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The establishment of the Royal Society of London in 1660, devoted to "improving natural knowledge," received and published a number of papers on botany and in 1795 published a contribution by Knight on the grafting of trees in 1795. In 1804, Knight wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, the great naturalist who sailed with Captain Cook, as follows:
SoHo Square, March 29, 1894
My Dear Sir:
It having occurred to some of us here, that a Horticultural Society might be formed, upon a principle not very dissimilar from that of the numerous Agricultural Societies, which, if they have done no other service, have certainly wakened a taste for agriculture, and guided the judgements of those who wished to encourage it; two meetings have been held in order to commence the establishment, the proceedings of which I enclose to you. You will see that I have taken the liberty of naming you as an original member.
The Horticultural Society was formed in 1804 with Lord Dartmouth as president and John Wedgewood as secretary, with the first Transactions published in 1807. A Royal Charter was granted in 1809 and Knight assumed the presidency in 1811.
Thomas Andrew Knight, president of the London Horticulture Society (later Royal Horticultural Society) from 1811-1838, can be considered the father of horticultural science. He was the first of the 18th century naturalists to devote himself to the emerging science of horticulture, having an interest both in basic issues in botany as well as applications in practical horticulture. He was both an observer/naturalist and an experimentalist. His interests were wide ranging and embraced the disciplines that we now call plant physiology, structural biology, and genetics. Knight investigated physiological problems such as the ascent and descent of sap, gravitational biology, tropisms, and the nature of the cambium. He was interested in relating morphology and anatomy to development and function. His studies on the effects of pollen in the garden pea on seed characters presaged the work Gregor Mendel carried out 40 years later. He describes dominance and segregation, although he fails to make the brilliant leap of Mendel in relating phenotypic characters to the factors we now know as genes. He reports observations on the genetics of animal behavior, a field not truly explored until the end of the 20th century.
Knight's true love, however, was horticulture. In this field he investigated controlled environmental culture (greenhouse construction and vegetable forcing), plant nutrition and fertilization, culture of fruits and vegetables, pest control, and plant breeding. He was an early proponent of the development of plant improvement through cross breeding and selection, and he literally initiated the field of fruit breeding. He released a number of improved cultivars of both fruits (apple, cherry, strawberry, red currant, plum, nectarine, and pear) and vegetables (pea, cabbage, and potato). He was interested in developing improved cultural methods to enhance earliness and yield, the effect of rootstocks, the influence of girdling, plant hardiness, and the causes and control of disease. Clearly ahead of his time, he was the first to investigate the influence of electricity on plants. He contributed nearly a hundred scientific papers on a wide range of topics, with the bulk on horticultural science. Unfortunately, his notes are lost, so we know little of his methods of collecting data other than what is detailed in his papers. It is clear he appreciated the value of having appropriate controls, the value of replication, and the verification of data. He investigated such horticultural species as vegetables (bean, broadbean, cabbage, carrot, celery, melons, mint, mushrooms, onion, parsnip, pea, potato), fruits (avocado, apple, cherry, grape, lemon, mamey, mango, orange, nectarine, peach, pear, pineapple, plum, quince, strawberry, walnut) and ornamentals (amaryllis, camellia, fern, ivy, lily, palm, rose). His early experimental study of the effect of gravity on seedling growth in bean has become the cornerstone of modern gravitational biology. His 1806 paper entitled "On the direction of the radicle and germen during the vegetation of seeds," was selected for inclusion in the volume Classic Papers in Horticultural Science (1989). His study on the phototropism of tendrils has been incorporated in textbooks of plant physiology without attribution. A renaissance investigator, he is honored here for the breadth of his interests and his devotion to the science and the practical arts of horticulture.
Devotees of the 19th century British author Anthony Trollope will recognize Knight as the quintessential 19th century country gentleman, landowner, hunter, and scientific dilettante, someone with the character of Plantagenet Palliser - moral, personally kind and gentle, but clearly a conservative of the old school. Second son of a clergyman, he inherited wealth, a castle, and a 10,000 acre estate at the age of 29 after the death of his renowned brother Payne Knight, author, art collector and member of parliament. This enabled him to intensively pursued his passion in plant physiology and experimental horticulture.
He was happily married for 46 years to Frances Felton. The life of his only son was cut short by a hunting accident; Frances, his eldest daughter, became a collaborator in his fruit breeding research. Knight was a vital part of the scientific establishment of his time and had extensive correspondence with Sir Joseph Banks and Humphries Davy, as well as a number of foreign naturalists.
Thomas Andrew Knight, a forerunner of the great American Horticulturist Liberty Hyde Bailey (1860-1954), is remembered today chiefly through the Knightian medal, still presented by the Royal Society, and by a genus of the Proteaceae that bears the name Knightia in his honor.
Parents:
Reverend Thomas Knight
(married Ursula Nash)
Siblings of Thomas:
Richard Payne Knight
Ursula Knight
Barbara Knight
Children:
Thomas Andrew Knight
Frances Knight
(married Thomas Pendarves Stackhouse Acton)
Elizabeth Knight
(married Francis Walpole)
Charlotte Knight
(married Sir William Edward Rouse-Boughton)
Other Links
The "Male Tail"
Wormsley Grange, Herefordshire
Wormsley Church, Herefordshire
Wikipedia - Thomas Andrew Knight