Queer Places:
Royal Holloway College, Egham Hill, Egham TW20 0EX, UK
St Christopher's School, 32 Belsize Ln, Hampstead, London NW3 5AE, UK
Rosemary
Joy Manning (b. Weymouth, Dorset 9 December 1911 – 5 April 1988, Tunbridge
Wells)[1]
was a British author of both adult and children's books. Her best-known novel
is The Chinese Garden, considered by some to be an important lesbian
book. She was also well known for her popular Dragon children's series.
She was also known by the pseudonyms Sarah Davys and Mary Voyle.[1]
Lesbian historian Liz Whitelaw's on
Cicely Hamilton (1990) is "In memory of Rosemary Manning": one lesbian
biographer records another in a biography of a third.
Manning was born in 1911 to Thomas and Mary in Weymouth. Her father was a
doctor but he had to resign following a scandal. Manning was sent to a
boarding school in Devon; her experiences there would later influence The
Chinese Garden. She studied at Royal Holloway College from 1930 to 1933
and graduated with a 2nd class honours degree in Classics.[1]
She first worked in an Oxford Street department store then as a secretary[1]
In the 1930s, unhappy at work she suffered a nervous breakdown and was
unsuccessfully treated at the Maudsley Hospital by unsympathetic doctors due
to her lesbianism. Her former headmistress offered her teaching work and she
stayed as a teacher for a further 35 years. In 1950 she moved with a friend to
Hampstead, north London, to take over a long-established girls' preparatory
school and became headmistress.
In 1962 she broke up with her partner and in April she tried to kill
herself using the drug Luminal. However a suicide note was delivered
promptly by the post office and help arrived. She was sad to find that she had
failed.[1]
Later that year she published The Chinese Garden which is mentioned
above. The book is considered important as a lesbian novel.[2]
She later took up writing, After retirement, she came out as a lesbian
during a television interview in 1980.[1]
In 1985 when the Greater London Council launched their Changing the World
Lesbian and Gay Charter Manning was there at the launch. She appeared with
Miriam Margolyes, Valerie Wise, Ken Livingstone, Jenni Fletcher and Jimmy
Somerville.[3]
My published books:
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Manning