Quotes:Manning, Thomas

Zirkoff, Boris

Manning, Thomas. English traveller, b. at Broome, Norfolk, Nov. 8, 1772; d. at Bath, May 2, 1840. Educated at his father’s rectory and Caius College, Cambridge, where he remained to study mathematics and engage in tutoring. Interested in the Chinese language, he went to Paris, 1800, to study it. Returning to England, he perfected himself in medicine and went to Canton as a doctor, reaching there in 1807. In 1810, after a brief stay at Calcutta, and without any aid from the Government, he proceeded, with a single Chinese servant, to Rangpur on a journey to Lhasa. From Parijong he travelled as a medical man with a company of troops, and in 657 December, 1811, became the first, and for many years the sole, Englishman to enter the holy city. He remained there for some months, but under peremptory orders from Peking was sent back to India, leaving Lhasa April 19, 1812, and arriving at Calcutta in the ensuing Summer. A long narrative of this journey which he wrote to Dr. Marshman was lost, but his notes in a notebook were printed by C. R. Markham in 1876 (Vide under Bogle in the present Appendix). After some diplomatic activities in Canton and Peking, he started homeward in February, 1817, but the ship was wrecked and the passengers were taken to St. Helena where Manning visited with Napoleon, reminding him of the passport which he had personally granted him in 1803 to return from France to England. The rest of his life was spent in retirement among his Chinese books. He was master of the classical Chinese literature and was considered the first Chinese scholar in Europe. A brilliant conversationalist, rather eccentric in dress and manner, Manning wrote several books on mathematics and was familiar with some fifteen languages. His MSS. and printed books were given to the Royal Asiatic Society. (Cf. Dict. of National Biography.)

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 4, pp. 656-657