Rev. Owen Manning B.D., F.R.S., F.S.A.

  Notes:

There are a group of Manning children (one named as John - rest 2 sons and 4 dau) all shown in an ancestry file on familysearch as born in Great Milton, Oxon with parents of Owen Manning and mother Catherine Peacock. However they all born around 1781 to 1779, which doesn't tie in with 1755 marriage?

The Correspondence of Edward Lye ; "Owen Manning was born at Orlingbury, Northamptonshire, where Lye had served briefly as a curate in 1719. His sister, Eleanor, was married to George Maule, rector of Castle Ashby (1740-74), and it is likely that Lye had a long acquaintance with the Manning family. Owen Manning was educated at Huntingdon Grammar School and Queen's College Cambridge and from 1742 to ......"

VENN: Adm. pens. at QUEENS', Mar. 29, 1737. S. of Owen, of Orlingbury, Northants. B. there, 1721. ' Matric. 1737; B.A. 1740-1; M.A. 1744; B.D. 1753. Fellow, 1742-55. Ord. deacon (Lincoln) Sept. 25, 1743; priest (York) Sept. 21, 1746. R. of St Botolph, Cambridge, 1749-60. Preb. of Lincoln, 1757-1801. R. of Chiddingfold, Surrey, 1760-8. R. of Godalming, 1763-1801. F.R.S., 1767. F.S.A., 1770. Author, History of Surrey, etc. Died Sept. 9, 1801. (D.N.B.) "An ingenious man; a warm petitioner against the Articles and Liturgy" (Cole, 5876, 50).
SEE OXFORD DNB.

BUT despite the above and below references to Owen the Oxford Dictionary of National Biog says "Manning, Owen (1721-1801), county historian and old English scholar, was the younger son of JOSEPH Manning (1688-1773?) and Mary Manning of Orlingbury. Also on National Archives it says he is the son OR Grandson of Owen.


Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century; by John Nichols, Samuel Bentley; contains;
"The Rev. Owen Manning was the son of Mr. Owen Manning of Orlingbury in Northamptonshire", there is then a footnote (see under father) and it continues "... and was educated at Queen's College, Cambridge; B.A. 1740; M.A. 1744, B.D. 1753. Whilst a student there, he fell sick of the small pox, and was supposed to have died of it. The body was actually laid out for interment, when his father (and, if we mistake not, his fellow student Daniel Wright, Esq. who continued a member of that house to his death) came into the room, and looking steadfastly on his countenance, thought they perceived signs of life. Proper means for recovery were used with success ; the young man was restored to animation, and survived at least 6o years.
Dr Thomas, Bishop of Lincoln, to whom he was Chaplain, gave him the prebend of Milton Ecclesia, in the Church of Lincoln, consisting of the impropriation and advowson of the Church of Milton, in the County of Oxford. In 1763 he was presented by Dr.Green, Dean of Salisbury, to the vicarage of Godalming in Surrey and instituted Dec 22 he preferring the situation to that of St.Nicholas in Guildford (though a better living), which was offered to him by the same Patron. There he resided, highly respected, till the time of his death, beloved and respected by his parishioners, and discharging his professional duty in the most punctual and conscientious manner. In 1769 he was presented to the Rectory of Peperharrow, an adjoining parish, by the present Viscount Midleton, then a minor, and instituted Dec 12, in the same year. He was elected F.R.S. 1767 and F.S.A. 1770.
To the sincere regret of his parishioners, and of all who knew him, Mr.Manning died, Sept 9, 1801, after a short attack of pleurisy, having entered his 81st year. By Catherine, his wife, daughter of Mr.Reade Peacock, a quaker, mercer of Huntingdon, he had three sons and five daughters, all of whom survived him, except George-Owen, his eldest son, B.A. of the same college, 1778, who died 17__; and one of the daughters, who died young just after he went to Godalming.
To the literary part of his own country, Mr.Manning performed a most acceptable task, in taking up, and by unwearied application completing, the Saxon Dictionary begun by his friend the Rev.Edward Lye.
The Will of King Alfred, from the original in Mr.Astle's library, most happily illustrated by Mr.Manning, was conducted through the Oxford press by the Rev. Herbert Croft (now Rev Sir Herbert Croft, Bart) in 1788.
The only other publications of Mr. Manning were;
1.Discretion, in Matters pertaining to Religion, recommended, in a Sermon preached at the primary visitation of the Hon. and Rev. father in God, Brownlow (North) Lord Bishop of Winchester, May 9, 1788 and published by his Lordship's request.
2.Two sermons on the Scriptual Doctrines of Election and Justification, preached in one of the parish churchs ........
But, from his first settlement in Surrey, he had employed himself in collecting materials for a History and Antiquities of that County ; and, by the support of men of the first talents in such departments, possessed himself a mass of information which falls to the lot of few persons engaged in such pursuits. His comprehensive mind and exquisite penmanship brought them to a perfection which justly made all the lovers of our national antiquities deeply regret that his modesty could never be persuaded to think them sufficiently complete for publication ".
It then goes on about the publication or not of a history of Surrey and mentions a marble tablet to his memory in the church.

