Charlotte Knight

Charlotte Knight (c. 1801–1843), known after her marriage as Charlotte, Lady Rouse-Boughton, was an English horticulturalist who bred the Waterloo cherry (also known as the early black cherry).

Origins Knight was the youngest daughter and heiress of botanist Thomas Andrew Knight, a member of a wealthy iron-founding dynasty founded by his grandfather Richard Knight of the Bringewood Ironworks in Shropshire. Her father was the heir of his brother the art connoisseur Payne Knight (d.1824), MP, who rebuilt Downton Castle in Shropshire.

Career Aged just 16 in 1817, Knight was presented with the Silver Medal of the Horticultural Society of London (now the Royal Horticultural Society) in recognition of the quality of the Waterloo cherry. Her father, himself a noted botanist, had written in 1816 that the new variety "sprang from a seed of the Ambrée of Du Hamel and the pollen of the May-Duke". It was named after the Battle of Waterloo, which had taken place two years before in 1815, as it had fruited first at Elton Hall in Herefordshire a few days after Napoleon's defeat at that battle. It ripens early, in late June to early July.

Knight was mentioned in the Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London Sir Charles Henry Rouse-Boughton, 3rd and 11th Baronet (1825–1906), eldest son and heir. Andrew Johnes Rouse Boughton, 2nd son, who inherited Downton Castle in Shropshire, one of the Knight estates inherited by his mother, and adopted the surname Knight.

Death and burial Knight was buried in the parish church of Rous Lench, Worcestershire. A copy is in the National Portrait Gallery, London which also has two photographs of her daughter Catherine.