O. le M. Knight
O le M Knight (top right) and family.
Oscar Le Maistre Knight was a geologist, palaeontologist, surveyor and writer. He was born on 4 March 1888 in Edmonton, Middlesex, England to John and Harriet. He was married to Elizabeth Gerrard in 1919, they had two children together.
Knight’s work as a surveyor for the New South Wales government in the early part of the 20th century provides valuable information about Lightning Ridge and the first recorded mining activities.
Map notes based on survey conducted by government surveyor O. le M. Knight, published 1953, Australian Museum Magazine, vol. XI, no 3, later published in The Occurrence of Opal at Lightning Ridge and Grawin, with Geological Notes on County Finch, Whiting & Relph, 1958.
Knight’s field map, published in Whiting & Relph’s government publication The Occurrence of Opal at Lightning Ridge and Grawin, with Geological Notes on County Finch (1958), (and Australian Museum Magazine a few years earlier), is the earliest written record of the date and location of Charlie Nettleton’s first mine shaft.
Knight also wrote extensively about Lightning Ridge for Australian Museum Magazine. Writing from experience during his visits, he described The Ridge and surrounding fields in great detail, including the layout of the Three Mile, Four Mile and Coocoran opal fields as well as the huts, dumps and mining techniques used.
O le M Knight in a mine on the Four Mile.
Knight was a keen geologist and palaeontologist. His fossil finds are acknowledged in Upper Permian Homoptera from New South Wales (1943) and A New Fossil Homopteron from Kimbles Hill, Belmont (Upper Permian) (1947) by J. W. Evans. Knight himself authored Fossil insect beds of Belmont, N.S.W. (1950), and fossil-related cartographic material in Permian Fossil Insect Horizon Belmont—Warner’s Bay (1950).
Knight passed away on 19 December 1961 in Chatswood, Sydney and is buried at Rookwood Necropolis.
Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. Sources: ‘Rare Gem Found Near Broken Hill’, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 August 1953, p. 2; ‘Lightning Ridge’, O. le M. Knight, Australian Museum Magazine, 15 September 1953, pp. 84-89; Journal and proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 1955-1956; Australian Natural History, Australian Museum, 15 June 1962, vol XIV, no. 2, p. 46.