Description

Extended Data

Birth Place

England, UK

Biography

sketcher and surveyor, son of Joseph and Mary A. Knapp, was born in England where he received a military education. Intended for Addiscombe, he enrolled instead as a cadet with the East India Company. At the age of 17 he migrated to Australia, arriving at Sydney on 18 March 1826 in the Sesostris , having come out with the ship’s surgeon Dr Dulhunty who had charge of his business affairs (and whose negligence, Knapp later claimed, deprived him of a large percentage of his capital and the possibility of a land grant). In September 1826 Knapp was employed as a government assistant-surveyor but was dismissed in 1830 following complaints of idleness from the irascible Surveyor-General Thomas Mitchell , who wrote: 'I am convinced that further trouble with this young man would be useless, and whether he remains a dead weight in the Department or not, I despair of ever advancing the Survey of the Colony by his assistance’. The botanist and explorer Alan Cunningham, on the other hand, regarded Knapp as 'an esteemed friend’ and named Knapp’s Peak, Moreton Bay (Qld) after him. After his dismissal Knapp went into private land surveying practice with Edward Hallen. The partnership was dissolved in June 1833 and he continued successfully on his own, being said to have surveyed all of W.C. Wentworth’s properties as well as Alexander Macleay’s Elizabeth Bay estate when it was being sold up in July 1841. He also advertised 'designs made in landscape gardening for the improvement of estates’. In the 1850s he was involved in a scheme for a 'Floating Bridge’ between Miller’s Point and Balmain (a sort of large ferry capable of transporting animals and carriages across Sydney Harbour). Three extant lithographed plans of the site and details of the bridge (Mitchell Library (ML)) are signed by him, although not necessarily as either its designer or artist. Said to have been 'a crack shot, an excellent horseman, and a born bushman’, Knapp became something of a hero in the Bathurst district in 1830 when he led a party which captured 10 members of a gang of bushrangers. He was also a competent sketcher. Some of his drawings sent home from Sydney are in an album formerly owned by a member of the English branch of the family (ML). They include natural history subjects, a pencil view of Sydney Harbour and one of the eponymous Mount Knapp (1846), as well as pencil and ink portraits taken in 1853 of three of his children: Fanny Mary Ann, a namesake son and a sleeping Kate Laura Louisa. A drawing-book copy of Carisbrook Castle by Fanny, dated 1854, has been pasted onto the same page. Married to Rosina Aaron in 1841, Knapp stated in 1865 that they had five children then living but had 'lost four’. The family was living at Braidwood, NSW, when Knapp died in 1875. Writers: Staff Writer Date written: 1992 Last updated: 2011

Born

b. c.1809

Summary

A surveyor and sketcher Knapp was known as 'a crack shot, an excellent horseman, and a born bushman'. His work is held in the Mitchell Library and include natural history subjects, landscapes and drawings of his children.

Gender

Male

Died

1875

Age at death

66