Gally-Knight, Henry (1786 -1846)

Henry Gally Knight was educated at Eton College, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1805. He was a founder member of Grillion's Club in 1812, and in 1816 joined Brooks's Club, established in Pall Mall by the Dukes of Portland and Roxburgh. He married in 1825 Henrietta, daughter of Anthony Hardolphe Eyre (1757-1836) of Grove, Nottinghamshire, and Francisca Alicia Wilbraham-Bootle (d.1810). He then devoted his leisure to the investigation of architectural history at home and abroad. After visiting Dieppe in May, 1831, accompanied by the architect Richard Hussey, he travelled to France to study the buildings and libraries of Normandy, which lead to the publication of An Architectural Tour in Normandy. He visited Messina in August 1836, and in 1838, published The Normans in Sicily.His third and last work was Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy, from the time of Constantine to the fifteenth century. Knight, who had succeeded to the family estates on his father's death in 1808, was MP for Aldborough 1814–1815, for Malton 1831–1832, and for North Nottinghamshire 1835–1846. In 1841 he was a member of the select committee on the fine arts, which initiated the historical fresco paintings in the Houses of Parliament. He was also deputy lieutenant of Nottinghamshire. He died in Lower Grosvenor Street, London, where he lived, on 9 February 1846, and was buried, with the remains of his ancestors, in Firbeck Church, Yorkshire, on 17 February. The estate of the Gally-Knight family consisted of the manor of Warsop in Nottinghamshire, and properties in Kirton, Walesby, Willoughby, Boughton and Wellow in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. The estates at Kirton and Warsop, at the death of Mrs. Knight, were bequeathed to Sir Henry Fitzherbert.