Edward Manning

Resident slave-owner and agent of the South Sea Co. in Jamaica, party to public divorce proceedings in Jamaica in 1741.

1. Owner of 413 acres and 104 enslaved people in St Andrew, Jamaica, in 1753.

2. Edward Manning was listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owner of 750 acres of land in St Andrew, 480 acres in St Thomas-in-the-East, 1500 acres in Portland, 3200 acres in Clarendon and 80 acres in Vere, total 6010 acres.

3. "M.A. Kingston 1744, '45, '49, '52. Portland 1754, '55, '56. Speaker 1756. Called to the Council 1756. Died K.P.C. 1756, December 6; aged 46 years. He was married to the sister of Sir Henry Moore, but they were divorced; Ballard Beckford was the Co-Respondent."

4. Anna Catalina, daughter of Elizabeth Pinnock, a free mulatto woman, by the Honble Edward Manning esq, was born 13/5/1755 and bapt. at Kingston 24/11/1755. Perhaps the mother was Elizabeth Pinnock [no racial description given] whose daughter Sarah was baptised in St Andrew 22/12/1749 [no paternity mentioned].

5. Memorial inscription in Kingston Cathedral Church: NEAR THIS MONUMENT LIES INTERRED THE BODY OF EDWARD MANNING, ESQ. ONE OF THE HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL SPEAKER OF THE ASSEMBLY AND CUSTOS ROTULORUM OF THIS PARISH IN WHICH STATIONS HE DISTINGUISHED HIMSELF. (HIS VIRTUES ARE THEN RECORDED, AND THE INSCRIPTION THUS TERMINATES): HE DIED GREATLY LAMENTED DECEMBER 6th, 1756 AGED 46 YEARS.

6. Will of Edward Manning of Kingston Jamaica proved 05/05/1758. After monetary legacies to his family in England and providing for 'a free mulatto' woman Elizabeth Pinnock and Elizabeth's children, he left his estates 1/4 to his nephew Sabine Turner and 3/4 to Sarah and Mary Lawrence, the daughters of his sister Sarah Baxter.

7. Edward Manning of Kingston, Esquire. Estate probated in Jamaica in 1758. Slave-ownership at probate: 609 of whom 327 were listed as male and 282 as female. 132 were listed as boys, girls or children. Total value of estate at probate: £67,297.54 Jamaican currency of which £25,322.18 currency was the value of enslaved people. Estate valuation included £15.39 currency cash, £33,218.13 currency debts and £1,243.56 currency plate.

A. J. Rutledge, 'Enemies Bound by Trade: Jamaica, Cuba, and the shared world of contraband in Atlantic Empires 1710-1760', unpublished PhD thesis, University of Michigan (2018), passim; Trevor Burnard, '"A matron in rank, a prostitute in manners": the Manning divorce of 1741' in Verene Shepherd (ed.) Working Slavery, Pricing Freedom (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2002), pp. 133-152.

1. CO137/28 pp. 169-175 transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/1753Andrew.htm.

2. 'A List of landholders in the Island of Jamaica together with the number of acres each person possessed taken from the quit rent books in the year 1754', TNA CO 142/31 transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples2/1754lead.htm.

3. W. A. Feurtado, Official and other Personages of Jamaica from 1655 to 1790 (1896) transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/bfeurtado04.htm.

4. Familysearch.org, Jamaican Parish Registers, Kingston Baptisms 1722-1792 p. 127; St Andrew Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1664-1897 p. 67.

5. James Lawrence-Archer, Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies (1875) p. 89-90.

6. PROB 11/838/46.

7. Trevor Burnard, Database of Jamaican inventories, 1674-1784.