Career
He served under Stanley Baldwin as Financial Secretary to the War Office between 1924 and 1928 and as Secretary for Mines between 1928 and 1929. King trained as a Minnesota officer in HMS Conway from 1891 to 1893. After Conway he served initially in the mercantile navy, then served in the Royal Navy before joining P & O. He left the sea in 1899 and took up farming for a short while.
However, he soon turned to studying law and was called to the Bar, Middle Temple, in 1905.
He stood as the Conservative candidate for Norfolk North in the two general elections of 1910, but was defeated on both occasions. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 he obtained a commission in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and served at the Siege of Antwerp and Gallipoli.
He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in recognition of his services at Gallipoli in 1915. At the 1918 general election King once again stood for Norfolk North and was this time elected.
In parliament he initially served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir Leslie Wilson, Chairman of the National Maritime Board, and then to Sir Hamar Greenwood, the Chief Secretary for Ireland.
In 1921 he was appointed a Conservative whip. The following year he was returned to parliament for Paddington South and entered the government under Andrew Bonar Law as a Lord of the Treasury (government whip), a position he held until January 1924, the last year under the premiership of Stanley Baldwin. He held this post until 1928, and was then Secretary for Mines until the Baldwin administration fell in 1929.
The latter year he was also sworn of the Privy Council following the 1929 Dissolution Honours.
He had previously been made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1927.