A brief history of Knight Frank
1896: Knight Frank & Rutley is founded as a valuations,
surveying and auctions business.
On 23 April 23 the firm holds its first sale at Conduit Street, London.
1897: Knight Frank & Rutley launches its first
international property marketing campaign, for a boarding house on the Champs
Elysees in Paris.
The first recorded business property sale is achieved in November, when Knight
Frank & Rutley sells a ‘cycle machinery and plant’ business in Battersea
for £270 11s 6d.
1898: Howard Frank, one of the founders, places the firm’s
first full-page advertisement in the August edition of Country Life.
1899: Botticelli’s ‘Virgin and Child’ is sold for £1 2s.
1903: Disaster strikes on 16 October with the Great Jewellery
Robbery. Press coverage of the event actually works to the advantage of
Knight Frank & Rutley, even though the jewels are never recovered.
1909: 20 Hanover Square is converted into auction galleries.
William Rutley, a co-founder, dies of a heart attack.
W.K. Vanderbilt, the US railroad magnate, asks Knight Frank & Rutley to
sell his 2,200 ton steam yacht Valiant for £35,000.
The Earl of Chesterfield’s Holme Lacy estate is sold by Knight Frank &
Rutley.
1910: The firm sells a Holbein portrait of King Henry VIII.
All staff move into 20 Hanover Square from Conduit Street.
1911: The Crystal Palace is sold to Lord Plymouth for
£210,000.
1912: Howard Frank buys the estate agent, Walton & Lee,
solely to secure the prime front page position in Country Life magazine.
1913: The Edinburgh office opens.
1914: World War 1 begins and many members of staff volunteer
for the armed forces, seven men subsequently being killed.
Howard Frank, the senior partner, is knighted.
1915: Cecil Chubb buys Stonehenge through Knight Frank &
Rutley for £6,600 as a present for his wife. She gives it to the nation
three years later.
1917: Howard Frank is made Director General of the combined
Directorate of Lands.
1918: The war ends.
1920: Sir Howard Frank is made a baronet
The Government asks Knight Frank & Rutley to value many square miles of the
forest in Poland for War Indemnity Payments.
1921: The town of Reigate is sold by Knight Frank & Rutley
for £203,840 – the first time the firm has disposed of an entire town.
1922: The firm handles the sale of Winston Churchill’s house
and sells Chartwell to him.
1924: The Duke of Westminster sells Grosvenor House in Park
Lane through Knight Frank & Rutley.
1925: Knight Frank & Rutley buys 40 acres north of Oxford
Street for the Audley Trust.
The house that Charles Dickens lived in while writing the novel Great
Expectations at Gladshill Place in Kent is sold for £4,660.
1927: The firm advises on the site assembly for the BBC’s
world famous headquarters, Broadcasting House in London.
1931: John Knight, a co-founder, dies.
1932: Sir Howard Frank dies.
1935: The contents of the Cunard Liner, Olympia, are sold.
1937: Most of the town of Lytham St Anne’s in Lancashire is
sold – including the celebrated golf course.
1939: World War 2 begins.
1945: Knight Frank & Rutley sells the contents of the
German Embassy, including 20 Nazi flags, 17 safes and a dog basket.
1955: The firm opens an office in Hereford.
1958: Knight Frank & Rutley acquires offices in London’s
Chiswell Street for BP – at the time, the UK’s largest-ever property
transaction.
1964: The firm opens an office in Geneva as a gateway to
Europe.
1965: Knight Frank & Rutley is established in Nigeria.
1968: The firm acquires Wheatley, Kirk, Price and Co.
1970: The auction side of the business closes.
1972: The Geneva office closes in favour of new offices in
Amsterdam and Paris.
1974: Knight Frank & Rutley moves London’s Covent Garden
Market to Nine Elms.
Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire, dating back to 1132, is sold for £1 million.
1978: Mr Square Footage, the cartoon character was launched as
a TV commercial to show the wide variety of services offered by Knight Frank
& Rutley. This coincides with the launch of the Mr Men children’s
cartoon, and is very successful.
1979: Knight Frank & Rutley sets up a New York office
through a joint venture with Douglas Elliman.
1980: BP’s purchase of Britannic House for £93 million becomes
the UK’s biggest single property deal ever.
A Japanese department is opened in Birchin Lane.
The firm forms a new partnership in Zimbabwe to take over the Sagit business.
1981: In New York, Douglas Elliman Knight Frank sells
Pan-American World Airways Intercontinental Hotels Corporation to Grand
Metropolitan for $500 million.
1983: The Leeds office opens.
Knight Frank & Rutley joins with a leading Hong Kong surveyor to form
Knight Frank Kan and Baillieu.
The Singapore office is established.
1984: The firm buys additional premises at 5 Hanover Square to
accommodate the growing number of London headquarters staff - 53 partners and 5
associates.
1986: Qantas Centre, Sydney, is sold for $200 million, becoming
Australia’s largest single biggest property sale.
Residential Development division is set up at the London Docklands office.
1995: Knight Frank & Rutley is commended for the structural
repair and restoration of its 18th century headquarters building at 20 Hanover
Square, London.
1996: On 1 January, ‘Rutley’ is dropped from the Knight Frank
name, to strengthen a cohesive world-wide identity as part of a plan to expand
international market share.
1997: Luton Hoo, one of England’s finest stately homes, is
placed on the market by Knight Frank at £25 million.
2000: Knight Frank sells the Duke of York’s Headquarters in
Chelsea, London, on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.
The firm increases its stake in the Australian business to 100%.
2003: Knight Frank becomes a Limited Liability Partnership
(LLP).
A strategic alliance is formed with leading Irish property consultants,
Hamilton Osborne King.
2004: Knight Frank is ranked as one of The Times 100 Best UK
Companies to Work For.
2005: Easton Neston, Northamptonshire, one of England’s
greatest country estates, is sold by Knight Frank.
The firm is appointed to advise on the development of London’s new Olympic
Village, ready for the 2012 Games.
2006: With effect from 1 January, Knight Frank establishes a
global real estate partnership with leading New York-based real estate service
firm Newmark Knight Frank, formerly Newmark. Hong Kong based agency Chesterton
Petty merges with Knight Frank to form Knight Frank Petty. Knight Frank
expands to more than 165 offices in over 36 countries on six continents, with
5,300 locally-based professional staff handling around $41 billion worth of
real estate annually.
2007: Knight Frank acquires one of Ireland's leading commercial and residential property consultancies: Dublin based Ganly Walters Ltd. Increases equity to 100% in Indian operations which now total five offices and 650 people. Knight Frank expands to more than 165 offices in over 36 countries on six countries, with over 5,000 locally-based professional staff handling £billions of real estate annually.
2008: Knight Frank will leave Hanover Square, its home since 1910, and move in early 2008 to its new Global HQ in the landmark building at 55 Baker Street, London W1. It will be relocating more than 850 of its Head Office staff, combining its commercial and residential teams over three predominantly open plan floorplates totalling 100,000 sq ft.
back to the top