Knighton Road, St Judes, would appear to take its name from a twenty-year-old doctor who settled in practice, in Devonport in 1796 with one of the surgeons at the Royal Naval Hospital, Dr Geach. Geach procured for Knighton the post of Assistant Surgeon at the Hospital.
Knighton had trained at Guy’s Hospital, London and gained his medical qualifications from St Andrew’s University in 1800 and Aberdeen in 1806 having arrived with testimonials from a doctor in Falmouth and a Dr Aimsworth in Devon. Later he settled in London, where he was befriended by the Duke of Wellington who subsequently took Knighton to Spain as his personal medical attendant.
It was through the Duke that Knighton obtained the post of physician to George IV. A friendship developed between the two men and the King made Knighton a baronet in 1812. Ten years later he gave up medicine to become full time Keeper of the King’s Privy Purse. After the George’s death in 1830, it was Knighton who wound up the king’s complicated affairs. Knighton himself died six years later, aged 60.
