Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/340

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On 16 Nov. in the same year he and Frederick William Faber [q. v.] were received into the Roman catholic church at Northampton. At the beginning of 1848 he was admitted a member of the congregation of the Oratory by Father Newman at Maryvale, and in the following year he went with Father Faber to found the London Oratory, in which he remained till his death. He was created D.D. by Pope Pius IX in 1875, at which time he held the office of superior of the London Oratory. His learning and prudence were highly valued by Cardinal Manning. He held for several years the office of ‘Defensor Matrimoniorum’ in the archdiocese of Westminster, and he took a leading part in promoting the canonisation of the English martyrs. He died at the Oratory, South Kensington, on 20 March 1882, and was buried in the private cemetery of the Oratorian fathers at Sydenham.

His works are: 1. ‘Life of Blessed Henry Suso, by himself. Translated from the German,’ London, 1865, 8vo. 2. ‘When does the Church speak infallibly? or the Nature and Scope of the Church's Teaching Office,’ London, 1867, 8vo; 2nd edit., enlarged, London, 1870, 8vo; also translated into German and Italian. 3. ‘The last Survivor of the ancient English Hierarchy, Thomas Goldwell, Bishop of St. Asaph’ [London, 1876, 8vo]. Reprinted from the ‘Month and Catholic Review,’ January and February 1876, and republished by the Rev. T. E. Bridgett, in his ‘True Story of the Catholic Hierarchy deposed by Queen Elizabeth,’ London [1889], 8vo. Knox prefixed ‘Historical Introductions’ to the ‘Diaries’ of the English College, Douay (1878), and Cardinal Allen's ‘Letters’ (1882), which form respectively vols. i. and ii. of ‘Records of the English Catholics under the Penal Laws.’ He also edited the Rev. Thomas Whytehead's ‘College Life. Letters to an Undergraduate,’ Cambridge, 1845, 8vo.

[Bowden's Life of Faber, pp. 238, 363, 424; Browne's Annals of the Tractarian Movement, 3rd edit. p. 101; Graduati Cantabr.; Tablet, 25 March 1882, p. 471, 1 April, p. 511; Times, 25 March 1882, p. 12, col. 1; Weekly Reg, 25 March 1882, pp. 365, 369, 1 April, p. 386.]

T. C.


KNOX, Sir THOMAS GEORGE (1824–1887), consul-general in Siam, born in 1824, was eldest surviving son of James Spencer Knox, D.D. (1789–1862), rector of Maghera, co. Derry, and his wife Clara, daughter of the Right Hon. John Beresford, and was grandson of William Knox [q. v.], bishop of Derry. On 17 April 1840 he was appointed ensign 65th foot, and on 7 Oct. 1842 was promoted to a lieutenancy in the 98th. After serving with the 98th in China and India, he sold out in December 1848. He subsequently served with the Siamese army from 1851 to 1857. He was appointed interpreter at the consulate of Bangkok on 7 July 1857, was acting consul there from December 1859 to May 1860, was appointed consul on 30 Nov. 1864, and promoted to be consul-general in Siam on 18 July 1868, and agent and consul-general in Siam on 8 Feb. 1875. He retired on a pension on 26 Nov. 1879, and was made K.C.M.G. in April 1880. He died at Eaux Chaudes, Pyrenees, on 29 July 1887. Knox married in 1854 a Siamese lady, Prang, daughter of Phya (Count) Somkok and Mâe Yen of Somkok and Bangkok.

[Foster's Peerage under ‘Ranfurly;’ Dod's Knightage, 1887; Hart's Army List, 1848; Foreign Office List, 1887.]

H. M. C.


KNOX, VICESIMUS (1752–1821), miscellaneous writer, only son of the Rev. Vicesimus Knox, B.C.L., by his wife Ann, daughter of Devereux Wall, was born at Newington Green, Middlesex, on 8 Dec. 1752. His father was a master at Merchant Taylors' from 1753 to 1772, when he was appointed head-master of Tunbridge School. In the probation lists of Merchant Taylors' his name is given as ‘Nock,’ and he signed himself ‘Knock’ until 1772, when he adopted the spelling of ‘Knox’ (Robinson, Merchant Taylors' School Register, ii. 90 n.) Young Knox was sent to Merchant Taylors' in 1764, whence he was elected to St. John's College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 13 July 1771, and graduated B.A. 1775, M.A. 1779. He was one of the speakers at the encœnia in July 1773, when Lord North was installed chancellor of the university (Gent. Mag. xliii. 351). Knox became a fellow of his college, and resided some four years after taking his bachelor's degree, devoting his attention chiefly to the study of English literature and composition. Before leaving Oxford Knox sent the manuscript of his ‘Essays Moral and Literary’ anonymously to Charles Dilly [q. v.] the publisher, giving him the option of publishing or destroying them. Dilly obtained a highly favourable opinion of them from Johnson, and published them in one volume in 1778. In 1778 Knox succeeded his father (who had resigned) as head-master of Tunbridge School. Resigning this post in 1812, he retired to London, where he purchased a house on the Adelphi Terrace, Strand. Knox was ordained priest by Bishop Louth about 1777 (Notes and Queries, 5th ser. x. 503), and was rector of Runwell and Ramsden-Crays, Essex, receiving a dispensation to hold these livings, both of which were in his own patronage, in 1807 (Gent.