One of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising in Enniscorthy, Richard Francis King was born in 1890 in Wandsworth, London. The 1911 census recorded him as a 20-year old clerk living at Brownswood, Enniscorthy. He was a founder member of the ‘Irish Brigade’ in the town in 1913 and joined the Enniscorthy Company of the Irish Volunteers in late 1913. Robert Brennan referred to him as a staff officer during Easter Week 1916 (WS 125). King was one of the six signatories of the letter to Colonel G. A. French, in which the Volunteers sought permission for two of the rebel officers to visit Pearse in Dublin. Following the surrender, he served time in Dartmoor prison along with Harry Boland and de Valera, and in Lewes and Maidstone prisons. He served for a number of years as a Fishery Inspector, and died at his home in Tinnahask, Arklow on 21 June 1938.
