Michael Dahl

Edward Knatchbull was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Knatchbull, 3rd Bt., and his wife Mary, daughter of Sir Edward Dering Bt. In 1698 he married Alice, daughter of John Wyndham of Norrington in Wiltshire (see lot 117), who brought with her the substantial dowry of £6000. With the help of his father and his link to the Finch family, he was returned as M.P. for Rochester in 1702, but he did not contest the next election in 1708. It seems that his energies were taken up with Mersham le Hatch, which his father had handed over to him in 1706.

Knatchbull was returned again to parliament in 1713 as member for Kent, and during this period began to make his mark as a High Tory, in particular playing an important part in the debates regarding the Schism Bill. He was defeated in the 1715 election, the first in George I’s reign, when the Whigs gained a substantial ascendancy. In 1722 he was returned again for Kent, and it was during this period until his death that he kept a diary, which is a valuable record of parliamentary proceedings in a time when there were no official reports of debates. He is shown in this period to have been a conscientious member, and his allegiance shifted gradually to Walpole and the Whigs. This displeased the Tory voters and in 1727 he lost his seat. He wrote to Walpole appealing for his help and was given the pocket borough of Lostwithiel in Cornwall. Much of the last year of his life was taken up with a report on the conditions in prisons, a subject about which he felt strongly. He served on a committee to report on conditions in Fleet Prison, and his diary entry for 27th February 1729 contains a vivid account of his visit there.