Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Manship, Henry
MANSHIP, HENRY (fl. 1562), topographer, was a native of Great Yarmouth, and carried on business as a merchant there. He was elected a member of the corporation in 1550, and soon took an active part in public affairs. The old haven having become obstructed, Manship was, in 1560, named as one of a committee of twelve persons on whom was devolved the responsibility of determining where the new haven should be cut. He says that he 'manye tymes travayled in and about the business, and it was chiefly through his influence that Joas or Joyce Johnson, the Dutch engineer, was brought from Holland, and the present haven constructed under his direction. On 11 Feb. 1562 Manship was appointed a collector of the 'charnel rents' with George King. He compiled a brief record of all the most remarkable events in the history of the borough, under the title, 'Greate Yermouthe : a Booke of the Foundacion and Antiquitye of the saide Towne,' which was printed for the first time by Charles John Palmer, [q. v.], in 1847, with notes and appendix. The manuscript then belonged to James Sparke of Bury St. Edmunds, but it was sold (lot 234) at Palmer's sale in 1882.
Henry Manship (d. 1625), topographer, son of the above, born at Great Yarmouth, was educated at the free grammar school there. He became one of the four attorneys of the borough court. On 4 Nov. 1579 he was elected town clerk, but resigned the office on 2 July 1585. He continued to be a member of the corporation until 1604, when he was dismissed for saying that Mr. Damett and Mr. Wheeler, two aldermen who then represented the borough, 'had behaved themselves in parliament like sheep, and were both dunces.' Thereafter he appears to have devoted himself to the compilation of a history of the borough. In 1612 he obtained leave to go to the Hutch and peruse and copy records for forty days. Finding that many of the documents were missing and the remainder uncared for, he persuaded the corporation to appoint a committee to inquire into the matter. Their labours are recorded in a book containing a repertory of the documents, which was engrossed by Manship and delivered to the corporation, in whose possession it still remains, though almost every document enumerated in it is now destroyed or lost. Manship appears to have regained the favour of the corporation, for he was appointed to ride to London about a license to 'transport herrings in stranger-bottoms,' and to endeavour to get the 'fishers of the town discharged from buoys and lights.' In 1614, when Sir Theophilus Finch and George Hardware were returned to parliament for the borough, Manship acted as their solicitor, with a salary of forty shillings per week, and in 1616 he was again sent to London to manage the town's business, but on this occasion he was accused of improperly 'borrowing money in the town's name, and fell into disgrace. His 'History of Great Yarmouth,' was completed in 1619, and the corporation voted him a gratuity of 60l., but his expectations of fame and profit were apparently not realised, for he circulated in 1620 a pamphlet wherein, say his enemies, he 'extolled himself and defamed the town,' He afterwards deemed it expedient to apologise. Manship died in 1625 at an advanced age and in great poverty. The corporation granted a small annuity to his widow Joan, daughter of Henry Hill of King's Lynn.
Manship was indebted in some part of his curious history to that compiled by his father. A contemporary copy, with an appendix containing a transcript of the charters made by him, was deposited in the Hutch, but is believed to have ultimately found its way into the library of Dawson Turner. Several other copies are extant, from one of which the book was first published, under the editorship of C. J. Palmer, in 1854. A catalogue of the charters of Great Yarmouth, compiled by Manship in 1612, is in the British Museum, Addit, MS. 23737.
[Palmer's Perlustration of Great Yarmouth, i. 116-18; Rye's Norfolk Topography (Index Soc.)]