KINGSLEY, MARY HENRIETTA (1862-1900)

This article appears in Volume V15, Page 819 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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KINGSLEY, MARY HENRIETTA (1862-1900) , English traveller, ethnologist and author, daughter of George Henry Kingsley (1827-1892), was born in Islington, London, on the 13th of October 1862. Her father, though less widely known than his brothers, Charles and Henry (see above), was a man of versatile abilities, with a passion for travelling which he managed to indulge -in combination with his practice as a

doctor

DOCTOR (Lat. for " teacher ")

. He wrote one popular book of travel, South Sea Bubbles, by the Earl and the

Doctor

DOCTOR (Lat. for " teacher ")

(1872), in collaboration with the 13th earl of Pembroke. Mary Kingsley's reading in history, poetry and philosophy was wide if desultory, but she was most attracted to natural history. Her family moved to

Cambridge

in 1886, where she studied the science of sociology. The loss of both parents in 1892 left her free to pursue her own course, and she resolved to study native religion and law in West Africa with a view to completing a book which her father had left unfinished. With her study of " raw fetish " she combined that of a scientific collector of fresh-water fishes. She started for the West Coast in August 1893; and at Kabinda, at Old Calabar, Fernando Po and on the Lower Congo she pursued her investigations, returning to England in June 1894. She gained sufficient knowledge of the native customs to contribute an introduction to Mr R. E. Dennett's Notes on the Folk Lore of the Fjort (1898). Miss Kingsley made careful preparations for a second visit to the same coast; and in December 1894, provided by the British Museum authorities with a collector's equipment, she proceeded via Old Calabar to French Congo, and ascended the Ogowe River. From this point her journey, in part across country hitherto untrodden by Europeans, was a long series of adventures and hairbreadth escapes, at one time from the dangers of land and water, at another from the cannibal Fang. Returning to the coast Miss Kingsley went to Corisco and to the German colony of Cameroon, where she made the ascent of the Great Cameroon (13,760 ft.) from a direction until then unattempted. She returned to England in October 1895. The story of her adventures and her investigations in fetish is vividly told in her Travels in West Africa (1897). The book aroused wide

interest

INTEREST

, and she lectured to scientific, gatherings on the fauna, flora and folk-lore of West Africa, and to commercial audiences on the trade of that region and its possible developments, always with a protest against the lack of detailed knowledge characteristic of modern dealings with new fields of trade. In both cases she spoke with authority, for she had brought back a considerable number of new specimens of fishes and plants, and had herself traded in rubber and oil in the districts through which she passed. But her chief concern was for the development of the negro on African, not European, lines and for the government of the British possessions on the West Coast by methods which left the native " a free unsmashed mannot a whitewashed slave or an enemy." With undaunted energy Miss Kingsley made preparations for a third journey to the West Coast, but the Anglo-Boer War changed her plans, and she
decided to go first to South Africa to nurse fever cases. She died of enteric fever at Simon's Town, where she was engaged in tending Boer prisoners, on the 3rd of June 'goo. Miss Kingsley's works, besides her Travels, include West African Studies, The Story of West Africa, a memoir of her father prefixed to his Notes on Sport and Travel (1899), and many contributions to the study of West African law and folk-lore. To continue the investigation of the subjects Miss Kingsley had made her own " The African Society " was founded in 1901.
Valuable biographical information from the pen of Mr George A. Macmillan is prefixed to a second edition (1901) of the Studies.
KING'S LYNN (LYNN or LYNN REGIS), a market town, sea-port and municipal and parliamentary borough of Norfolk, England, on the estuary of the Great Ouse near its outflow into the Wash. Pop. (1901), 20,288. It is 97 m. N. by E. from London by the Great Eastern railway, and is also served by the Midland and Great Northern joint line. On the land side the town was formerly defended by a fosse, and there are still considerable remains of the old

wall

, including the handsome South Gate of the 15th century. Several by-channels of the river, passing through the town, are known as fleets, recalling the similar flethe of Hamburg. The Public Walks forms a pleasant promenade parallel to the

wall

, and in the centre of it stands a picturesque octagonal Chapel of the Red Mount, exhibiting ornate Perpendicular work, and once frequented by pilgrims. The church of St Margaret, formerly the priory church, is a fine building with two towers at the west end, one of which was formerly surmounted by a spire, blown down in 1741. Norman or transitional work appears in the base of both towers, of which the southern also shows Early English and Decorated work, while the northern is chiefly Perpendicular. There is a fine Perpendicular east window of circular form. The church possesses two of the finest monumental brasses in existence, dated respectively 1349 and 1364. St Nicholas chapel, at the north end of the town, is also of rich Perpendicular workmanship, with a tower of earlier date. All Saints' church in South Lynn is a beautiful Decorated cruciform structure. Of a Franciscan friary there remains the Perpendicular Grey Friars' Steeple, and the doorway remains of a priests' college founded in 1502. At the grammar school, founded in the reign of Henry VIII., but occupying modern buildings, Eugene Aram was usher. Among the other public buildings are the guildhall, with Renaissance front, the corn exchange, the picturesque custom-house of the 17th century, the athenaeum (including a museum,

hall

and other departments), the Stanley Library and the municipal buildings. The fisheries of the town are important, including extensive mussel-fisheries under the jurisdiction of the

corporation

CORPORATION (from Lat. corporare, to form into a body, corpus, corporis)

