Horrie Knight

Who was Horrie Knight?

Horace Raymond Knight OAM was a South Australian-born business man & philanthropist.

Knight spent much of his early life in Broken Hill, New South Wales. During World War II he served in the Australian Army 2/8th Field Ambulance and was a Rat of Tobruk.

On Knight's return, he began building a chain of self-service supermarkets starting in Prospect and subsequently in Salisbury and Elizabeth branded Foodland, Cheap Foods, or Half Case.

Horrie was well known for providing employment and generally being active in the community as he devoted a lot of time & money to local charitable organisations, namely Rotary. He became the president of the Rotary Club of Elizabeth in and a Paul Harris Fellow in 1979. In 1976 he was Elizabeth's first Citizen of the Year. In addition to his work with Rotary, Horrie was also a founding member of the Elizabeth & Districts Foundation, now known as the United Way, which is the largest non-government fund raising/giving organisation in South Australia

He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1990 for his lifelong commitment to charitable work in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia, but died before the presentation ceremony;.