William Knollys (British Army officer)

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Sir William Knollys
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath

PC (1 August 1797 – 23 June 1883) was a British Army
officer who reached high office in the 1860s.

Knollys caricatured by Ape in Vanity Fair, 1877
Family grave of Sir William Knollys in Highgate Cemetery (east)

Military career

Born into the

Knollys family, he was the son of General William Woods Knollys and Charlotte Martha Blackwell.[1] He was educated at Harrow School and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He was styled Viscount Wallingford until 1813, when his father's claim to the Earldom of Banbury was rejected.[1]

Knollys was

General Officer Commanding Aldershot Division and was allocated the task of organising his troops into Divisions and Brigades.[1] Having achieved this task he was made President of the Council of Military Education in 1861.[1]

He held the colonelcy of the 62nd (Wiltshire) Regiment of Foot from 1858 until its amalgamation into the Duke of Edinburgh's (Wiltshire Regiment) in 1881, after which he was Colonel of the 1st Battalion of the new Regiment. He transferred as Colonel to the Scots Guards in 1883 but died later the same year.[2]

In 1862 he was appointed Treasurer and Comptroller to the Household of Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII.[1] He was sworn in as Privy Counsellor in 1872 and in 1877 made Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod.[1]

He was promoted to full

Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in 1867.[1]

After his death in 1883 at the House of Lords he was buried at Highgate Cemetery (east side).[3]

Family

In 1830 he married Elizabeth St Aubyn, daughter of Sir John St Aubyn, 5th Baronet, and together they went on to have five sons and three daughters.[1]

One of his sons,

Henry Knollys (1840–1930), became private secretary to King Edward's daughter Maud, Queen of Norway.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Sir William Knollys at Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  2. ^ "Regiments and Corps..." regiments.ord. Archived from the original on 12 December 2006. Retrieved 22 July 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  3. ^ "Sir William Knollys" . Dictionary of National Biography – via Wikisource.
  4. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34351. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  5. ^ KNOLLYS, Colonel Sir Henry', Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007
Government offices
Preceded by Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey
1854–1856 		Succeeded by
Military offices
New title
New Post
 GOC-in-C Aldershot Division
1857–1860 		Succeeded by
Sir John Pennefather
Government offices
Preceded by Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod
1877–1883 		Succeeded by
Military offices
Preceded by Colonel of the Scots Guards
1883 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
New Regiment
 Colonel of the 2nd Battalion Wiltshire Regiment
1881–1883 		Succeeded by
Sir John Alexander Ewart
Preceded by Colonel of the 62nd (Wiltshire) Regiment of Foot
1858–1881 		Succeeded by
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