Edward Knox (Australian politician)

Sir Edward Knox (6 June 1819 – 7 January 1901) was a Danish-born Australian politician.

He was born in Helsingør to merchant George Knox and Elizabeth Frances Mullens. He became a merchant, working first at Lubeck but then migrating to Sydney in 1840. He was employed by the Australian Auction Company until 1843, when he moved to the Australasian Sugar Company. On 4 June 1844 he married Martha Rutledge, with whom he had eight children. He was eventually a partner in a sugar distillery, which he leased to his employers, and in 1855 he founded the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, of which he was the first chairman. In 1856 he was appointed to the New South Wales Legislative Council, but he resigned the following year, at which time he also founded the Victoria Sugar Company. He was also a director of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney and of the Sydney Tramway and Railway Company, and later of the Sydney Exchange Company. He served again in the Legislative Council from 1882 to 1894. He received a knighthood in 1898, and died at Woollahra in 1901.^[1]

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