Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/428

 champions of all schools of thought, and obtained their assent to join such a society. A first meeting was held at Willis's Rooms on 21 April 1869 and the Metaphysical Society was then constituted. The original members included Dean Stanley, Manning, W. G. Ward, R. H. Hutton, James Martineau. Bishop Ellicott, Bagehot, Huxley, Tyndall, Gladstone, and Froude. Knowles acted as general secretary. Early anticipations of failure were belied, and under Knowles' s direction the society flourished for twelve years. The members dined together month by month at an hotel, and the discussion followed. Important recruits were Ruskin, who joined in 1870, and Fitz James Stephen. A chairman was elected annually, and he was occasionally re-elected. The chairmen were Sir John Lubbock, Manning, Huxley, Gladstone, W. G. Ward, James Martineau, Lord Selborne, and Lord Arthur Russell. The society dissolved in 1881 because, said Tennyson, the members failed to define what metaphysics meant. According to Knowles, all possible subjects had then been exhausted, while pressure of other work compelled his withdrawal from the direction.

Knowles's management of the Metaphysical Society brought him into personal touch with the chief intellectual men of the day. With Gladstone his relations were soon as close as with Tennyson. He turned such relationships to much public advantage. In 1870 he became editor of the 'Contemporary Review' in succession to Dean Alford, and he induced many members of the Metaphysical Society to contribute to the pages of the magazine either papers which they had read at the society's meetings or original] articles. Such contributions gave the magazine a high repute. In 1877 the 'Contemporary' changed hands, and a disagreement with the new proprietors led Knowles to sever his connection with it. Thereupon he founded under his sole proprietorship and editorship a new periodical which he called the 'Nineteenth Century.' The first number appeared in March and was introduced by a sonnet of Tennyson. Members of the Metaphysical Society continued to support Knowles, and Gladstone, Manning, Sir John Lubbock, Bishop Ellicott, and Fitzjames Stephen were early contributors to the new venture, whose professed aim was to provide a platform from which men of all parties and persuasions might address the public in their own names. 'Signed writing' was the essential principle of the 'Nineteenth Century.' No anonymous articles were admissible. Every topic of current interest was to be discussed openly by the highest authority. With diplomatic skill Knowles induced writers of renown to engage in controversy with one another in his magazine on matters of moment, at times in symposia, but commonly in independent articles. Gladstone, who was persuaded frequently to meet in religious debate Fitzjames Stephen and Huxley, deservedly complimented Knowles on his success in keeping 'the "Nineteenth Century" pot boiling' (13 May 1888, Morley's Life, iii. 360). The result was a triumph for periodical literature, and the profits were substantial. Few contemporaries of distinction in any walk of life failed to contribute to the magazine, over which Knowles exercised an active and rigorous control till his death. When the nineteenth century ended, he renamed the magazine 'The Nineteenth Century and After' (Jan. 1901).

Knowles, who gave up architectural practice in 1883, moved next year from Clapham to Queen Anne's Lodge by St. James's Park, where he constantly entertained a distinguished circle of friends and collected pictures and works of art. He caused to be painted for his collection Tennyson's portrait by Millais in 1881, and Gladstone's portrait by Troubetzkoi in 1893. Although his interests were mainly absorbed by the 'Nineteenth Century,' he found time to engage in a few other public movements. In 1871 he organised the Paris Food Fund for the relief of the besieged population in Paris, and induced Manning, Huxley, Lubbock, and Ruskin to act with him on the committee. In 1882 he energetically opposed the Channel Tunnel scheme ; he not merely condemned it in an article from his own pen in the 'Nineteenth Century,' but brought together in the magazine a vast number of adverse opinions from eminent persons. When the proposal was revived in 1890, Knowles repeated his denunciation in the 'Nineteenth Century,' and in Gladstone's view crushed the design. 'The aborted channel tunnel,' wrote Gladstone, 'cries out against you from the bottom of the sea.' In philanthropic enterprise Knowles was also active. He joined Lord Shaftesbury, the Baroness Burdett Coutts, and Miss Octavia Hill in starting the Sanitary Laws Enforcement Society, and he originated the first fund for giving toys to children in hospitals and workhouses.

Knowles was well known to Queen Alexandra and other members of the Royal