(27 May 1841-16 May 1900), author. (R.S. Knight, F.R.S.L., the initials meaning Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature) Born in England or Canada. Son of the Rev. Robert Knight, who was the son of Ann Cuthbert Rae. Robert Skakel Knight may have spent his life mostly in England. In 1875 he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Literature, and he remained on the lists of the society till 1895. When the last entry for him appears in the society’s records he was a Fellow of the Society, and was living in Lancaster, Ont. The Royal Society of Literature remains a well-known literary institution but Knight belonged to it during one of its less prestigious periods, and his fellowship probably has to be regarded as a very minor distinction. Knight settled or resettled in Canada late in his life, probably about 1895. He died of pneumonia and asthma at his home on Oak Street, Lancaster, GC. As the street indicates, he lived in the incorporated village of Lancaster, i.e., the village of the railway station, not, as might have been expected, in the nearby but more gentrified lakeshore settlement of South Lancaster, also sometimes included under the “Lancaster” designation. If Knight had come to the Lancaster area merely to retire, or saw himself as primarily a literary man, presumably his choice would have been the latter place. A relatively mysterious figure in GC history, his motives for coming to Lancaster and his occupations there are not known. He corresponded with the American scholar C.W. Mixter regarding Knight’s great-uncle John Rae the economist. Knight was the author of Exercises in English Composition (London, 1876) and a biographical sketch of his father (see entry for his father), and although titles have not come to light, it may be suspected that while living in Britain he published, perhaps extensively, in British periodicals, many of the contributions being perhaps anonymous after the custom of the time.

     His wife, whose Christian name was Dorothy, died 8 Sept. 1922, aged 71, presumably at Lancaster, where she had remained a resident. “She was a refined old lady having been highly educated in Paris and Smyrna and was recognized as an accomplished musician…. Two sisters survive, one in Switzerland the other residing in Smyrna.” Knight and his wife had living with them at Lancaster a daughter Dorothy W. Knight (31 Jan. 1881-1 Aug. 1913), who was born in Massachusets, and died aged 32 at Lancaster. After her father’s death, she continued his correspondence with Mixter. Knight was given his middle name of Skakel from Alexander Skakel, the headmaster of the Royal Grammar School, Montreal.

Glengarry News & The Montreal Daily Star, both 18 May 1900, & 20 Years Ago column, Cornwall Freeholder 13 May 1920 * James, I, 128 (biog. sketch), & index * information from Royal Society of Literature (in letter dated 21 May 1987) * gravestone, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church cemetery, South Lancaster (information from Alex W. Fraser) * obituaries of wife, daughter, GN 15 Sept. 1922 (QF), 15 Aug. 1913 * R. Warren James, “John Rae: the Lost Letters,” Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 23:3 (Sept. 2001) 343-352 (includes material on the daughter Dorothy)