Margaret K. Knight

Who was Margaret K. Knight?

Margaret Kennedy Knight, was a psychologist and humanist. Born in Hertfordshire, England, Knight went to Girton College, Cambridge University, graduating in 1926. In 1948 she gained a Master's degree.

In her third year at Cambridge that she found the "moral courage", as she put it, finally to abandon the religious beliefs she had long been uneasy with. In the preface to her book Morals Without Religion, she wrote, "a fresh, cleansing wind swept through the stuffy room that contained the relics of my religious beliefs. I let them go with a profound sense of relief, and ever since I have lived happily without them."

Between 1926 and 1936 Margaret worked as a librarian, information officer and editor for journal published by the National Institute of Industrial Psychology. She married her husband Arthur Rex Knight in 1936, then in 1938 she started working alongside him as an assistant lecturer in psychology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Ten years later in 1948 she was promoted to lecturer in psychology, a post she held till her retirement in 1970.

In collaboration with her husband, Knight wrote A Modern Introduction to Psychology, which went through many editions.