Hardwicke Knight

Who was Hardwicke Knight?

Frederick Hardwicke Knight was a prominent author and photographer from Broad Bay, New Zealand. An acknowledged expert on the history of southern New Zealand, he wrote many books related to early Dunedin and Otago.

Knight spent his formative years in England and in France, where he travelled in the 1920s, before becoming a travelling photographer working throughout Europe, notably spending time as a photojournalist in Stalinist Russia. A conscientious objector, Knight did not serve in the military in World War II, instead being part of the emergency medical services, working under Dunedin-born surgeon Harold Gillies.

In 1948, Knight was appointed Director of Medical Photography at Enfield Hospital in England, and in 1957 he emigrated to New Zealand, taking up a position as head of the Medical Photography Department at Otago Medical School. Here he helped develop important photographic techniques for diagnosing eye problems, and in 1965 he was elected president of the New Zealand Institute of Medical Photographers.