Family Background and Childhood
William Donald Aelian King was born to William Albert de Courcy King and Georgina Marie MacKenzie in 1910. King's grandfather, William King, was Chair of Mineralogy and Geology at Queen’s College, Galway. He was appointed when the College first opened in 1849. Grandfather King was the first to argue that neanderthals were a species separate from modern humans.
King's father, William Albert de Courcy King, was born in 1875. He married Georgina Marie, daughter of a "Mr. D. F. MacKenzie, of Collingwood Grange, Camberley, Surrey" in June 1908. De Courcy King attended Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and then the School of Military Engineering, Chatham. He received his commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in 1894. Prior to World War I, his postings included Saint Lucia in the 1890s, where the Engineers constructed gun emplacements and fortified coal stations, and South Africa, where the Engineers built blockhouses (designed by Major S. R. Rice, RE) during the Anglo Boer War. De Courcy King was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1916 while a major. During the First World War Lieutenant-Colonel De Courcy King served with the 36th (Ulster) Division in Belgium.
De Courcy King was killed on 27 May 1917 at the age of 42, and lies buried at Dranoutre Military Cemetery in Belgium. In April the Engineers had helped prepare for the Battle of Arras, primarily tunnelling and mining of enemy positions.
As a result of his father's death, Bill King was brought up by his mother and grandmother. His MacKenzie grandmother was a formidable woman who learned to ski at the age of 75 and still sailed in her eighties.
Read more about this topic: Bill King (Royal Navy Officer)
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