Arnold James Knight was born on the 17th May 1789, the youngest of three sons and seven daughters born to Alexander and Catherine Knight of Sixhills Grange, Market Rasen, Lincolnshire. The Knight family were Catholics and traced their origins to the fifteenth Century. As a child, Arnold Knight was taught by the Rev. James Simkiss, a man of profound learning and scientific knowledge, and aged 10 he was sent to Baddesley Green Academy, Edgbaston, to be taught by the Franciscan Monks. At 16, he went to St Mary's College, Oscott, Birmingham to ‘improve his Latin and Greek’. Oscott College today is a seminary in the Archdiocese of Birmingham but then it was also a lay school where the notable Catholic families sent their sons to be educated. At Oscott, his piety and academic ability so impressed his teachers that they hoped he would study for the priesthood but he decided to study medicine.
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