Cecil Victor Kingwas born in Union City, Indiana on December 22, 1899. He received his A.B. degree from Indiana University in 1919. After spending a term as Assistant at the Carnegie Experimental Station on Long Island, he entered Columbia University Graduate School. He received the Master's degree in 1922 and the Ph.D. degree in 1924. He then spent a year in J. N. Bronsted's laboratory at the Physico-Chemical Institute in Copenhagen as an American-Scandinavian Foundation Fellow.
After spending the next three years as an Instructor at Columbia, Dr. King went to New York University in 1928 where he taught inorganic and physical chemistry for 35 years. He retired from the University in 1963, receiving the title Professor Emeritus. He became associated with American Gas and Chemicals Inc. where he developed a commercial sensitive method for gas leak detection.
Dr. King's research interests included: reaction rates in solutions, acid-base catalysis, metal dissolution, and corrosion and inhibition theory. He was author or co-author of about 80 research papers. He also co-authored a book on Physical Chemistry Experiments.
Dr. King became a member of The Electrochemical Society in the early 1930's. He served as its President in 1971-1972. He was also Chairman of the Corrosion Division and Chairman of the Metropolitan Section. In 1952, he became Associate Editor of the Society Journal and then served as its Editor in 1954-1968. He was the 23rd recipient of the Edward Goodrich Acheson Medal and Prize, receiving the Award in 1974.
Dr. King was a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences and Chairman of its Section of Chemistry and Physics. He was also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His other affiliations included the American Chemical Society, the National Association of Corrosion Engineers, the Instrument Society, Phi Lambda upsilon, and Sigma Xi.