Surrey History Centre, Woking;
OWEN MANNING (1721-1801), VICAR OF GODALMING AND HISTORIAN OF SURREY: MANUSCRIPT HISTORY OF SURREY WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES AND PAPERS BY WILLIAM BRAY OF SHERE (1736-1832), c.1770-c.1803
Provenance
Presented to Surrey Archæological Society by Dr Eric Gardner MB, FSA, of Portmore House, Weybridge, in May 1945 and deposited by Surrey Archæological Society in April 1985.
INTRODUCTION
Owen Manning was born in 1721 in Orlingbury, Northamptonshire, and educated at Queen's College Cambridge. He was ordained in 1743 and strongly supported religious and civil liberty. Throughout his life he studied the Anglo-Saxon language and manuscripts. He was the first to publish the vernacular text of the will of King Alfred which formed part of the Liber Vitæ of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester.
After spending eight years in the diocese of Lincoln as chaplain to the bishop, he was presented to the rectory of Chiddingfold in 1760 and vicarage of Godalming in 1763. He brought his scholarly interests with him and, in 1772, completed the work of his friend, Edward Lye (1694-1767) who had devoted himself to compiling a Saxon and Gothic dictionary. Manning not only saw this work through the press but made significant contributions to it of his own.
Manning skilfully combined his academic skills with his pastoral duties. He was a conscientious clergyman who lived in his parish rather than pursue his academic studies elsewhere and employ a curate. He soon seems to have become interested in the history of Surrey and to have begun gathering materials relating to it.
Manning's interest in Surrey soon attracted the notice of other Surrey antiquaries. When William Bray of Shere wrote to him in 1767, asking about his plans for a county history, Manning invited him to assist him in his project rather than 'co-operating with Mr H' as Bray apparently proposed doing. This was probably either the Rev Henry Hill of Guildford or his son, also Henry Hill (1730-1774), Windsor Herald, whose own collections for the history of Surrey are held at SHC as 6935/-. William Bray's diary entry for 31 May 1805 (G85/1/48) shows that he used Hill's Surrey manuscripts when completing Manning's work. Richard Gough, in his Anecdotes of British Topography (1780), notes that 'Henry Hill, esq, Windsor Herald, had collected church-notes, and had most of the churches of the county engraved, but not faithfully, at the expense of the late Speaker Onslow'.
Unlike most county historians, who traditionally arranged their publications by the ancient hundredal divisions of the county, Manning chose to trace the history of Surrey through the ownership of its land. He saw Domesday Book as the starting point for his research and thus looked at all the manors of the king together, wherever they lay in the county, as the first part of his history. From this would follow an account of the descent of each manor to modern times. Although Manning was determined to provide his readers with a facsimile of Domesday, it was to be several years before John Nichols (1745-1826) and Joseph Jackson (1733-1792) designed a new typeface to enable this to be done cheaply. Anyone wishing to consult Domesday Book had to pay 8s 6d for access and 4d for every line transcribed. Manning needed a skilled engraver to trace the original manuscript and then copy this onto a copper plate as precisely as possible. The presence of an engraved facsimile proof of the first page of Domesday annotated 'Ph C Webb 1768 Lib Domesdai' in the first volume of Manning's notes (1917/1/f 86), suggests that he may have drawn on the experience of Philip Carteret Webb (1700-1770), antiquary and politician, who lived at Busbridge near Haslemere and had published A Short Account of Domesday Book, with a view to its publication in 1756.
