professional photographer, draughtsman and clerk, arrived at Fremantle from England on 1 June 1850 on board the convict ship Scindian with his father James, mother Jane, née Yeldham, sister Jane and one servant. Convicts were for the first time being transported to Western Australia to help build up the struggling colony and James Manning senior, a civil engineer, had been appointed clerk of works to the convict establishment. By 1863 Manning senior was a magistrate and chairman of the Fremantle Town Trust.
James Manning junior was first employed as a draughtsman with the Convict Establishment then as a third-class clerk in the Postmaster General’s Department. During this time he was also involved with photography and produced good quality photographs from premises in Fremantle. In the mid 1860s he entered into a professional partnership with Mr Knight under the name of Manning & Knight. In 1867 Manning briefly returned to Europe, where he learned the latest developments in photography. After his return he toured country areas, keeping the colony aware of his travels through advertisements in the Inquirer . On 30 December 1868, for instance, he announced that he had just returned from the Victoria District (Geraldton) and was 'ready for photography on the Swan’. He was at Albany in 1869, for he married Mary Henrietta McKail there on 11 May; they had two daughters. By February 1871 he was taking photographs at Bunbury.
Like many other photographers, Manning was granted a royal warrant by the Duke of Edinburgh (at Perth during the Duke’s 'unofficial’ second visit to the Australian colonies in 1869). Manning ran a splendid advertisement in the Inquirer and Commercial News a few years later, proclaiming himself 'Artist-Photographer under the patronage of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh and, by special appointment, to His Excellency Governor Robinson C.M.G.’. By then (1874) his society studio in King William Street, Perth, was thriving and it continued at that address until 1891 when sold to the photographers Hemus & Hall. Good examples of Manning’s photographs, including cartes-de-visite, are in the Battye Library.
- Writers:
- Pheloung, Ann
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
