Leonie King pays artistic homage to father’s rich history

When English born Commander Bill King settled in Oranmore in 1949 following his marriage to Anglo-Irish woman Anita Leslie, whom he had met during World War II, he never knew of his own family connections with the county.

Bill’s great-grandfather, William King, (1809-1886) had been a professor at UCG in the 1860s and was the scientist who classified Neanderthal Man, the first extinct human species to be classified. Professor King died in Galway and was buried in Bohermore Cemetery.

But in 1949, his great-grandson didn’t know that. Bill had been a seven-year-old child when his own father, also William, was killed in 1917 during the Great War. As a result, he knew little about the history of his paternal family.

Some of it came to light in subsequent decades, but it really developed a life of its own after his death in September 2012, when his daughter Leonie, discovered a photo in the bottom of his drawer and it started her on a quest which has resulted in an exhibition at this year’s Galway International Arts Festival.

Inextricably Linked is Leonie’s way of telling the story of her father’s family and it is beautifully done.

“When he died I wanted to do an exhibition on him, but it was too poignant, so I went backward in time,” she says. “Maybe I needed to discover where he came from.”

The first three images in the haunting show are of her great-great grandfather, and are entitled simply The Professor I, II and III.

Professor William King is buried in grave 18 in the New Cemetery in Bohermore, something Leonie didn’t know until a few years ago.

She and Bill had discovered his connection with the Galway university nearly two decades ago, thanks to staff at NUIG, but they didn’t know where he was buried.

A Spanish researcher contacted them with the information that his grave was in Bohermore and they started looking. They were joined in their quest by Japanese man Akira Tsurukame, who was visiting them in their home at Oranmore Castle to celebrate Bill’s 102nd birthday.  Akira’s father had been killed during the war when the submarine he was in was torpedoed by the British submarine Telemachus, which was under the command of Leonie’s father, Bill King.  A total of 89 men died in the attack, which occurred near Malaysia.  Akira had first made contact with Bill 10 years previously in a bid to understand what had happened during that attack.

As a result of Akira, Bill’s own family learned a great deal more about his efforts during the war.

“Akira is the most beautiful thing that ever happened to us,” says Leonie. “He is like an extra family member.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.