Sir William Knighton, 1st Baronet

Sir William Knighton, 1st Baronet, (1776/7 – 11 October 1836) was a society and royal physician who later became Private Secretary to the Sovereign under George IV (1822–1830).

Life

Early life Knighton was born in 1776 (1777 - the third generation of that name - into a family of well-to-do and literate yeomen-farmers. By a second advantageous marriage, his grandfather joined the ranks of the landed gentry and raised a second family so designated, while his first, elder son remained a 'farmer'. This distinction, in that era's highly stratified society, sparked Knighton's self admitted will-to-succeed – the more so since he apparently retained a distorted version of early events.

At around twelve Knighton was sent to a boarding school at Newton Bushell in East Devon, where he spent some four years acquiring literacy, arithmetic, Greek and Latin. In September, 1793, he was apprenticed to Dr. William Bredall of Tavistock, a surgeon-apothocary with a wide and diverse practice who was also the husband of Knighton's aunt, Mary. Bredall's training and example deeply influenced Knighton's subsequent career. During this period he also made two important professional contacts: contemporary Stephen Hammick, who was training at the Royal Naval Hospital at Plymouth, and Dr Francis Geach, its senior surgeon. Geach started him writing up case notes, which were the only means by which an experienced physician could evaluate a student, and was a vital tool to communicating with contemporaries.

He died on 11 October 1836 at Stratford Place in London, and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.

Family

In 1800 he married Dorothea Hawker.