George William Manby
Captain George William Manby FRS was an English author and inventor. He designed an apparatus for saving life from shipwrecks and also the "Pelican Gun", the first modern form of fire extinguisher.
Early life
Manby was born in the village of Denver on the edge of the Norfolk Fens. His parents were Mary Woodcock and Captain Matthew Pepper Manby, lord of the manor of Wood Hall in Hilgay, a former soldier and aide-de-camp to Lord Townshend and barrack-master of Limerick at his death. A younger brother was Thomas Manby, naval officer. Manby went to school at Downham Market. Although he claimed to have been a friend there of Horatio Nelson, this is unlikely to be true as Nelson would have left the school before Manby started. He then went to the Free Grammar School in King's Lynn, where he was a student of Rev Dr David Lloyd. He was one of the four stewards organising an anniversary event of Lloyd's students held at the Duke's Head Inn on 17 February 1791.Military life
He volunteered to fight in the American War of Independence, aged 17, but was rejected because of his youth and his small size. Instead, he entered the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich.He is listed as one of the Artillery cadets on 31 March 1784.
On 21 April 1788, he obtained a commission as a Lieutenant in the Cambridgeshire Militia where he eventually gained the rank of captain. He left the regiment in Spring 1793. A fellow officer, and later regiment's colonel, was Charles Philip Yorke, later Secretary at War.
Marriage and aftermath
In December 1793, he married the only daughter of Rev Dr Preston JP, of Waldingfield and Rougham, and inherited his wife's family's estates. In November 1797, his estate in the manor of Hilgay was put up for auction.He left her in 1801 after being shot by her lover Captain Pogson of the East India Company and moved to Clifton, Bristol. There, he published several books, including The History and Antiquities of St David's, Fugitive ''Sketches of the History and Natural Beauties of Clifton, and A Guide from Clifton to the Counties of Monmouth, Glamorgan, etc.''. These included illustrations by Manby, ranging from general views to plans and architectural drawings.
Manby's Drawings in ''Fugitive Sketches'', 1802
Source:In 1803, Manby's pamphlet An Englishman's Reflexions on the Author of the Present Disturbances, on Napoleon's plans to invade England, came to the attention of the Secretary of War, Robert Hobart, 4th Earl of Buckinghamshire, who was impressed and recommended Manby to be appointed as Barrack-Master at Great Yarmouth in September, 1803.
Life-saving invention
On 18 February 1807, as a helpless onlooker, he witnessed a Royal Navy ship, HMS Snipe, carrying French prisoners run aground 50 yards off Great Yarmouth during a storm. Several vessels were wrecked and a total of 214 people drowned, including French prisoners of war, women and children. The figure of '67 brave men' for the Snipe was quoted in the House of Commons in June 1808. Following this tragedy, Manby experimented with mortars, and so invented the Manby Mortar,, that fired a thin rope from shore into the rigging of a ship in distress. A strong rope, attached to the thin one, could be pulled aboard the ship. His successful invention supposedly followed an experiment as a youth in 1783, when he shot a mortar carrying a line over Downham church.Manby carried out a successful demonstration of his apparatus before the Suffolk Humane Society, and a very large assemblage of ladies and gentlemen at Lowestoft, on 26 August and 10 September 1807. On the former occasion, their president, John Rous, 1st Earl of Stradbroke, attended.
Sergeant John Bell, Royal Artillery, had in 1791 successfully demonstrated the use of a mortar to throw a line to shore and use it to float men to the shore, and had also suggested that mortars be held in ports to be available to throw a line to a ship. He was awarded 50 guineas by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerc
Another earlier design, similar to Manby's invention, had been made in the late 18th century by the French agronomist and inventor Jacques Joseph Ducarne de Blangy. Manby's invention was independently conceived, and there is no suggestion that he copied de Blangy's idea.
In 1808, the crew of a brig was rescued at Yarmouth by the use of Manby's device fired from a carriage gun and supervised by Manby.
Manby was one of those to receive an honorary award at the Annual Festival of the Royal Humane Society in the May following the rescue.
In June 1808, Manby received a gold medal from The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, via the hands of Henry Howard, 13th Duke of Norfolk, for forming a communication with ships by means of a rope thrown over the vessel from a mortar gun on the shore.
In August 1808, Manby received a medallion from the Suffolk Humane Society.
Following the awards he later made a demonstration to the armed forces of the use of his apparatus.
The device was successfully used in rescues by Sea Fencibles from Great Yarmouth and Winterton in 1810
The Official Copy of a Report from the Committee of Field Officers of Artillery, containing an Account of the Experiments made at Woolwich on 18 and 20 May 1811 alluded to the work of Lieutenant Bell, RA and his successful demonstration of a mortar to shoot a line in 1791.
