1803 - was sent to Dr Nicholas's school in Ealing. 1805 - left school to become his father's apprentice, and spent the next three years learning the print trade. 1810 - founded an unsuccessful reading club for young men in Windsor. 1812 - at the completion of his apprenticeship his interests were directed away from his father's business to the expanding press industry and, subsequently, became the joint proprietor with his father and the sole editor of the Windsor and Eton Express, the borough's first newspaper. 1813 - published Arminius, a play. 1818 - appointed as an overseer of the poor. 1819 - denounced cheap publications as irreligious and anti-government, and calling for the provision of more ‘healthful’ literature. 1820 - started publication of a monthly serial entitled the Plain Englishman. 1823 - published Knight's Quarterly Magazine. 1827 - acted as reader and superintendent for the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK). 1828 - undertook a tour of the midlands industrial towns to organize local committees for the SDUK. 1832 - began publication of the Penny Magazine, aimed primarily at a working-class readership and serving up a wholesome diet of informative articles on art, literature, natural history, science, history, and biography (but not politics or religion). 1834 - became an early member of the Reform Club. 1837 - played a part in the establishment of the penny post. 1850 - was publisher to the General Board of Health. 1855 - acted as a juror at the Paris Universal Exhibition.