He was the only son of Henry Gally (afterwards Gally Knight), barrister, of Langold, and was educated at Eton and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He succeeded in 1808 to estates at Firbeck and Langold Park which his father had inherited in 1804 from his brother John Gally Knight.
University of Cambridge. Eton College.
He was appointed High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire for 1814-1815. He 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 The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy, and The Normans in Sicily, which brought him more reputation than his fictions.
He was the nephew of the novelist Frances Jacson.
His best claim to fame may be the 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. He 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.
They had no children.
Royal Society; 5th United Kingdom Parliament. 10th United Kingdom Parliament. 12th United Kingdom Parliament.
13th United Kingdom Parliament.
14th United Kingdom Parliament.