The difficulties that Manning faced in arranging for exact copies of the Surrey pages of Domesday to be made and checked are vividly shown in his correspondence with Richard Gough (1735-1809) that now survives at the Bodleian Library, Oxford (MS Gough Top. Gen. 43). His increasing exasperation with his engravers, first Mr Bailey and later Benjamin Thomas Pouncy (d.1799) who completed the work, is a recurring theme in these letters. Pouncy was a draughtsman and engraver with an interest in history, and may also have been deputy librarian to Dr Andrew Coltee Ducarel (1713-1785) at Lambeth Palace. At the same time as engraving Surrey for Manning he was also producing facsimile plates of Worcestershire for Dr Treadway Nash and, in the end, it was Nash who managed to publish his facsimile first, through the influence that Lord Sandys was able to bear on George Rose (1744-1818), custodian of Domesday Book at the Exchequer record office.
In common with other county historians, Manning is known to have sent a circular to the gentry and clergy of Surrey seeking any local information that they were able to provide. It was later printed by John Nichols in his Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century but the manuscript of it, that survives in private hands, shows that when Bray took up the challenge of completing Manning's work in 1801, the same circular was used, with his name substituted for Manning's.
Manning wrote the text of his county history in a neat hand and included detailed footnotes. William Bray has annotated the text and his additional material (often written on the reverse of envelopes addressed to Bray) is guarded and mounted at the appropriate pages with symbols added by him in Manning's text to indicate where it should be inserted. In the printed version Bray's footnotes and additional material are marked by asterisks. This shows that these volumes were used by the printers to compose the text of the published work. Further evidence of this is shown by annotations and pagination signatures added to the manuscript by the printer himself showing how Manning's text was to be arranged on the page. For an example of this annotation, compare 1917/1/f 37v with The History and Antiquities of Surrey vol 1, p. xlv.
William Bray (1736-1832)
Manning's blindness after 1796 and his death in 1801 left the completion of the project in some jeopardy. Letters of his wife, Catherine, to Richard Gough (Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Gough Top. Gen. 43) suggest that these two volumes and other of his research papers for Surrey passed to Gough in the hope that a way might be found to complete their publication. On 23 Sep 1801 Bray wrote to John Nichols, the proposed printer of the work, offering to assist with the work's completion and on 7 Feb 1802 Bray, together with Nichols and his son, John Bowyer Nichols, and the publisher John White, visited Gough at his house in Enfield, where Bray agreed to take on the task of completing Manning's work. Bray's pocket diary entry for this date records the visit to Enfield but it was John Bowyer Nichols who noted in his diary, now in private hands, that 'From this visit originated Manning & Bray's History of Surrey'.
William Bray was ideally placed to complete Manning's work. As solicitor for many county families, steward of several manors and treasurer of Henry Smith's charity he was well acquainted with the county's records. As a member of the Board of Green Cloth, which managed the expenses of the royal household, he was familiar with the custodians of public records and as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries he was closely linked to the antiquarian network that flourished in Surrey and throughout the country. Most of the annotations and supplementary material that he added to these volumes are dated and, used with his detailed pocket diaries , they provide much information on his working methods and the sources that he used.

