The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Knight, Thomas Andrew

KNIGHT, Thomas Andrew, English horticulturist: b. Wormsley Grange, near Ludlow, Herefordshire, 10 Oct. 1758; d. London, 11 May 1838. He was a younger brother of Richard Payne Knight (q.v.). After graduating from Baliol College, Oxford, he took up the study of horticulture. He first brought himself before the public in 1795 by the publication of the results of his researches into the propagation of fruit-trees and the diseases prevalent among them. He raised new varieties of many fruits and vegetables, many of which bear his name. He was one of the original members of the Horticultural Society, founded in 1804, and from 1811 until his death its president. He was also a fellow of the Royal Society (1805), recipient of its Copley medal (1806), and a fellow of the Linnæan Society (1807). Beside the papers, 46 in number, which he contributed to the ‘Transactions’ of the Royal Society, and the papers, more than 100 in number, which he contributed to the ‘Transactions’ of the Horticultural Society, he wrote ‘A treatise on the Culture of the Apple and Pear, and on the Manufacture of Cider and Perry’ (1797); ‘Pomona Herefordiensis, or Natural History of the Old Cider and Perry Fruits of the County of Hereford’ (1811). ‘A Selection from the Physiological and Horticultural Papers’ of the late T. A. Knight was published in 1841 (G. Bentham and J. Lindley, editors), together with a biographical sketch of his life. Consult Royal Society of London, Proceedings, Vol. IV, p. 92, London 1838.