Sir william knighton biography

Sir William Knighton was a man of surprisingly humble beginnings and yet he rose to become one of the most influential people in the country, as confidential.
Sir William Knighton, 1st Baronet, GCH was Private Secretary to the Sovereign under George IV.
In February 1797, Knighton received a diploma from the Company of Surgeons and was approved as assistant surgeon at the Royal Naval Hospital in.

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Biography

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Sir William Knighton (1776-1836)

This article was written by John Andrew Hamilton and was published in 1892

Sir William Knighton, keeper of the privy purse to George IV, was the son of William Knighton. He was born at Beer Ferris, Devon, in 1776. His family had an estate at Grenofen, Whitchurch, Devon, but his father was disinherited, and, dying very early, left his widow in poverty.

Knighton, after a little schooling at Newton Bushell, Devon, was sent at an early age to study medicine under his uncle, Dr. Bredall, a surgeon of Tavistock. He afterwards studied for two years at Guy's Hospital, London. At the age of twenty-one he returned to Devon, and obtained through the influence of Dr. Geach, chief surgeon of the Royal

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Charlotte Frost’s biography of Sir William Knighton, who was not only an accomplished physician and obstetrician during the Georgian era, but also rose to become George IV’s advisor on all things, puts the record straight about the life of a man who was envied and mistrusted in his time because of his immense influence at court.

Her introduction is just that, and is a model for other biographers in that it actually does introduce the characters; rather important in this case as there were five William Knightons, three Dorothea/Dorothy Knightons, two Dora Seymours and two Michael Seymours, all of whom are given aliases at the start, such as ‘Grandfather Knighton’, so you know throughout who is being referred to. This introduction also contains useful information about other characters whom the reader will meet, as well as some background data on sources. Very useful and a good idea in preparing the reader for the story to come.
The author has consulted many fresh sources to give an accurate picture of Knighton’s career, showing us along

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Over the years, I have read a number of biographies of George IV, as well as biographies of some of those who made up his circle. There were always brief, sometimes vague, references to one shadowy member of that circle, Sir William Knighton. But the substance of the man always seemed just out of reach. I could never get a good picture of who he really was or his true position in the Regent’s household. I had the sense that Knighton may have been Prinny’s éminence grise, just as Friar Leclerc had been to Cardinal Richelieu. But there was never enough information on Knighton to know for sure. Now there is.

In 1976, Dr. William I. C. Morris, an eminent doctor and professor of obstetrics and gynecology in Manchester, wrote a brief biography of Knighton, entitled "Sir William Knighton: The Invisible Accoucheur." That article was the first, and only, biography of William Knighton written since Knighton’s death. But that article was published in the Manchester Medical Gazette, which was not widely circulated outside the medical community. Th