Thomas Manning (sinologist)
Thomas Manning ( born November 8, 1772 in Broome, Norfolk, † May 2, 1840 in Bath ) was an explorer and the first Englishman who traveled the Tibetan capital Lhasa.
Manning, who was born as the second son of a clergyman, was taught by his father at home. From 1790 he studied mathematics at Cambridge, without ever achieving a degree, and remained there until 1800. Later he studied medicine in Paris and learned there the way the Chinese language.
In the year 1803, when after the Peace of Amiens the hostilities between France and the UK were resumed, Manning stayed in France, where he was arrested as an English traveler. Napoleon Bonaparte allowed him to continue his journey and signed his passport. Three years later, he worked for the trade mission in Canton. His goal was to travel to China and especially Beijing and as him, this did not succeed, he tried to penetrate through Tibet in the Chinese heartland. In 1810 he reached Calcutta. In its onward journey to Lhasa disguised himself as a Bengali, to be recognized not just as a European; his ability to communicate in the local language, facilitated his project. In December 1811 he arrived in Lhasa and met with the ninth Dalai Lama, who at this point almost seven year old Luntog Gyatso, who in 1805 was used, together. Concerned about the Chinese authorities, who considered his presence with suspicion, Manning left on April 12, 1812 Lhasa. His goal is to reach the Chinese capital Beijing, he could not pursue directly. In the summer of 1813 he was back in Calcutta, from where he traveled on to Canton and remained until 1816. Only in the wake of a British trade delegation reached Manning in the spring of 1817 Beijing. Due to irreconcilable differences between delegation leader William Pitt Amherst, for example, refused to carry out kowtow to a Chinese emperor statue, and the imperial residence, the delegation had to leave empty-handed. On his return to Britain, which he reached in 1818, Manning visited Napoleon on Saint Helena, to thank, among others, for the issuance of the passport. Another station in life Mannings was a stay in Italy from 1827 to 1829. In 1838 he moved to Bath in order to recover from the effects of a stroke, who had his right hand paralyzed. There, two years later he died.
His travelogue was only 35 years after his death in 1875 by Clements Robert Markham, together with the travelogues of Scotsman George Bogle, who had also traveled to Tibet published. It was not until over a century since Manning's arrival in Lhasa reached with Francis Younghusband in 1904 another Englishman, the Tibetan capital.