Father Knox

A carte-de-visite portrait of Father Francis Knox (1822-1882), an Anglo-Irish ultramontane Roman Catholic priest and author, known for his historical writings and translations.

Born a Protestant in Ireland in 1822, he was received into the Church of Rome by Frederick William Faber in 1845. Invited to Rome by John Henry Newman, he became an Oratorian novice. The rest of his life centred on the Oratorian group in England. When the Oratorians split in 1849, Knox, together with Faber, set up the London Oratory, serving as its superior from 1865 to 1868. Appointed Westminster diocesan archivist when Cardinal Manning put the Oratorians in charge of the diocesan archives in 1876, he edited several volumes of English Catholic records.

Photographed by the Southwell Brothers.

An inked inscription verso in a period hand reads: Father Knox / Superior of the / Brompton Oratory / 1868'.