Early that day, HMS Beagle, which was engaged on an excursion of the Australian coast, sailed into the area and anchored in Shoal Bay near Hope Inlet.

John Lort Stokes, Charles Cordington Forsyth and several other crew members left Beagle on a longboat for an excursion and passed around Lee Point, in the vicinity of which, there appeared to be a major opening.

"The sea breeze setting in early, we did not reach it till after dark, when we landed for observations at a cliffy projection near the eastern entrance point: this we found to be composed of a kind of clay, mixed with calcareous matter.

[5]The term 'Night Cliff' was thus applied to the locality, and it subsequently appeared in this form on Surveyor-General George W. Goyder's original plan of 1869.

It was known that Knight enjoyed visiting the Nightcliff environs and it is believed that he spent long periods of contemplation on the cliff tops.

As late as 1952, a former resident who had lived in Darwin between 1876 and 1926 wrote to the Northern Territory News insisting that the area was known during that period as "Knightscliff".

It is evident that many Territorians have preferred this variant form of name in deference to one of the most highly distinguished local public figures of the late nineteenth century.

The Nightcliff foreshore was the site of Royal Australian Air Force camps with spotlights and large guns used to defend Darwin from bombing during the Second World War.