John James Knight
7 June 1863 — 24 November 1927
John James Knight (8‑33‑32)
John was born on 7 June 1863 at Shelton, Staffordshire, England. He was taken to New Zealand as a young boy. He left school at age 11 to learn printing. He returned to England where, with two others, he started the Staffordshire Knot, a paper sympathetic to the interests of trades unionism. John migrated to Queensland in 1884 and found work with the Brisbane Newspaper Co Ltd as a printer. He soon became a reporter on the Brisbane Courier and became Chief Parliamentary Reporter in the 1890's. John played a considerable part in the policy of the Labour Party in Queensland.
During the industrial turmoil of the 1890s he preferred to investigate local history. His works included In the Early Days (1895), Australian Pioneers and Reminiscences (1896) completed after the death of Nehemiah Bartley from Bartley's notes and diaries, and Brisbane: a Historical Sketch of the Capital of Queensland (1897). In 1906 John became editor of the Courier and in 1916 became managing director of the Brisbane Newspaper Co Ltd and subsequently combined that office with the position of chairman of directors. He died on 24 November 1927.
J. J. Knight - State Library of Queensland.