William Stanley Macbean Knight (14 October 1869 – 21 March 1950) was a barrister and politician.
Born in Marylebone, he was the son of William Richard Irwin Knight.
He studied at the University of Oxford before being admitted a solicitor in 1893 and becoming a tutor at New College Oxford. While he was at Oxford he was ordained as a bishop in the Evangelical Catholic Church, a religious denomination originating in East India. However, he was expelled from the church two years later.[1] He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1899.
From 1906-17 he was an alderman on St Pancras Borough Council, and in 1907 was elected to the London County Council as a Municipal Reform Party councillor representing Tower Hamlets, Bow and Bromley. He did not defend his county council seat at the next election in 1910, and it was won by the Progressive Party. He was Conservative Party prospective parliamentary candidate for Tower Hamlets, Poplar for a number of years prior to 1909.
In 1910 he left the Conservative and Municipal Reform parties and joined the Liberal Party, serving as chairman of the East St Pancras Liberal Association from 1910-16. From 1908-10 he was a member of the Central Unemployed Body for London.
Author of a number of books, details of which can be found here [1].
He died aged 80, while visiting his son in Sussex, and was buried in Littlehampton Cemetery.
References
- "Obituary: Mr W. S. M. Knight". The Times: p. 7. 27 March 1950.
- ↑ Members of the San Luigi Orders: The Revd. James Yorke Batley. Abbey-Principality of San Luigi.