Ronald Knox

KNOX, Ronald Arbuthnott. b. Kibworth, Leicestershire, 17 February 1888; d. Mells, Somerset, 24 August 1957. The son of an evangelical Anglican clergyman who later became Bishop of Manchester, Knox was descended on his mother’s side from the missionary bishop Thomas Valpy French (see ‘Hills of the North, rejoice’*). He was educated at Eton (where he was taught by Cyril Argentine Alington*) and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a brilliant undergraduate. He won various prizes (Hertford 1907, Ireland 1908, Craven, 1908), and was President of the Union. He became a Fellow of Trinity College, and was ordained as a priest in 1912. At this time he was a committed Anglo-Catholic; in 1917 he was...