Papers of Captain Thomas Davys Manning:

Box O23
Papers relating to research on ship names for the Admiralty Ship Names Committee. Also some items relating to the Naval Photograph Club and Manning's command of the training establishment HMS Seahawk.

Box O24
Notes and correspondence relating to various research and writing projects. Two folders containing letters sent to G.R.G. Worcester, Honorary Editor of the ‘Mariners Mirror’, with a typescript article on speed under sail by Allan E. Bax. Also some photographs of divers studying a shipwreck, copyright of Peter Throckmorton, Greece.

Box O25
Research material on British warships, including a volume of notes entitled 'Ye Great Book of Ironclad Careers' containing histories of individual vessels, including details of foreign stations, refits, etc. A thinner volume entitled 'Addendum No 1 to Ye Great Book of Ironclad Careers' has notes on torpedo boats, destroyers and flotilla leaders.

Volume O26
Bound volume containing handwritten particulars, profile drawings, postcards and photographs of auxiliary vessels of the Royal Navy, arranged by vessel type, with some loose items.

Box O27
Loose sheets with handwritten lists of warships allocated to different fleets, squadrons, flotillas, Dover Patrol, cruiser forces, home command areas, foreign stations, special service vessels, etc., mainly during 1914 - 1918.

Box O28
Handwritten and typescript sheets with lists of warships compiled from Navy Lists. Various notes and cuttings relating to research on warship names and histories. Cuttings from the journal 'Notes and Queries' including articles on the King’s Ships by Commander John A. Rupert-Jones, circa 1927-1930.

Boxes O29-O32
Folders containing typescript sheets listing particulars of British warships from AALBORG to ZYLPHA (pages 1 to 1602).

Boxes O33-O34
Photographic prints and negatives, postcards and reproductions, showing Royal Navy warships and auxiliaries, plus some foreign warships, arranged by vessel type in a series of O.H.M.S. Weather Report envelopes. The prints are copyright of Abraham, Cozens, Cribb, Perkins, Vicary, Wright & Logan, and others.

Boxes O35-O36
Photographic prints, postcards and reproductions, mainly showing the First World War at sea, battleships and battlecruisers, torpedo craft, submarines, Admiralty trawlers and drifters, naval reviews at Spithead and elsewhere, and French warships. Also two boxes of glass plate negatives showing destroyers.

Boxes O37-O39
A series of mounted photographs of Royal Navy warships, mounted on card, with the relevant cap ribbon attached to the top edge (some glazed). Also other mounted photographs.

Box O40-O41
A series of card folders holding newspaper and magazine cuttings, printed reproductions and portraits relating to various historical topics, including wars and naval actions, merchant shipping, and famous vessels of different periods.

Box O42
Typescript material by others: Article entitled 'H.M. Paddle Vessels: A Record of 288 Vessels in H.M. Navy from 1821-1938' by Frank Burtt. Research notes on the loss of HMS VICTORIA in 1893 by Rear-Admiral P.W. Brock (2 copies). Typescript sheets entitled 'Hodge's Fighting Ships'.

Boxes O43-O45
Books, pamphlets and other printed material.

Oversize items:
Manning 2/ Panoramic photograph showing HMS HOOD (1918) and HMS Repulse (1916) alongside Pipitea Wharf at Wellington, New Zealand on 24 April 1924. Photograph by R.P. Moore, 80 Manners Street, Wellington, New Zealand. Mounted in a wooden frame (no glass).
Manning 3/ Two photographs of HMS CURZON ex MMS 1017, sea tender to HMS SUSSEX, the Sussex Division of the RNVR at Hove, mounted on a sheet of card with signatures of the permanent staff of HMS SUSSEX, presented to Captain T.D. Manning (on his retirement?), 1951. Also a watercolour showing the trawler HMS SAPPHIRE at sea, signed by N.J. Campbell, dated 1941, framed and glazed (glass broken).

Administrative / biographical background
Manning was educated at Weymouth College and during the First World War served in the Royal Naval Air Service. After demobilization he joined the Sussex Division of the RNVR as a sub-lieutenant. During the 1920s he founded the Naval Photographic Society. Manning again served in the Royal Navy at the time of the Abyssinian crisis in 1936 and during the Second World War, during which he was in command of the coastal forces training establishment HMS Seahawk at Ardrishaig and worked in the Second Sea Lord's office. He also had a role in the Ships Names Committee which met at the Admiralty Library. His war services were acknowledged by the award of the CBE and RNVR decoration. Manning commanded the Sussex Division of the RNVR from 1946 to 1951 and was aide-de-camp to King George VI in 1949-1951. In civilian life he was a teacher at Newlands School, Seaford, and was assistant headmaster there at the time of his death. He was Hon. Editor of 'The 'Mariners Mirror' in 1961-1974. He also wrote books on warship names and destroyers. Obituaries appear in the February 1972 issue of 'The Mariners Mirror' and 'The Mirror of the Seas' p.224.