William Manning

London West India merchant and consignee and MP, a key figure in the slave-economy of the Leewards and Windwards as owner, mortgagee-in-possession or lessee of some twenty estates. The failure of his business in 1831 shook the City, where Smith, Payne & Smith were significantly exposed to his firm of Manning & Anderdon.

1. Son of William Coventry Manning (q.v. under William Mannining senior), West India merchant and planter of St Kitts, of 15 St. Mary Axe, London and Elizabeth, daughter and heir of John Ryan, planter of St. Kitts and Santa Cruz. William junior joined his father's firm and took over in 1791. Also inherited two-thirds of the Ryan estates on Santa Cruz from his mother, and purchased the remaining third. Leading advocate for the West India interest in the House of Commons. He was, among other things, the recipient of Anon., A statement of the claims of the West India colonies to a protecting duty against East India sugar, dedicated to William Manning, Esq., MP (London, 1823). Member of the West India Committee and the 'Committee of April 25, 1823' formed to press the government for ameliorationist measures for the Crown colonies and to resist moves towards emancipation. Elected to a directorship of the Bank of England in 1792 [in fact 1790] and member of the court until 1831. Deputy governor (1810–12); governor (1812–14). 1793: became a commissioner of exchequer bills. Agent for St Vincent 1792-1806; agent for Grenada 1825-1831. Deputy governor of the Australian Agricultural Association in 1826. Member of a syndicate of leading merchants who lobbied Huskisson for exclusive trading rights with New Zealand, c. 1826. Volunteer in London and Westminster light horse, 1797; Bank of England Volunteers, 1798 (Lieutenant-colonel, 1803). Manning in economic difficulties in the 1820s; 1831: bankrupt. Resigned from the Bank of England, sold his estate, withdrew from business and public life. Sustained by his friends buying a life interest in his wife's marriage settlement, and subscribed to an income for him. Moved to the 'shabby gentility of Gower Street and a cottage near Petworth' (Daunton). Died at Gower Street on 17 April 1835 (with his bankruptcy probably undischarged). Buried at Sundridge, Kent. His children included Henry Edward Manning (1808–1892), Roman Catholic convert and Archbishop of Westminster (1865-1892) and Cardinal (1875-1892), Frederick Manning (q.v.) and Charles John Manning (q.v.).

T71/879 St Kitts claim no. 746 (Estridge).

1. D. R. Fisher (ed.), The House of Commons 1820-1832 (7 vols., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press for the History of Parliament Trust, 2009), vol. 6; Martin Daunton, ‘Manning, William (1763–1835)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004); online edn, Oct 2007 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/47808, accessed 13/08/2012]; Alexandra Franklin, Enterprise and advantage: The West India interest in Britain, 1774-1840 (University of Pennsylvania, Unpub. PhD, 1992), p. 214 citing West India Committee Minute Books, 25 April 1823. Two portraits of Manning are in the National Portrait Gallery, http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw120722/William-Manning?LinkID=mp85449&search=sas&sText=william+manning&role=sit&rNo=0 [accessed 16/12/2015].