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Author: Man, Henry

Biography:

MAN, Henry (1747-1799: ODNB)

Henry Man was baptized on 14 Feb 1747, at St Mary Matfelon, Whitechapel, the eldest of the seven children of architect and builder John Man (1718-1783) of Prescot Street, Whitechapel, and his wife, Mary Balchen (1721-1798). His cousin George Cumberland was a supporter of the poet William Blake (qq.v). On 17 May 1777, he married Eleanor (alt. Eleanora) Ann Thompson (1744-1823) at St Mary Aldermary, Bow Lane. They had at least five children, Peter Bruels (1778-1811), Emma Claudiana Rebecca (1780-1858), Sarah Carolina (1782-1817), Harry Stoe (1783-1848), and Eleanor Ann Rankin (1788-1873). In about 1763, his father fled to Wales to avoid incarceration for debt. To support his mother and his siblings, Man obtained work as a clerk in the City. In 1780, he gained an appointment to the South Sea Company and was soon promoted deputy secretary. He named his youngest son after his superior at the Company, Harry Stoe. At the South Sea House he met Charles Lamb (q.v.), who, in Elia, generously complimented him as a “polished man of letters.” He was also acquainted with Thomas Frognall Dibdin (q.v.). At Reading Academy, Dibdin had been a student of Man’s brother John (d 1824). Man “circulated only among a few friends” a duodecimo volume he published in 1770 titled “The Trifler.” No known copy of the book exists; it is reprinted in the first volume of his posthumously published Miscellaneous Works. His 1771 collection of poems, The Muse in Miniature, pleased a critic in the London Magazine (1771, 274): “there is an air of benevolence, as well as of genius breathing thro’ the whole.” A critic in the 1775 London Review (373) thought his poetic drama satirizing the contemporary stage, Cloacina, had "much god sense, good versification, and good humour.” A poem he wrote in praise of Nelson, “Song, on the Battle of the Nile,” appeared posthumously in Neil’s Pocket Melodist (1805). Three works by Edward Nicklin of Manchester (q.v.) have been erroneously attributed to him, The Trifler (1775, 1777, 1779); History of Sir Geoffry Restless (1791); and Flights of Inflatus (1791). Man died on 4 Dec. 1799, in Fenchurch Street. He was buried eight days later at St Margaret Patten. (ODNB 10 May 2023; PRO 30/8/155/2/172-175; W. C. Oulton, History of the Theatres of London [1796], 93; C. Black ed., Cumberland Letters [1912]; Man family documents: www.manfamily.org 10 May 2023) JC

 

Books written (3):

London: Kearsly, 1775
London: John Nichols and Son, F. and C. Rivington, 1802