Manning, son of a well-to-do farmer and a well-known cricketer, was born 11 December 1911 in Dalling, Northampton, England. He was educated at Harrow School and Cambridge University. In the summer of 1931, he travelled in Iceland and the Faroe Islands. The following year, he hiked from France to Norway, then hiked and rode reindeer through Sweden and Finland. After arriving in the former USS.R, he was arrested and imprisoned, before being deported.
Career
In 1933, Manning travelled to Hudson Bay's Southampton Island. Here, he surveyed and conducted geographical research for the Royal Geographical Society, and studied birds for the British Museum. Three years later, he led the British-Canadian Arctic Expedition, serving as the expedition's surveyor and zoologist. In 1941, Manning was commissioned as a lieutenant with the Royal Canadian Navy. He worked as a cipher officer and developed arctic clothing. In 1942, he was seconded to the US Army Corps of Engineers to consult on the construction of an airfield on Southampton Island, and in 1944, he was seconded to the Geodetic Service of Canada for photo surveys. He retired from military service as a lieutenant commander in 1945. After the war, Manning worked for the Canadian Geodetic Survey, Defence Research Board, National Museum of Canada, and the Canadian Wildlife Service. He led several expeditions during this time. Manning was director of the Arctic Institute of North America in 1955–1956. He was mentor to and lifelong friend of the zoologist, Andrew Hall Macpherson. For several years, the wildlife artistBrenda Carter worked as Manning's research assistant.
Personal life
Manning met Ella Wallace Jackson, a nurse, only once, in 1935. Sent via Morse code, she received his proposal in April 1938. Three months later, "Jackie" arrived in Cape Dorset, and they were married. They honeymooned for a year and a half while mapping Baffin Island, and gathering bird specimens. They travelled in Manning's small boat, the Polecat, stocked with flour, butter, jam, milk, tobacco, pemmican, 800 litres of fuel, seven dogs, four puppies, and a sled. Years later, Ella published two books with accounts of their travels, Igloo for the night, and A summer on Hudson Bay. They separated amicably in the late 1960s, but did not divorce. In his later years, Manning donated his collection of several thousand books to the Baffin Island Inuit community in Iqaluit; the Thomas Manning collection is housed at its Centennial Library. Before his death, he donated $645,000 to the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University's Shackleton Memorial Library where the Thomas H. Manning Polar Archives are named in his honour. Manning died 8 November 1998 at a hospital in Smiths Falls, Ontario near his farm at Merrickville, Canada. Through his estate, a $25,000 bequest was made to the Merrickville Historical Society to assist in archives conservation.
For full bibliography see: Carter, B. 2004. A Tribute to Thomas Henry Manning 1911–198. Canadian Field-Naturalist 118: 618–625. http://journals.sfu.ca/cfn/index.php/cfn/article/download/70/70
