Role American Politician | Preceded by Vacant Name William King Succeeded by Vacant Succeeded by Abe Murdock Children David S. King | |
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Spouse Vera Sjodahl (m. 1913), Ann Lyman (m. 1889) Similar People Heber J Grant, George Q Cannon, John Taylor, George Albert Smith, Wilford Woodruff | ||
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William Henry King (June 3, 1863 – November 27, 1949) was an American lawyer, politician, and jurist from Salt Lake City, Utah. As a Democrat, King represented Utah in the United States Senate from 1917 until 1941.
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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 from the law department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He later joined the Utah bar and practiced law. He held other territorial offices and was appointed as an associate justice of the Utah Supreme Court, seving between 1894 and 1896.
After Utah became a state in 1896, King was elected to the United States House of Representatives and served in the 55th Congress from March 4, 1897 to March 3, 1899. He was not nominated for a second term, but when his replacement, B. H. Roberts, was denied his seat because he was a polygamist, King was elected to complete Roberts' term. He served from April 2, 1900 to March 3, 1901. He ran for the same position in 1900 and again in 1902, but lost both times.
King was elected to the United States Senate four times, serving 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 from 1940-41 during the 76th Congress.
King remained in Washington, D.C., where he practiced law until April 1947. He 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. His maternal first cousin Culbert Olson was a California governor.
King was a direct descendant of Edmund Rice, his family's English immigrant ancestor to Massachusetts Bay Colony, as follows: