William King (geologist)

William King (1809 – 1886), an Anglo-Irish geologist at Queen's College Galway, was the first (in 1864) to propose that the bones found in Neanderthal, Germany in 1856 were not of human origin, but of a distinct species: Homo neanderthalensis. He proposed the name of this new species at a meeting of the British Association in 1863, with the written version published in 1864. He is commonly thought to have been a professor of anatomy, but never taught the subject. He was part of a 2012 EOS project.

King's grandson, also called William King, is a globe-circumnavigating yachtsman and was a Royal Navy officer in World War II.