Robert Knight, 1st Earl of Catherlough

Robert Knight, 1st Earl of Catherlough, KB, (1702–1772), was a British Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby (1734–41, 1762–68), Castle Rising, Norfolk (1747–54) and Milborne Port, Somerset (1770–72). He became successively Baron Luxborough (1745), Viscount Barrells and Earl of Catherlough (both 1763), all titles within the peerage of Ireland. His wife, Henrietta Lady Luxborough, later became well known as a lady of letters, poet and pioneering landscape gardener.

The 1st Earl was born 17 December 1702, the only son by his 1st wife, Martha Powell (1681–1718), of Robert Knight (1675–11/1744) who became notorious as the cashier of the South Sea Company partly responsible for the "South Sea Bubble", who absconded to France with a fortune and set up as a banker in Paris. He built Luxborough House in Chigwell, Essex, on the manor of Luxborough which he had purchased. His estates were seized by the South Sea Company, which sold Luxborough to Sir Joseph Eyles (d.1740), Alderman & Sheriff of the City of London & MP for Devizes (1724–5) & Southwark (1727–30). His only other child was a daughter, Margaretta (d. 1 May 1739) who married 28 February 1731 Hon. Morgan Vane, son of 2nd Baron Barnard of Barnard Castle, Durham. His funerary monument, a free-standing urn on a pedestal, can be seen in St Peter's Church, Wootton Wawen, Warwickshire.

He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 22 June 1719. He entered the Inner Temple in 1719.

He was with his father on his flight to Brabant in February 1721. On 10 June 1727, following his return to England, he married Henrietta St John (15 July 1699 – 26 March 1756), daughter of Henry St John, 1st Viscount St John, of Lydiard Park, Swindon, by his second wife Angelica Pelissary, daughter of Georges Pelissary, treasurer of the navy to King Louis XIV. Henrietta was thus half-sister of the highly influential Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, the son of her father's first marriage.

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