Edward William ‘Ned’ Knox (1847–1933) was the second eldest son of Sir Edward Knox (1819–1901), the founder of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, and his wife, Martha (née Rutledge, d. 1903). Educated at Sydney Grammar, Ned eschewed a university education and joined his father’s business in 1864. He became general manager of CSR in 1880, and in 1920 its chairman and managing director. Among his other commitments, he was on the Woollahra Municipal Council, the Board of Health, and the board of the National Art Gallery of New South Wales; he was President of the Union Club from 1908 to 1921. His house, Rona, in Bellevue Hill was completed in 1883. That year he became Commodore of the Sydney Yacht Squadron, from which he sailed his famous cutter Sirocco. His younger brother, Thomas Forster Knox (1849–1919) also went into business and became prominent in the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. Thomas also became a manager of Dalgety & Co, a large and extraordinarily successful joint-stock enterprise established in 1884 and encompassing interests in wool, stock, land and shipping. Ned and Thomas’s other two brothers, George (1845–1888) and Adrian (1863–1932) followed careers in law, with Adrian serving as Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia from 1919 to 1930.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Peter Halliday in memory of Norah Knox 2010
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