It is said that the Irish Tenant Right cause was, for a time, able to unite people both North and South in a way that has not been seen since. The campaign, with a cause known as the three Fs – “fair rent, fixity of tenure and free sale” had no greater champion than Dr James McKnight LL.D
The son of John McKnight, a small holding farmer, Dr McKnight was born 28th February 1801 in Rathfriland. Although he would make reference to his mother in his letters, it is unclear as to her name, and he had at least three sisters called Hannah, Agnes and Elizabeth McKnight.
Usually you might expect the son of a farmer to follow in his father’s footsteps but this was not to be. James was educated at the school of a Mr Henderson (Newry) before attending Belfast Academical Institution with the intention of becoming a minister. To help fund his education the young student became deputy librarian of the Linen Hall Library (1826-1827), and during this time James began sending in contributions to the Belfast Newsletter which soon attracted the attention of the editor and he was offered a position on their staff. His position as a journalist was used to the benefit of the Irish Tenant Right cause and he became known as a prolific letter writer, eventually being appointed editor of the Newsletter. In 1845 he took up a position with the Londonderry Standard and it was at this time he received an honorary doctorate of law from the University of Aberdeen. Two years later he became the editor of the Banner of Ulster but would return to the Standard in 1853 as editor, a position he would hold for the next 23 years.
In 1847, along with William Sharman Crawford MP, he founded a Tenant Right Association in Londonderry/Derry and published his pamphlet The Ulster Tenants Claim of Right the following year. His campaigning would bring him into contact with Charles Gavan Duffy, Viscount Palmerston and William Gladstone who is said to have consulted McKnight privately regarding the 1870 Land Act. McKnight believed that having a non-partisan focus was important to the Tenant Right League’s success and for a time during the 1850s there was a degree of unity, however by the 1860s, political differences finally boiled over and the League broke into various factions.
In April 1876 McKnight was forced to give up the editors’ pen which he had wielded so effectively for 23years due to ill health. Two months later on 8th June 1876, Dr McKnight passed away aged 75, said to be suffering from a mysterious malady of the brain.
