[3] On 17 October 1895, with his assistant James Pullinger, they drove through Farnham, Surrey,[3] whereupon he was prosecuted for using a locomotive with neither a licence nor a man walking in front with a red flag.

Knight was a founder member of the Automobile Association and politically active in the repeal of the Red Flag Act, he was also a pioneer of colour photography, plus writing various factual and practical books.

[4][9] Britain's First Motoring Summons sent to James Pullinger on 23 October 1895, stated: "Information has been laid this day by William Harrington Buyans a Police Officer for that you on the seventeenth day of October one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five at Farnham in the County aforesaid, then being in charge of a locomotive did cause the same to pass on a certain highway there situate called Castle Street, between the hours of ten o'clock in the forenoon and six o'clock in the afternoon, to wit at thirty minutes past three in the afternoon of the same day in contravention of a certain Bye Law duly made pursuant to the Highways and Locomotives Act 1848 by the Quarter Sessions of the Peace of the said County, contrary to the statute in such case made and provided.

You are therefore hereby summoned to appear before the Court of Summary Jurisdiction, sitting at the Town Hall, Farnham, on Thursday, the 31st day of October, 1895, at the hour of twelve at noon, to answer to the said information."

[4][10] Sources such as British Local History state that: The car was designed very much as an experiment in order to attract police attention and therefore create public awareness of the many restrictions which prevented the use of motor carriages in Britain at that time.

A rival designer, Frank Proctor, stated in an 1890 edition of the weekly magazine "Engineering" that "Mr Knight has undoubtedly earned the distinction of being one of the early pioneers in the system of steam digging".

He had begun developing his first digging machine in 1872, specifically for working in hopfields, which are difficult to cultivate due to the incidence of the hop poles which support the strings up which the plants climb.

It says John Henry Knight's car, one of Britain's earliest petrol driven vehicles, was built here by George Parfitt at the Elliot Reliance Works.