Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/308

  by Nathaniel Milner, and on 6 Oct. 1659 Thomas Jones was committed for assailing Knowles's door with a chopping-knife.

The Restoration deprived him of his post at Bristol, and he repaired to London. In 1661 he was lecturer at All Hallows the Great on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The Uniformity Act, 1662, made his preaching illegal, but he continued to exercise his ministry as opportunity served. In August 1664 he was reported as having 1,000l. in his hands for the benefit of ‘godly men.’ During the great plague of 1665 he was assiduous in giving his services to the sufferers. On the indulgence of 1672 he became colleague to Thomas Kentish in the charge of a presbyterian congregation meeting in the parish of St. Catherine-in-the-Tower, afterwards in Eastcheap (ultimately at the King's Weighhouse). He had many narrow escapes from arrest after the cancelling of the Act of Indulgence in 1673. He died on 10 April 1685.

[Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana, 1702, iii. 3, 216 sq.; Calamy's Account, 1713, pp. 605 sq.; Wilson's Dissenting Churches of London, 1808, i. 154 sq.; Davids's Evang. Nonconformity in Essex, 1863, pp. 547 sq.; Pike's Ancient Meeting-Houses, 1870, pp. 336 sq.; Calendar of State Papers (Domestic), 1653, 1664.]  KNOWLES, JOHN (1781–1841), biographer of Henry Fuseli [q. v.], born in 1781, early in life became a clerk in the surveyor's department of the navy office. He attained the chief clerkship there about 1806, and held this post until 1832. He published two or three works on naval matters, including ‘The Elements and Practice of Naval Architecture,’ 1822. For his scientific researches he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. Knowles is best known, however, from his long, intimate friendship with Henry Fuseli the painter, and the circle to which that artist belonged. He was the executor of Fuseli's will, and a devoted admirer of his art. In 1830 he published an edition of Fuseli's ‘Lectures on Painting,’ and in 1831, in 3 vols. 8vo, the life of Fuseli, written as a labour of love, to which was added an edition of the painter's writings on art. As a biography the work has some merit. Knowles died, unmarried, at Ashburton, Devonshire, on 21 July 1841, aged 60. He was one of the original members of the Athenæum Club, and his portrait, drawn by C. Landseer, is No. 25 of the series of lithographs, published as ‘Athenæum Portraits,’ by Thomas McLean. He was corresponding member of the Philosophical Society of Rotterdam.

[Gent. Mag. new ser. 1841, xvi. 331; Knowles's Life and Writings of H. Fuseli; Smith's Nollekens, ii. 425–7; private information.]  KNOWLES, MARY (1733–1807), quakeress, eldest daughter of Moses and Mary Morris of Rugeley, Staffordshire, was born on 5 May 1733. She was witty and beautiful. One of her accomplishments was working in worsted what Dr. Johnson called ‘sutile pictures’. Specimens having been shown to the queen, she was sent for and commissioned to execute portraits of George III and the young princess, which were much approved. She married Dr. Thomas Knowles, graduate of Leyden 1772, L.R.C.P. 1784, and author of ‘Tentamen Medicum,’ Leyden, 1722. They travelled abroad, and were received at the Hague and at Versailles. Dr. Knowles died in Lombard Street 16 Nov. 1784, leaving considerable wealth. Mrs. Knowles was intimate with Dr. Johnson. She was a brilliant conversationalist, and said of Johnson's reading that ‘he tore the heart out of a book.’ She wrote, about 1776, a ‘Compendium of a Controversy on Water-Baptism’ between Rand, a clergyman of Coventry, and herself; ‘A Poetic Correspondence’ between her and a Captain Morris was printed in the ‘British Friend,’ April 1848, p. 110. Other verses by her appeared as small tracts without date. Boswell records her talents, but declines to accept as authentic her account of a ‘Dialogue between Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Knowles’ respecting the conversion to quakerism of Miss Jane Harry, which Mrs. Knowles forwarded to him while engaged on the biography of Johnson. Its authenticity was corroborated by Miss Seward, who was present at the interview. Mrs. Knowles published it in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ June 1791, p. 500, and it has been many times reprinted separately. Mrs. Knowles had one son, George. She died in London 3 Feb. 1807.

[Smith's Catalogue; Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Croker, 1831, iii. 440–2, iv. 142–5; Monthly Repository of Theol. March 1807, ii. 160; Lady's Monthly Museum, November 1803, with engraved portrait; Letters of Anna Seward, 6 vols., Edinb. 1811, passim.]  KNOWLES, RICHARD BRINSLEY (1820–1882), journalist, son of James Sheridan Knowles [q. v.], dramatist, was born at Glasgow on 17 Jan. 1820, and about 1838 held an appointment in the registrar-general's office, Somerset House, London. He was admitted a student of the Middle Temple on 14 Nov. 1839, and called to the bar 26 May 1843. His tastes, however, inclined towards literature, and on 19 Nov. 1845 he produced at the Haymarket Theatre a comedy, ‘The Maiden Aunt,’ which, aided