, and there are also breweries, corn-mills, iron and brass foundries, agricultural implement manufactories, ship-building yards, rope and sail works. Lynn Harbour has an area of 30 acres and an average depth at low tide of 10 ft. There is also good anchorage in the roads leading from the Wash to the docks. There are two docks of 64 and to acres area respectively. A considerable traffic is carried on by barges on the Ouse. The municipal and parliamentary boroughs of Lynn are co-extensive; the parliamentary borough returns one member. The town is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 3061 acres.
As Lynn (Lun, Lenne, Bishop's Lynn) owes its origin to the trade which its early settlers carried by the Ouse and its tributaries its history dates from the period of settled occupation by the Saxons. It belonged to the bishops of Thetford before the Conquest and remained with the see when it was translated to Norwich. Herbert de Losinga (c. 10541119) granted its jurisdiction to the cathedral of Norwich but this right was resumed by a later bishop, John de Gray, who in 1204 had obtained from John a charter establishing Lynn as a free borough. A fuller grant in 1206 gave the burgesses a gild merchant, the husting court to be held once a week only, and general liberties according to the customs of Oxford, saving the rights of the bishop and the earl of Arundel, whose ancestor William D'Albini had received from William II. the moiety of the tolbooth.
Among numerous later charters one of 1268 confirmed the privilege granted to the burgesses by the bishop of choosing a mayor; another of 1416 re-established his election by the aldermen alone. Henry VIII. granted Lynn two charters, the first (1524) incorporating it under mayor and aldermen; the second (1537) changing its name to King's Lynn and transferring to the

corporation

CORPORATION (from Lat. corporare, to form into a body, corpus, corporis)

all the rights hitherto enjoyed by the bishop. Edward VI. added the possessions of the gild of the Trinity, or gild merchant, and St George's gild, while Queen Mary annexed South Lynn. Admiralty rights were granted by James I. Lynn, which had declat ed for the Crown in 1643, surrendered its privileges to Charles II. in 1684, but recovered its charter on the eve of the Revolution. A fair held on the festival of St Margaret (July 20) was included in the grant to the monks of Norwich about IToo. Three charters of John granting the bishop fairs on the feasts of St Nicholas, St Ursula and St Margaret are extant, and another of Edward I., changing the last to the feast of St Peter ad Vincula (Aug. I). A local act was passed in 15581559 for keeping a mart or fair once a year. In the eighteenth century besides the pleasure fair, still held in February, there was another in October, now abolished. A royal charter of 1524 established the cattle, corn and general provisions market, still held every Tuesday and Saturday. Lynn has ranked high among English seaports from early times.
See E. M. Beloe, Our Borough (1899); H. Harrod, Report on Deeds, &'c.; of King's Lynn (1874) ; Victoria County History: Norfolk.
KING'S MOUNTAIN, a mountainous

ridge

in Gaston county, North Carolina and

York

county, South Carolina, U.S.A. It is an outlier of the Blue

Ridge

running parallel with it, i.e. N.E. and S.W., but in contrast with the other mountains of the Blue Ridge, King's Mountain has a crest marked with

sharp

and irregular notches. Its highest point and great escarpment are in North Carolina. About 12 m. S. of the line between the two states, where the ridge is about 6o ft. above the surrounding country and very narrow at the top, the battle of King's Mountain was fought on the 7th of October 178o between a force of about loo Provincial Rangers and about r000 Loyalist militia under Major Patrick Ferguson (1744-1780), and an American force of about 900 backwoodsmen under Colonels William Campbell (1745-1781), Benjamin Cleveland (17382806) ,Isaac Shelby, John Sevier and James Williams (17401780), in which the Americans were victorious. The British loss is stated as 119 killed (including the commander), 123 wounded, and 664 prisoners; the American loss was 28 killed (including Colonel Williams) and 62 wounded. The victory largely contributed to the success of General Nathanael

Greene

's campaign against Lord Cornwallis. There has been some dispute as to the exact site of the engagement, but the weight of evidence is in favour of the position mentioned above, on the South Carolina side of the line. A monument erected in 1815 was replaced in 1880 by a much larger one, and a monument for which Congress appropriated $30,000 in 1906, was completed in 1909.
See L. C. Draper, King's Mountain and its Heroes (Cincinnati, 1881); and Edward McCrady, South Carolina in the Revolution 17751780 (New

York

, 1901).

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