Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Manby, Peter
MANBY, PETER (d. 1697), dean of Derry, son of Lieutenant-colonel Manby, became a scholar of Trinity College, Dublin, where he took the degrees in arts, though his name does not appear in the printed catalogue of graduates. Archdeacon Cotton and other writers style him D.D., but it does not appear that he proceeded to that degree. After taking orders in the established church, he was appointed on 23 Nov. 1660, being then B.A., to a minor canonry of St. Patrick's, Dublin; and on 9 April 1666, being then M.A., he was collated to the chancellorship of that church (Cotton, Fasti Eccl. Hibern. ii. 118). He became chaplain to Dr. Michael Boyle, archbishop of Dublin, who, during his triennial visitation in 1670, collated him to a canonry of the cathedral of Kildare. Manby was presented to the deanery of Derry on 17 Sept. 1672, and installed on 21 Dec. He afterwards joined the communion of the church of Rome in consequence, as Ms adversaries alleged, of his failure to obtain a bishopric. James II granted him a dispensation under the great seal, dated 21 July 1686, authorising him to retain the deanery of Derry, notwithstanding his change of religion. In 1687 he published 'The Considerations which obliged Peter Manby, Dean of Derry, to embrace the Catholique Religion. Dedicated to his Grace the Lord Primate of Ireland,' Dublin and London, 1687, 4to, pp. 19. The imprimatur is dated from Dublin Castle, 11 March 1686-1687. The treatise, although regarded by his friends as incontrovertible, contains only the usual arguments adduced by advocates of the papal claims. William King [q. v.], then chancellor of St. Patrick's, and afterwards archbishop of Dublin, published a reply, which led Manby to rejoin in a book entitled 'A Reformed Catechism, in two Dialogues, concerning the English Reformation, collected, for the most part Word for Word, out of Dr. Burnet, John Fox, and other Protestant Historians, published for the information of the People,' Dublin and London, 1687, 4to. This was answered by King in ' A Vindication of the Answer to the Considerations.' Dr. William Clagett [q.v.] in England wrote 'Several captious Queries concerning the English Reformation, first proposed by Dean Manby . . . briefly and fully answered,' London, 1688, 4to. In 1688 James made Manby an alderman of Derry. After the battle of the Boyne, Manby retired to France. He died in London in 1697, according to an account given by Dr. Cornelius Nary [q. v.], who attended him in his last moments.
His works are: 1. 'A Letter to a Nonconformist Minister,' London, 1677, 4to. 2. 'A brief and practical Discourse of Abstinence in Time of Lent; wherein is shewed the popular Mistake and Abuse of the Word Superstition,' Dublin, 1682, 4to. 3. 'Of Confession to a lawful Priest: wherein is treated of the last Judgment,' London, 1686, 24mo. 4. 'A Letter to a Friend, shewing the Vanity of this Opinion, that every Man's Sense and Reason is to guide him in matters of Faith,' Dublin, 1688, 4to.
Manby induced his brother Robert, a clergyman of the establishment, to join the Roman church. Robert Manby became a friar; he left two sons, both of whom joined the Society of Jesus. One of these sons, Peter Manby (fl. 1724), born in Leinster in 1681, studied at Coimbra, and on his return to Ireland published ' Remarks on Dr. Loyd's Translation of the Mountpelier Catechism,' Dublin, 1724, 8vo. in which, he attempts to show that this catechism contains the condemned propositions of Jansenius and Quesnel.
[Cotton's Fasti, ii. 197, 249, iii. 332; D'Alton's Archbishops of Dublin, p. 301; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 461; Hogan's Cat. of the Irish Province S. J., pp. 63, 64; Jones's Popery Tracts, pp. 150, 151, 459, 484; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 258; Cat. of Library of Trin. Coll. Dublin; Ware's Writers (Harris), p. 257.]