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BY the death of Herbert Wheatley Knocker our Society
has lost a noted figure and many of its members an old friend. Perhaps
his most outstanding characteristic was his habit of giving of his very
best to the task at hand, especially if that task was for the good of
someone else. Only those who, like the writer, met him in that capacity
can realize how much time and thought Captain Knocker devoted to his men
in the First World War. Only those who served with him on countless
masonic, parochial, and, I believe, diocesan committees are fully aware
of his extreme conscientiousness. Of his professional work as a
solicitor it is needless to speak except to emphasize that side of it
which dealt with Manors. On these—their courts, their history and
procedure—he was one of our very few authorities. He was Steward of
many local manors and a great collector of records of others. These he
studied with great care and one can but regret that he published
comparatively little compared with his great knowledge. It was by way of
manorial courts and questions that he came to be an authority upon our
local and county history, including also the history of Croydon where he
lived for a short time. His knowledge was always at the service of
others and he was a moving spirit in the Manorial Society. |
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But none of these things conveys the
picture that some of us liked best. Herbert Knocker was surely happiest
upon those few occasions when he was able to put into dramatic form his
knowledge of past history. On one occasion he held a manor court, in the
costume of Elizabethan days, for the delight of the British Record
Association. This required much rehearsal but was a great success and
the device of a great teacher. Less elaborate but even more attractive
were those lectures which were almost, or wholly, acting. I remember one
about the Rye road, the road by which fish was brought to the city of
London. The exact details have been forgotten but the lights were low
upon the platform and in the hall. Knocker sat alone. I think he must
have used some cloak or hat to heighten the illusion. He became the very
traveller on that road as he detailed the incidents which happened in
our own countryside. The audience was spellbound—a word which justly
describes the effect he produced on these too rare occasions. Much else
might be said of his work but I believe that he would rather be thus
remembered than that one should speak of him as merely a learned man. He
was very much more than that.
G.W. |