John Knill (1 January 1733 – 29 March 1811) was an English attorney who served as the Collector of Customs at St Ives, Cornwall, from 1762 to 1782.

[1] It was sited on the summit of Worvas Hill with views over St Ives Bay with intention that he should be interred in a vault within it; however, he was laid to rest in London.

[2] Slightly eccentric,[3]: 25  Knill left money and specific instructions in his will for a celebration to be held in St Ives every five years, which continues and was most recently observed in 2021.

[3]: 8 [b] From 1779 to 1782, Knill was involved in a search for treasure believed to have been buried by the pirate Henry Avery in the area of Lizard Point, Cornwall.

[3]: 3, 13, 22 Knill had a three-sided granite obelisk[a] built on the summit of Worvas Hill overlooking St Ives Bay.

Certainly, the parish church nearest to Knill's residence (St Ia) has, in modern times, a greatly raised churchyard partly as a result of this practice, being over seven feet (2.1 m) higher than the pavements and walkways which lead around it.

However, Knill's work and official appointments led him away from St Ives and his intended mausoleum, and his philosophical rapprochement with ecclesiastical interment may or may not have occurred.

[c] He directed that every five years, £25 should be expended, including on a dinner for St Ives officials, and that 10 young girls dressed in white should walk in procession with music, from the market house to the monument, around which the whole party was to dance.