Richelieu to the Julie de Mortemar of his daughter Bessie, who then made her London début. He was favourably received, and subsequently played Hamlet, Julian St. Pierre, and William in 'Black-eyed Susan,' besides alternating Othello and Iago with Charles Dillon. At the same house on 24 Sept. 1870 King was the original Varney in the 'Amy Robsart' of Andrew Halliday. In the Easter of 1871 his services were transferred to the Adelphi at a salary of 30l. per week. There he originated the role of Quasimodo in Andrew Halliday's version of 'Notre Dame,' which ran uninterruptedly to November, and was revived at Christmas.

In June 1873 King fulfilled an engagement at the Marylebone, and on 11 Sept. made his American debut at the Lyceum Theatre, New York, as Quasimodo. The play did not repeat its Adelphi success, although it was performed for six weeks. On 27 Oct. King played Othello, after which the Lyceum closed abruptly. It reopened in November with Italian opera, and on the 27th 'Notre Dame' was revived for four nights. Afterwards King made a successful tour of Canada, exclusively in Shakespearean plays, and returned to the Lyceum Theatre, New York, on 3 March 1874.

From 1878 to 1880 King was lessee of the Worcester theatre, an unprofitable speculation. In 1883 he made a short provincial tour under Mr. J. Pitt Hardacre's management, but he had outlived his popularity and the vogue of his school. Later appearances were infrequent, but in July 1890 he performed for six nights to good houses at the Queen's Theatre, Manchester, and was much admired as Ingomar, one of his most characteristic impersonations. Retiring finally to King's Heath, he died there on 21 Oct. 1893, and was buried at Claines, near Worcester. He had a son and two daughters, all of whom took to the stage. His elder daughter, Miss Bessie King, survives him.

A sound tragedian of the second order, T. C. King was the last exponent of a school which subordinated intelligence to precept and tradition. Physically he was well equipped, having a tall and shapely figure, with dark expressive features and well-set eyes; and his rich bass voice was flexible and resonant. A temperate graceful actor, he had more individuality and fewer vices of style than most conventional tragedians. In London he never established his hold, but in one or two large provincial centres, notably Dublin and Birmingham, his following was large and affectionate.

[Many errors of detail common to all the biographical accounts of T. C. King are here corrected, thanks to authentic information kindly placed at the writer's disposal by the actor's nephew, Mr. Henry King of St. Leonards-on-Sea. Data have also been derived from Dibdin's Annals of the Edinburgh Stage; Pascoe's Dramatic List; Levey and O'Rorke's Annals of the Theatre Royal, Dublin; Cole's Life of Charles Kean; Michael Williams's London Theatres, Past and Present; Birmingham Faces and Places, vol. v. No. 12; local playbills in the Birmingham Free Library; Freeman's Journal.]  KINGSFORD, WILLIAM (1819–1898), historian of Canada, born on 23 Dec. 1819 in the parish of St. Lawrence Jewry, London, was the son of William and Elizabeth Kingsford of Lad Lane. Educated at Wanostrocht's well-known school in Camberwell [see Wanostrocht, Nicholas ], he was articled at an early age to an architect, but, finding the office uncongenial, enlisted in the 1st dragoon guards in his seventeenth year. He went with his regiment to Canada in 1837, became sergeant, and in 1840, through the influence of his friends at home, obtained his discharge, much to the regret of the colonel, Sir George Cathcart [q.v.], who offered to procure a commission for him. On the death of that officer in the Crimea, 