John King

John King was a Bristol merchant trading in African palm oil and ivory. He married Sarah Poole, sister of Thomas Poole of Nether Stowey, on 1 November 1796 (Sandford, Thomas Poole, vol. 1, 178). Sandford writes that King ‘was certainly no democrat’, but whether Sarah Poole maintained similar political ideals as did her brother Tom and his mother is uncertain. Coleridge met the Kings during his stay in Bristol in 1795-96. In a letter to Poole dated 11 December 1796, he describes having dinner at the Kings a month after their wedding (Griggs, Collected Letters, vol. 1, 266).  In 1805 Thomas Clarkson, through the mediation of Poole, sought John King’s assistance in his efforts to gain passage of the bill to end the slave trade throughout the British empire, hoping King could provide evidence of cruelty to slaves on board the ships during the Middle Passage to America (Sandford, Thomas Poole, vol. 2, 164-65).  Oddly enough, Sandford makes no mention of Sarah King’s death in 1837. See also Matthews New Bristol Directory for 1794 (Bristol: William Matthews, 1794), 51.