Henry Gally Knight

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox officeholder Henry Gally Knight, F.R.S. (2 December 1786 – 9 February 1846) was a British politician, traveller and writer.

Biography

Knight was the only son of Henry Gally (afterwards Gally Knight), barrister, of Langold, and was educated at Eton and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.<ref>Template:Acad</ref> He succeeded in 1808 to estates at Firbeck and Langold Park which his father had inherited in 1804 from his brother John Gally Knight.<ref name="Stokes & Thorne 1986">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

Knight was appointed High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire for 1814–1815.Template:Citation needed He also held the office of deputy-lieutenant of Nottinghamshire.<ref name="Wroth 1910">Template:DNB</ref> He was a Member of Parliament for the constituencies Aldborough (12 August 1814 - April 1815), Malton (1831–1832; 31 March 1835 - 9 February 1846),<ref name="Stokes & Thorne 1986"/> North Nottinghamshire (1835 and in 1837). In parliament he was a fluent but infrequent speaker. He was also a member of the commission for the advancement of the fine arts.<ref name="Wroth 1910"/>

Knight was the subject of the 1818 satirical poem "Ballad to the Tune of Salley in our Alley" by Lord Byron, in which Byron facetiously accuses him of being not only a poetaster, but a dandy as well.Template:Refn

Knight owned Firbeck Hall in Rotherham. Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe is set nearby, and Knight may have been Scott's source of local information when he was writing the book. He was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society on 20 May 1841.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Family

Knight was the nephew of the novelist Frances Jacson.<ref>Template:Cite ODNB</ref> He married Henrietta, the daughter of Anthony Hardolph Eyre of Grove Park, Nottinghamshire and the widow of John Hardolph Eyre. They had no children.<ref name="Wroth 1910"/>

Works

File:Trinité Caen Nave Architecturaltou00knig 0085.jpg

Nave of the Church of St. Trinité Caen, from An architectural tour in Normandy<ref name=Normandy>Template:Cite book</ref>

Knight was the author of several Oriental tales, Ilderim, a Syrian Tale (1816), Phrosyne, a Grecian Tale, and Alashtar, an Arabian Tale (1817).

He was also an authority on architecture, and wrote various works on the subject, including Hannibal in Bithynia, An architectural tour in Normandy (1836),<ref name=Normandy/> The Normans in Sicily (1838),<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy (1842-4), described by Pevsner as a "sumptiously illustrated sequel to The Normans in Sicily".<ref name="Pevsner1972">Template:Cite book</ref> These books brought him more reputation than his fictions.<ref>Template:SBDEL</ref>

External links

• Template:Hansard-contribs
• Template:NPG name
• A very brief biography