James King was born in Paisley in 1776. His paternal ancestors, for a
course of centuries, were farmers in the vicinity of Gleniffer Braes.
Having been only one year at school, he was, at the age of eight,
required to assist his father in his trade of muslin-weaving. Joining a
circulating library, he soon acquired an acquaintance with books; he
early wrote verses, and became the intimate associate of Tannahill, who
has honourably mentioned him in one of his poetical epistles. In his
fifteenth year he enlisted in a fencible regiment, which was afterwards
stationed at Inverness. On its being disembodied in 1798, he returned to
the loom at Paisley, where he continued till 1803, when he became a
recruit in the Renfrewshire county militia. He accompanied this regiment
to Margate, Deal, Dover, Portsmouth, and London, and subsequently to
Leith, the French prisoners' depôt at Penicuick, and the Castle of
Edinburgh. At Edinburgh his poetical talents recommended him to some
attention from Sir Walter Scott, the Ettrick Shepherd, and several
others of the poets of the capital.
Accused of exciting disaffection, and promoting an attempt made by a
portion of his comrades to resist lawful authority while the regiment
was stationed at Perth, King, though wholly innocent of the charge,
fearing the vengeance of the adjutant, who was hostile to him, contrived
to effect his escape. By a circuitous route, so as to elude the
vigilance of parties sent to apprehend him, he reached the district of
Galloway, where he obtained employment as a shepherd and agricultural
labourer. He subsequently wrought as a weaver at Crieff till 1815, when,
on his regiment being disembodied, he was honourably acquitted from the
charge preferred against him, and granted his discharge. He now settled
as a muslin-weaver, first at Glasgow, and afterwards at Paisley and
Charleston. He died at Charleston, near Paisley, on the 27th September
1849, in his seventy-third year.
Of vigorous intellect, lively fancy, and a keen appreciation of the
humorous, King was much esteemed among persons of a rank superior to his
own. His mind was of a fine devotional cast, and his poetical
compositions are distinguished by earnestness of expression and
sentiment.