Knowles, Joseph Newsam, Lieutenant, 1805-1835.

The collection consists of private correspondence, family papers, and some records of events during Knowles's appointments at sea, between 1826 and 1834.

Administrative / biographical background
Knowles was born in 1805, the second son of Joseph Knowles and Edna Knowles née Sykes, of Strand on the Green, Middlesex. After entering the Navy in 1824 he became a midshipman on the frigate HMS BLONDE (1819), commanded by Captain George Anson Byron, 7th Baron Byron, on a voyage to the Pacific to return the bodies of the Hawaiian monarchs who had died during a state visit to England. Knowles joined HMS FORTE (1814) on the South American station at the end of 1826 and returned to England in 1830 when the ship was paid off. He passed for lieutenant at the Royal Naval College in 1832 and was then appointed as mate of the lower deck on HMS PRINCE REGENT (1823), flagship of Rear-Admiral Sir William Parker in the English Channel. Knowles efforts to gain promotion were unsuccessful, though he did serve as acting commander of the cutter HMS SPEEDY (1828). In 1834 he became mate on the brigantine HMS BUZZARD (1834). Lieutenant Knowles died at sea in 1835, aged 29, on passage home from the west coast of Africa, where the BUZZARD had been stationed. Memorial inscriptions for Knowles and his family exist in the churchyard of St. Nicholas, Chiswick.