Thomas Manning
Thomas Manning (born November 8, 1772 in Broome , Norfolk , † May 2, 1840 in Bath ) was an explorer and the first Englishman to travel to the Tibetan capital Lhasa .
Manning, who was born the second son of a pastor, was homeschooled by his father. From 1790 he studied mathematics in Cambridge without ever obtaining a degree, and stayed there until 1800. He then studied medicine in Paris, where he also learned the Chinese language.
In 1803, when fighting resumed between France and the United Kingdom after the Peace of Amiens , Manning was staying in France, where he was arrested as an English traveler. Napoléon Bonaparte allowed him to continue and signed his passport. Three years later he worked for the trade mission in Canton . His goal was to travel to China and Beijing in particular , and when he was unsuccessful, he tried to penetrate into the Chinese heartland via Tibet. In 1810 he reached Calcutta . On his onward journey to Lhasa he disguised himself as a Bengal in order not to be recognized directly as a European; his ability to communicate in the respective national languages made his project easier. In December 1811 he arrived in Lhasa and met the ninth Dalai Lama , Luntog Gyatso , who was barely seven years old at the time and who was installed in 1805. Concerned by the Chinese authorities, who viewed his presence with suspicion, Manning left Lhasa on April 12, 1812. He could not pursue his goal of reaching the Chinese capital Beijing directly. In the summer of 1813 he was back in Calcutta, from where he traveled on to Canton and stayed until 1816. Only in the wake of an English trade delegation did Manning reach Beijing in the spring of 1817. Due to irreconcilable differences between the head of the delegation, William Pitt Amherst, who refused, for example, to kowtow in front of a Chinese imperial statue, and the imperial family, the delegation had to leave without having achieved anything. On his return trip to Great Britain, which he reached in 1818, Manning visited Napoléon on Sankt Helena to thank, among other things, the issue of the passport. Another stop in Manning's life was a stay in Italy from 1827 to 1829. In 1838 he moved to Bath to recover from the effects of a stroke that had paralyzed his right hand. He died there two years later.
His travelogue was only published 35 years after his death in 1875 by Clements Robert Markham, together with the travelogues of the Scotsman George Bogle , who had also traveled to Tibet. It wasn't until almost a century after Manning's arrival in Lhasa that an Englishman, Francis Younghusband , reached the Tibetan capital again in 1904.
literature
- Wolfgang Griep: Seized by the Dalai Lama. In: The time . Volume 63, No. 30, July 17, 2008, p. 80.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Manning, Thomas |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English explorer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 8, 1772 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Broome, Norfolk |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 2, 1840 |
| Place of death | Bath |