Joseph King (31 March 1860 – 25 August 1943), was a British Liberal Party politician who later joined the Labour Party.

He was the eldest son of Joseph King of Liverpool and his wife Phoebe (née Powell). He was educated at Uppingham School, Trinity College, Oxford, (where he was awarded a BA in 1883 and an MA in 1886)^[1] Airedale College, Bradford, University of Giessen and University, Berlin. He married, in 1887, Maude Egerton. They had one daughter.^[2] He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1889.^[3] Maude died in 1927. He married for a second time in 1928, to Helena G. Martins.^[4]

King was Liberal candidate for the New Forest Division of Hampshire at the 1892 General Election, coming second.^[5]

He did not contest the 1895 and 1900 General Elections. In 1904 he contested the 1904 Isle of Thanet by-election as a Liberal Party candidate, coming second. At the 1906 General Election he was Liberal candidate again at Thanet, coming second.

At the January 1910 General Election, King was elected Liberal MP for North Somerset , holding a seat for the party that was gained from the Conservatives in 1906. He was re-elected in December 1910.

Following the outbreak of World War I, King joined the Union of Democratic Control, a group of Liberal and Labour politicians who were critical of the secret diplomacy that they blamed for the conflict. He argued that Britain was obliged to protest at the German invasion of Belgium but not to go to Belgium's aid. He was a pacifist and opposed military conscription.^[7] His constituency was abolished as part of the 1918 boundary changes.

King played a key role in the Peasant Arts movement in Haslemere, Surrey. A number of the items produced are in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

• The School Manager (1903)
• Electoral Reform: An Inquiry into our System of Parliamentary Representation, T. Fisher Unwin (1908)
• Chapter 1. Houses, The Management of Private Affairs, King, Bigham, Gwyer, Cannan, Bridge & Latter, Clarendon Press (1908)
• Filius Nullius (Nobody's Child) (1913) A pamphlet
• The Russian Revolution: The First Year, Pamphlet, Union of Democratic Control (1918)
• Soviets and Soviet Government, How it Arose in Russia, How it Works There, How it has been Imitated Elsewhere, and the Chances of Success for Soviets in Other Countries, Pamphlet (1919)
• Three bloody men: Mannerheim, "the Butcher" Denikin, the K.C.B., Koltchak, "the Bloody One." (1919)
• Russia and her allies: An account of British policy towards Russia, and of the military intervention of the allies, against the Soviet government, with…now ranged against it, Pamphlet (1919)
• The collapse of Germany (1923)
• Peasant Arts (1927)
• The German revolution, its meaning and menace, Williams and Norgate (1933)
• Invasion today, Watts & Co. (1941)

British Pathe has newsreel footage of King standing outside the Ilford election count.

• Election At Ilford 1920 - British Pathé
• The Russian Revolution: The First Year - photo-reproduction of the pamphlet
• Three bloody men - photo-reproduction of the pamphlet

• MacDonald, George (1932). Reminiscenes of a Specialist. Allen & Unwin.
• Swanton, E. W. (1947). "10". A Country Museum. Haslemere: Educational Museum Haslemere.
• Trotter (2003). The Hilltop Writers. The Book Guild.
• Watercolours by Henry George Hine and other artists of the Hine family. London: Christie’s. 1988.