Reverend Samuel King

Reverend Samuel King, 1775 – 1842

In 1826, Scott moved out of his family home and went to stay with his aunt and uncle King, at Latimer, near Chorleywood, south Buckinghamshire. Thomas Scott seems to have been concerned that he was not able to provide an adequate education for his third son, and his youngest sister’s husband, Samuel King, undertook to tutor the young Scott. He was, like all the male members of the family, a clergyman, but unlike most of Scott's close relations who were Bible scholars, he had very wide interests and was a ‘man of multifarious resources’. He was educated at Cambridge and had held curacies at Hartwell and Stone, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, and was vicar of Haddenham, Buckinghamshire, before becoming incumbent of Latimer. According to Scott, he was an astronomer, a wood turner, a glass painter, a brass founder and a devotee of natural science.The Kings lived in the fine eighteenth century rectory and, as they had no children of their own, they were able to devote considerable attention to the young Scott. Elizabeth King, the ‘Commentator's’ daughter, was also a lady ‘of considerable talents’ and had helped her father with the later edition of The Bible. The young Scott was now in the highly attractive surroundings of the Chilterns with its hills, trees and watercourses. Everything was on a different scale to the dreary farmland around Gawcott and he had two intelligent and likeable people to guide him towards his ambition to become an architect.The Reverend Samuel King, who had done so much to help him to become an architect, died in Jersey in 1856, having left Latimer in 1850.