File:Life-Boat and Manby Apparatus Going Off to a Stranded Vessel Making Signal of Distress.png|thumb|Lifeboat and Manby Apparatus Going Off to a Stranded Vessel by J.M.W. Turner, 1831
Manby's invention was officially adopted in 1814, and a series of mortar stations were established around the coast. It was estimated that by the time of his death in 1854 nearly 1,000 persons had been rescued from stranded ships by means of his apparatus.
Manby also built an "unsinkable" boat. The first test indeed proved it to be floating when mostly filled with water; however, the seamen rocked the boat back and forth so that it eventually turned over. The boatmen depended on the cargo left over from shipwrecks, and may have thought Manby's mortar a threat to their livelihood.
The property that Manby owned in Yarmouth Denes was advertised in an auction notice in 1812 as he was leaving Yarmouth.
In February 1813, Manby gave a lecture to the Highland Society of Edinburgh followed by a demonstration on Bruntsfield links, Edinburgh. The gun was fired by use of a chemical to set off the charge, to overcome the problems caused by gunpowder getting damp in the storm conditions often experienced when carrying out rescues.
In 1813, Manby invented the 'Extincteur', the first portable pressurised fire extinguisher. This consisted of a copper vessel of 3 gallons of pearl ash solution contained within compressed air. He also invented a device intended to save people who had fallen through ice.
In July 1813, Manby's profile was increased when his portrait featured in the European Magazine.
On Friday 30 August 1816, a committee of the Board of Ordnance and Lords of the Admiralty observed a demonstration of Manby's fire extinguisher and other equipment.
Later life
On 10 March 1818, he married Sophia Gooch, daughter of Sir Thomas Gooch, 4th Baronet.In 1821, he sailed to Greenland with William Scoresby, for the purpose of testing a new type of harpoon for whaling, based on the same principles as his mortar. However, his device was sabotaged by the whalers. He published his account in 1822 as Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, containing observations on the flora and fauna of the Arctic regions as well as the practice of whale hunting.
As a result of that voyage, Manby espoused three ideas: that there might still be Norse survivors in the so-called 'Lost Colony' in East Greenland; that Britain should claim the area of East Greenland north of the area claimed by Denmark; and that this area should be developed as a penal colony.
The House of Commons committee of supply voted Manby £2,000 for his lifesaving apparatus in June 1823. In the October the King of Denmark presented Manby with a gold medal "accompanied with a letter, communicating His Majesty's gracious approbation of his philanthopic and arduous exertions in saving the crews of shipwrecked vessels."
Manby was present at the London Tavern on 4 March 1824 when was founded the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, later to become the RNLI. He was one of the first five persons to receive their gold medal in 1825.
In 1825, the King of Sweden presented Manby with a splendid medallion in token of his Majesty's approbation of the Captain's humane merit, and inventions.
He gave evidence in connection with Norwich and Lowestoft Navigation Bill in 1826. He stated that for the purpose of establishing a system for the saving of lives from shipwreck, he had in 1810 by directions of the Admiralty, surveyed the line of coast from the southern extremity of Suffolk to the northern extremity of Norfolk, and in 1812, pursuant to an Address of the House of Commons, he had also by directions surveyed the coast from the southern extremity of Norfolk to the Firth of Forth.
Manby became one of the godfathers of Augustus Onslow Manby Gibbes, the youngest son of the Collector of Customs for Great Yarmouth from 1827 to 1833, Colonel John George Nathaniel Gibbes.
On 4 August 1830, he attended court and presented King William IV with a Treatise on the Preservation of Mariners from Stranded Vessels, and the Prevention of Shipwreck, with a Statement of the number of subjects of different nations saved by that plan, by Sir Robert Peel.
He was the first to advocate a national fire brigade, and is considered by some to be a true founder of the RNLI. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1831 in recognition of his many accomplishments.
In 1837, Manby was the tenant of a cottage near the Royal Barracks.
In April 1838, Charles Wood, aged 17, a drummer in the 1st battalion Grenadier Guards was killed by a fall caused by a faulty component when carrying out a Trial of Manby's apparatus for fire rescues from buildings.
Manby received a silver medal from the Society for the Protection of Life from Fire in May 1838.
In June 1838, a newspaper stated in an advert he was a director of the 'SUB-MARINE and WRECK-WEIGHING ASSOCIATION' for Recovering the Cargoes and Hulls of Stranded Vessels, and for Preserving the Lives of the Crews of Vessels in Distress. To be incorporated by Act Parliament.
In 1838 he met Marshal Soult as part of his campaign to involve France and other nations in achieving a worldwide policy for the treatment of shipwrecked mariners and their cargos.
Manby received a belated Queen Victoria Gold Coronation Medal in March 1842.
Sophia died in October 1843.