Circa 1864 44 Rawson Street This Victorian cottage was the home of John Benn, first of a long line of Benn family members who served as pilots, prior to his moving to the Pilot‘s house at the Knysna Heads on his appointment as coxswain and pilot in 1868. This house stands on land originally part of “The Admiralty erven” ceded by George Rex to the British Navy, who it turn exchanged it with the Colonial Government for land and a jetty in Simon’s Town, from whom John Benn bought the land in 1864. John Benn served his apprenticeship as a shipwright in the Royal Navy and arrived in Knysna in 1855 to salvage the wrecked schooner Musquash. He built the brig Rover and the schooner Annie Benn in Knysna.