Rainald Knightley, 1st Baron Knightley

Rainald Knightley, 1st Baron Knightley (22 October 1819 – 19 December 1895), known as Sir Rainald Knightley, 3rd Baronet, from 1864 to 1892, was a British Conservative Party politician.

"a fine old Tory"
Knightley as caricatured by Spy (Leslie Ward) in Vanity Fair, November 1881
Arms of Knightley: Quarterly ermine and paly of six or and gules

Origins

Knightley was the son of Sir Charles Knightley, 2nd Baronet of Fawsley, and his wife Selina Mary, daughter of F. L. Hervey.[1] In 1864 he inherited the baronetcy and the Fawsley estate on the death of his father.

The prominent de Knightley family originated at the Staffordshire manor of Knightley, acquired by them shortly after the Norman Conquest of 1066.[2] The Domesday Book of 1086 lists the tenant of Chenistelei as Rainald, namely "Reginald the Sheriff", who held 88 manors throughout England, said to be the ancestor of this family.[3][4] Mark Noble (1787) wrote of the de Knightley family:[5]

There is no private family in the kingdom has given more knights; none which has been more numerous in its branches; some of them have almost rivalled the eldest in consequence, and that fettled in France surpassed them, having many centuries ago been declared noble; the alliances they have contracted have been equal to themselves, and the many high offices held by them in the state, have been exceeded only by the very large possessions they have constantly had.

In 1415 Sir Richard Knightley purchased the manor of Fawsley in Northamptonshire, where the senior line of the family became seated.

Political career

Knightley entered Parliament for Northamptonshire South in 1852 (succeeding his father), a seat he held until 1892. In 1892 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Knightley, of Fawsley in the County of Northampton.[6]

Personal life

Lord Knightley married Louisa Mary, daughter of General Sir Edward Bowater, in 1869. The marriage was childless. He died in December 1895, aged 76, when the barony became extinct. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his first cousin Valentine Knightley. Lady Knightley died in October 1913.[1]

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References
  1. thepeerage.com Rainald Knightley, 1st and last Baron Knightley
  2. Mark Noble
  3. https://opendomesday.org/name/reginald-the-sheriff/
  4. The Knightley family is said by Burke to descend from "Reginald the Sheriff", see Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage, 1848
  5. Mark Noble, Memoirs of the Protectoral-house of Cromwell, Volume 2, London, 1787, pp.91-8, Knightley, p.91
  6. "No. 26328". The London Gazette. 23 September 1892. p. 5383.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Sir Charles Knightley, Bt
Richard Howard-Vyse		 Member of Parliament for Northamptonshire South
1852 – 1892
With: Richard Howard-Vyse 1852–1857
Viscount Althorp 1857–1858
Henry Cartwright 1858–1868
Fairfax Cartwright 1868–1881
Pickering Phipps 1881–1885		 Succeeded by
David Guthrie
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation Baron Knightley
1892 – 1895		 Extinct
Baronetage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Charles Knightley		 Baronet
(of Fawsley)
1864–1895		 Succeeded by
Valentine Knightley

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