The General Biographical Dictionary;
MANNING (Owen), an excellent antiquary and topographer, the son of Mr. Owen Manning, of Orlingbury, Co. Northampton, was born there Aug. 1, 1721. He was admitted of Queen's-College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B. A. in 1740; and about this time met with two extraordinary instances of preservation from untimely death. Having been seized with the small pox, he was attended by Dr. Heberden, who thinking he could not survive, desired that his father might be sent for. On his arrival he found the young man to all appearance dying, and next day he was supposed to have expired, and was laid out, as a corpse, in the usual manner. An undertaker was sent for, and every preparation made for his funeral. His father, however, who had not left the house, could not help frequently viewing the seemingly lifeless body ; and in one of his visits, without seeing any cause for hope, said, " I will give my poor boy another chance," and at the same time raised him up, which almost immediately produced signs of life. Dr. Heberden was then sent for, and by the use of proper means, the young man recovered. As it was customary for the scholars of every college to make verses on the death of one of their own college, which are pinned to the pall at the funeral, like so many escutcheons, this tribute of respect was prepared for Mr. Manning, who was much beloved by his fellow students; and it is said that the verses were presented to him afterwards, and that he kept them for many years as memoranda of his youthful friendships. Scarcely had he met with this narrow escape, when, his disorder having made him for some time subject to epileptic fits, he was seized with one of these while walking by the river, into which he fell, and remained so long that he was thought to be drowned, and laid out on the grass, until he could be conveyed to the college, where Dr. Heberden being again called in, the proper means of recovery were used with success. In 1741 he was elected to a fellowship of his college, in right of which he had the living of St. Botoiph, in Cambridge, which he held until his marriage, in 1755. He took the degree of M.A. in 1744, and that of B.D. in 1753. In 1760, Dr. Thomas, bishop of Lincoln, to whom he was chaplain, gave him the prebend of Miiton Ecclesia, in the church of Lincoln, consisting of the impropriation and advowson of the parish of Milton, co, Oxford. In 1763 he was presented by Dr. Greene, dean of Salisbury, to the vicarage of Godalming, in Surrey, and was instituted Dec. 22, he preferring the situation to that of St. Nicholas in Guildford (though a better living) which was offered to him by the same patron. Here he constantly resided till the time of his death, beloved and respected by his parishioners, and discharging his professional duty in the most punctual and conscientious manner. In 1769 he was presented to the rectory of Pepperharrovv, an adjoining parish, by viscount Middleton. He was elected F. R. S. in 1767, and F. S. A. in 1770. To the sincere regret of his parishioners, and of all who knew him, Mr. Manning died Sept. 9, 1801, after a short attack of pleurisy, having entered his eighty-first year. By Catherine, his wife, daughter of Mr. Reade Peacock, a quaker, mercer, of Huntington, he had three sons and five daughters, all of whom survived him, except his eldest son, George Owen, and one of the daughters. To the literary world Mr. Manning performed a most acceptable service in taking up, and by his penmanship had brought them to a perfection which justly made every lover of our national antiquities deeply regret that his modesty could never be persuaded to think them sufficiently complete for publication, although he had more than once printed specimens of his intended work, and solicited assistance. At length, a total loss of sight rendered it impossible for him to execute his intention but his previous labours were not doomed to perish. His papers being confided to the care of William Bray, esq. the present worthy treasurer of the society of antiqiuaries, he produced the first volume of " The History and Antiquities of Surrey," in 1801, a large and splendlid folio, which he has since completed in two more volumes. Of the whole, it may be sufficient to say, upon no slight examination of this elaborate and valuable addition to the topographical history of our country, that Mr. Bray has in every respect removed the regret which he and others felt on Mr. Manning's being disabled from completing his own undertaking.

Owen married Catherine Peacock on 3 Jun 1755 in Hartford, Huntingdon.