Birthday profile

Ronald Knox

Ronald Knox, English Catholic priest (died 1957)

Born
February 17, 1888
Died
August 24, 1957
Zodiac sign
Aquarius
Birth year
1888

About Ronald Knox

Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (17 February 1888 – 24 August 1957) was an English Catholic priest, theologian, author, and radio broadcaster. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a high reputation as a classicist, Knox was ordained as a priest of the Church of England in 1912. He was a fellow and chaplain of Trinity College, Oxford until he resigned from those positions following his conversion to Catholicism in 1917. Knox became a Catholic priest in 1918, continuing in that capacity his scholarly and literary work. Knox served as Catholic chaplain at the University of Oxford from 1926 to 1939. He completed the "Knox Bible", a new English translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible that was used in Catholic services during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1951, Pope Pius XII appointed Knox protonotary apostolic ad instar, which entitled Knox to the honorific "monsignor". Knox published extensively on religious, philosophical, and literary subjects. He also produced several popular works of detective fiction, such as The Viaduct Murder (1925) and The Three Taps (1927). He is remembered for his "Ten Commandments" for detective stories, which sought to codify a form of crime fiction in which the reader may participate by attempting to find a solution to the mystery before the fictional detective reveals it. Ronald's maternal grandfather was Valpy French, the first Anglican Bishop of Lahore in what was then part of the British Raj. In 1904 Ronald proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford as the first classics scholar. Edmund Arbuthnott Knox, who later became Bishop of Manchester in the Church of England and who was related to the 8th Viscount of Arbuthnott.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Ronald Knox timeline

  1. In 1904 Ronald proceeded to Balliol College, Oxford as the first classics scholar.
  2. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a high reputation as a classicist, Knox was ordained as a priest of the Church of England in 1912.
  3. Knox became a Catholic priest in 1918, continuing in that capacity his scholarly and literary work.

The world when Ronald Knox was born

Ronald Knox was born in 1888. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineGreat Blizzard of 1888 paralyzes US East Coast
  • Technology milestoneKodak box camera — "You press the button, we do the rest"
  • Defining fadKodak camera craze
  • World population~1.48B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderGrover Cleveland
  • U.S. population57.6M

1888 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Ronald Knox's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18882026
Population57.6M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.