The King Family Photographs Collection (PSNCA.H.022)

Biographical/Historical Note

Ella Louisa Rives (b. 1851), daughter of Francis Robert and Matilda Barclay Rives and granddaughter of Virginia Senator William Cabell Rives, married David King, Jr. in 1875. King was recently retired from the China Trade after ammassing a reasonable fortune in the firms of Wetmore, Williams and Co. and Russell and Co. The couple spent winters at their townhouse in Washington, D.C. and on extended European holidays, while late summer and autumn was spent at Kingscote, their residence in Newport. The couple had two children: Maud Gwendolen (known simply as "Gwendolen" to her family and to history), born on October 2, 1876 at Kingscote; and Philip Wheaton Rives, born on June 5, 1878 in Paris. Ella was widowed in 1894 when David King, Jr. died suddenly of peritonitis following a brief bout of appendicitis. After his death she sold the Washington, D.C. townhouse and spent the rest of her life either at Kingscote or abroad in Europe.

Gwendolen's childhood consisted of a home education focused on literature, art, etiquette, French and German, and violin lessons. In addition to this, she went on numerous hikes and nature walks as well as outings to museums. Her education was supplemented by a variety of leisure activities such as horseback riding, golf, tennis, beach outings, and picnics, and as a child she traveled extensively with her parents. She debuted in society in 1896 after a delay due to the death of her father. Five years later, in 1901, she became engaged to Edward Maitland Armstrong.

Edward was the son of David Maitland Armstrong, former diplomat to the Papal States (1869), American Consul in Rome (1869-71), and Consul General in Rome (1871-73). In 1878 David Maitland was appointed Director of American Fine Arts at that year's World's Fair in Paris. During the 1880s he began working in stained glass with Louis C. Tiffany and John La Farge, and eventually formed his own firm Maitland Armstrong and Co. in 1887. The children of David Maitland Armstrong and his wife, Helen Neilson, would continue this artistic legacy. Edward himself became a landscape architect at a firm in New York City.

Gwendolen and Edward were married on September 12, 1901, and after a honeymoon in Europe the couple settled down in the small country town of Babylon on Long Island. They would have three children: David King Maitland (1903), Edward Maitland Jr. (1905), and Gwendolen Ella (1911). Gwendolen would spend much of her life at Kingscote, especially after the sudden death of her husband in 1915. She prevented the building's planned demolition in the mid-twentieth century, and became an active supporter of the Preservation Society. After her death in 1968 the property passed to her daughter Gwendolen Ella Armstrong Rives, who in turn bequeathed it to the Preservation Society upon her own death four years later.

Gwendolen's brother, Philip Wheaton Rives King, graduated from Yale with a Bachelors of Philosophy degree in 1901. After graduating he went to Mexico around 1904 and acquired the El Progresso mine as part of the partnership of Burton and King, but eventually left this venture. In 1906 he married Gertrude Elizabeth Brown; the couple would have no children. Philip lived in New York and Newport, RI until he relocated to Paris for the remainder of his life in 1916. Between December 1917 and October 1919 he served with the YMCA as Directeur des Foyers du Soldat (Director of "Soldiers' Homes," a welfare organization for soldiers on leave) with the French military auxiliary service. Due to his involvement with the army, he was present at the defense of Villers-Cotterets in May and June of 1918. Philip contracted typhoid fever and died on December 31, 1922 in Paris, and was buried there.