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KITE, JIM: see ERLIKILYIKAKLEIN, JOHN: see VERBURG, EDWINKNIGHT, JOHN GEORGE (c1825–1892), architect and administrator, was born in London, England, in about
1825 the son of John Knight, stone and marble merchant. He trained as an engineer and architect before arriving
in Melbourne in February 1852. During the following two decades, he achieved some fame as one of Victoria’s
best-known architects and as an organiser of international exhibitions. He was married on 21 April 1853 at St Paul’s
Anglican Cathedral in Melbourne to Alice Bertrand.
In the early 1870s reports of gold attracted Knight to the Northern Territory. This was a time when the South
Australian government was taking steps to diversify the Territory’s administration and make it more professional.
In September 1873, Knight was appointed Secretary and Accountant to the Resident in Palmerston, with additional
duties as Architect and Supervisor of Works. His appointment annoyed those Adelaide politicians such as Ebenezer
Ward who believed that a South Australian ought to have been chosen. In November 1875, he was retrenched as
Supervisor of Works and his salary cut. He resigned and returned to Melbourne but in January 1876 was back in
the Northern Territory as Goldfields Warden. In April 1880, he became Clerk of the Court at Palmerston, and soon
after was also made Deputy Sheriff, Clerk of the Licensing Bench, Curator of the Property of Convicts, Registrar,
Accountant, Official Receiver and Returning Officer. In 1887, he was Commissioner for the Northern Territory at
the Adelaide Jubilee Exhibition and in 1888 did the same job at the Melbourne International Exhibition. During
1889, he acted as Government Resident and Judge. From the early 1880s onward, he was responsible for the
design of some of Palmerston’s more substantial buildings. These included the police station and court house, part
of Fannie Bay Goal, the front façade of Brown’s Mart, the Town Hall and his own home overlooking the port, an
imposing residence known as ‘Knight’s Folly’.
He was permanently appointed Resident in July 1890. Despite his long Territory experience, his administration
was ineffectual. He was unable to rise above the petty arguments among Palmerston’s white residents and
saw former friends turn against him. He was, in any case, only in office for eighteen months before he died on
10 January 1892. His wife, who was then living in London, three sons and two daughters, survived him. His estate
was valued at 800 Pounds.
Knight was a genial man with special talents as an organiser. Probably his most important contribution to the
Territory was as an architect, with his surviving buildings in Darwin being viewed as significant components of
the Territory’s built heritage. They were also on the Commonwealth Government’s Register of the National Estate.
His Victorian friends were puzzled that he chose to ‘waste’ his abilities in remote Palmerston but he enjoyed his
role there as a powerful local figure. Despite his unhappy period as Resident, he was for most of his life very
popular among those who knew him, being described as a ‘very nice fellow, a real gentleman, and a jolly nice
chap’.
Australian Heritage Commission, The Heritage of Australia, 1981; P F Donovan, A Land Full of Possibilities: A History of South Australia’s
Northern Territory, 1981; National Trust of Australia (NT), A Walk Through Historical Darwin, nd; Northern Territory Times and Gazette,
15 January 1892; ADB, vol 5.
DAVID CARMENT, Vol 1.KNUCKEY, RICHARD RANDALL (1842–1914), grocer’s assistant, surveyor and miner, was born at
Saint Stithians, south of Redruth, Cornwall, England, on 23 October 1842, the son of Richard and Persis
Knuckey and one of their eight children. He arrived with his family in South Australia in January 1849 aboard
William Money.
Knuckey was educated at Burra and Kadina in a mining area and worked initially as a grocer’s assistant at
Kadina until he joined the Survey Department in 1866. He was mentioned as a Government Surveyor of Clare,
South Australia, in 1868 and 1869 when he joined G W Goyder’s expedition to the Northern Territory to survey
Palmerston. Knuckey was one of Goyder’s six Senior Surveyors in 1869 and made significant efforts in this major
survey task and those who contributed to it.
Following on the Palmerston (Darwin) survey and that of the Hundreds and Sections in Darwin’s hinterland
in 1869, Knuckey was given the task of contributing to Section A of the Overland Telegraph Line Survey in
1871 and 1872 in the vicinity of the South Australian border with the Northern Territory. Knuckey discovered
and named the Dalhousie Springs in this area in 1871. The completion of this work in August 1872 provided the
telegraphic link to Darwin and by cable to Java and the outside world. Knuckey then continued as Overseer of
the Overland Telegraph Construction in 1874. From Daly Waters he searched for and located William Nation,
an overlander, after Leonard Elvy, who had been travelling over from Queensland with cattle, reported Nation
missing at Daly Waters in May 1874. An excellent bushman, Knuckey set off and located the remains of Nation in
June that year and named the Nation Ranges after the deceased. The Ranges now bear the name Yiyinti. He also
applied the name Rosie Creek to an unnamed creek running into the Gulf of Carpentaria in that area after his elder
sister Rosina Richards, nee Knuckey. The finding of Nation’s last resting place was always regarded as a splendid
achievement by Knuckey in the Territory. It was an example of his skills as an excellent bushman and surveyor.
In 1876, Charles Todd selected Knuckey to oversee a further Overland Telegraph link between Port Augusta
and Eucla, a distance of 1 224 kilometres. After this work, he was appointed to the position of Inspector of Posts
and Telegraphs Service in October 1888. In 1889, he supervised for a year a telegraph line construction between
Narromine and Peak Hill in New South Wales. He then tried his fortune in the Western Australian goldfields but