Dorothea Knighton

Knighton was born in 1780, the youngest of five daughters of Dorothy (née Hill) and Captain James Hawker RN.

[3] She married William Knighton, then a physician, at the church of Charles the Martyr Plymouth on 4 August 1800.

She who was "accomplished and well-educated", "had travelled in Europe without Knighton" and was described by her husband's friends as "a woman of intelligence and integrity.

There they leased 9 Hanover Square in 1807, which had previously been owned by Dr Robert Halifax, a physician to George, Prince of Wales.

[10] The family acquired Sherwood Lodge, which was "a villa on the banks of the Thames at Battersea set in six acres of pleasure grounds."

[13] Her sister Jane had married Captain Sir Michael Seymour in 1798 and then lived at nearby Blendworth House.

After his death Knighton edited his journals and correspondence and "limited her contribution to family and personal details with no comment on the events in which her husband was involved."

"[19] She edited entries in the diary to protect the privacy of friends and family[20] and to preserve the confidentiality that Knighton had exercised throughout his life.

"[21] The publication of the Memoirs was "allegedly awaited with a mixture of apprenshension and relish but, as one reviewer observed, the good feeling of Knighton's family prevented it from containing the information that people most wanted to read."

"She exhibited in early life considerable talent in the execution of works, representing the beauty of Devonshire scenery, and a ready hand for grouping figures in genre compositions.