John Knight

Who was John Knight?

Sir John Knight was an English merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1689 to 1695.

Knight was the eldest surviving son of John Knight, of St Augustine’s Back, Bristol and his first wife called Parsons of Somerset. His father was a sugar refiner and a cousin of Sir John Knight MP for Bristol. He succeeded his father 1678.

Knight was appointed sheriff of Bristol in September 1681, and in this office he persecuted Dissenters, arousing great controversy in the city. He was presented to King Charles II in March at Newmarket and knighted on 12 March 1682. In April 1686 Knight alerted the mayor and the sheriffs of a Catholic meeting, resulting in the arrest of a priest. When the news reached the Catholic King James II's court of Knight's behaviour, he was arrested by late May and had to explain himself before the Privy Council. A writ of habeas corpus failed to release him but a Bristol jury acquitted him in November.

Having stood unsuccessfully at a by-election in December 1685, Knight was elected MP for Bristol in the Convention Parliament in 1689. He disagreed with the Whig doctrine that King James's flight from England had left the throne vacant.