Elizabeth Adelaide Manning

Other names: 

Miss Manning

E. A. Manning

Adelaide Manning

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Date of birth: 
01 Jan 1828
Precise DOB unknown: 
Y
Date of death: 
10 Aug 1905
Location of death: 
London, England
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About: 

Born in 1828, Elizabeth Adelaide Manning was involved in the formation of the London branch of the National Indian Association in February 1871 with her step-mother, Charlotte Manning, at their home at 107 Victoria Street, London. Charlotte Manning died soon after in April 1871 and her step-daughter later moved to Maida Vale. After the death of the founder, Mary Carpenter, in Bristol in 1877, Manning became Honorary Secretary of the NIA and the headquarters were shifted to London. With the role of Honorary Secretary, Manning also became editor of The Journal of the National Indian Association. Manning was involved in the renaming of the journal to The Indian Magazine in 1886 and then to The Indian Magazine and Review in 1891. She remained Honorary Secretary until July 1905, when she had to resign owing to ill-health.

Through a twenty-eight year stewardship of the National Indian Association, Manning's name became synonomous with the Association. Cornelia Sorabji stayed with Miss Manning when she first arrived in England in 1889 and maintained links with the Association throughout her life. Sukumar Ray visited the Association in 1911 and described the organization as 'Miss Manning's Association' in letters to his parents.

On her death in 1905, the Indian Magazine and Review produced a special memorial issue in October on that year. The issue included personal recollections from M. M. Bhownaggree, Syed Ameer Ali and Dadabhai Naoroji. In the November 1905 issue, the journal printed an obituary poem by N. B. Gazder, entitled 'In Memory of Elizabeth Adelaide Manning'. The NIA was one of the institutions to which Miss Manning bequeathed money in her will.

Connections: 

A. Yusuf AliSyed Ameer Ali, Mr and Mrs Thomas Arnold, Surendranath Banerjea, E. J. Beck (successor as Honorary secretary of NIA), Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhowanaggree, Mary Carpenter (founder of NIA), Emily Davies, N. B. Gazder, Lalmohan Ghose, Lord and Lady Hobhouse, Dr G. W. Leitner, Charlotte Manning (step-mother), Sarojini Naidu, Dadabhai Naoroji, Hodgson Pratt, Cornelia Sorabji.

 

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Contributions to periodicals: 

Editor of Journal of National Indian Association, Indian Magazine and Indian Magazine and Review from 1877 to 1905

Reviews: 

The Times, 14 August  1905 (obituary)

Memorial Issue - Indian Magazine and Review, 418 (Oct 1905)

Secondary works: 

Sutherland, Gillian, ‘Manning, (Elizabeth) Adelaide (1828–1905)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2007) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/48424]

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Archive source: 

Minutes of the National Indian Association, 1871-1905, Mss Eur F147/2-9, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Correspondence and papers, GB12 Ms Add 6379, Cambridge University Library