Geoffrey Haydon Manning (1926–2018) was an Australian author and historian. He is known particularly for his books on South Australian placenames; ''Manning's Place Names of South Australia'' (1990) is particularly well-known and available online at the

State Library of South Australia The State Library of South Australia, or SLSA, formerly known as the Public Library of South Australia, located on North Terrace, Adelaide, is the official library of the Australian state of South Australia. It is the largest public research li ...

website. The final illustrated edition of this work was ''The Place Names Of Our Land: A South Australian Anthology'' (2009).

Early life

Manning was born in

Waikerie, South Australia Waikerie ( ) is a rural town in the Riverland region of South Australia on the south bank of the Murray River. At the , Waikerie had a population of 2,684. The Sturt Highway passes to the south of the town at the top of the cliffs. There is a c ...

, a son of carpenter Richard Baker Manning (1896–1936) and his wife Grace Maud Manning, née Hein (1901–).

Career and other life interests

He was employed by the

Savings Bank of South Australia The Savings Bank of South Australia was a bank founded in the colony of South Australia in 1848, based in Adelaide. In the early 20th century it established a presence in schools by setting up a special category of savings accounts for schoolch ...

until his retirement in 1982. He greatly admired

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

Prime Minister

Ben Chifley Joseph Benedict Chifley (; 22 September 1885 – 13 June 1951) was an Australian politician and train driver who served as the 16th prime minister of Australia from 1945 to 1949. He held office as the leader of the Labor Party (ALP), and was n ...

, and saw himself as espousing generally

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

views.

Local history

After retirement from the bank, Manning devoted himself fully to writing on local history. His works on South Australian placenames contain much information supplemental to, and correcting, the much earlier ''Nomenclature of South Australia'' (1908) by

Rodney Cockburn Rodney Cockburn (21 October 1877 – 28 September 1932) was a South Australian journalist, author of a popular reference book on South Australian place names. History Cockburn was born in Kent Town, South Australia, a son of George (c. 1835 � ...

(1877–1932) and ''What's in a Name'', a revised edition by his journalist son

Stewart Cockburn Alexander Stewart Cockburn (1921–2009) was an Australian journalist, commentator, and author from Adelaide, South Australia. Early life and education Alexander Stewart Cockburn was born in 1921. He was the only child of journalist Rodney Coc ...

(1921–2009). John Hill, then Minister for the Environment, launched the online version of ''Manning’s Data Base of South Australian History'' in September 2005 at the

. His large collection of significant articles from South Australian newspapers has been digitised by the State Library of South Australia as ''The Manning Index of South Australian History''.His 1081-page work, ''A Compendium of the Place Names of South Australia'', is accessible via SLSA's search index, see External links below. it was also available as
complete downloadable document
from th
website
maintained by Haydon R. Manning. In 1997 he released ''The Grange Golf Club: A History of the First 70 Years, 1926–1996'' about

The Grange Golf Club The Grange Golf Club is a private golf club in Grange, South Australia featuring two internationally rated 18 hole golf courses. Grange has previously held major professional events including the West Lakes Classic and the South Australian O ...

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

Family, death and legacy

Manning married Gwen in September 1956; it was her second marriage and he thus became step-father to two daughters. Haydon R. Manning, political scientist of

Flinders University Flinders University, established as The Flinders University of South Australia is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia, with a footprint extending across a number of locations in South Australia and ...

, is his son. Manning died in September 2018, leaving a legacy of invaluable historical work on South Australian history.

References

Notes

Select bibliography

*Geoffrey H. Manning ''Hope Farm, Cradle of the McLaren Vale Wine Industry'' (1980) *Geoffrey H. Manning ''Whisky Makes You Well'' (1983) *Geoffrey H. Manning ''Hope Farm Chronicle'' (1984) *Geoffrey H. Manning (ed.) ''Memoirs of Thomas Frost, 1825–1910'' (1985) *Geoffrey H. Manning ''The Tragic Shore'' (1988) *Geoffrey H. Manning and Haydon R. Manning ''Worth Fighting For'' (1989) on bank employees' unionism *Geoffrey H. Manning ''Manning's Place Names of South Australia'', Adelaide, 1990 *Geoffrey H. Manning ''50 Years of Singing; A History of the Adelaide Harmony Choir'' (1996) *Geoffrey H. Manning and Alison Painter ''The Grange Golf Club; A history of the First 70 Years, 1926–1996'' (1997) *Geoffrey H. Manning ''A Colonial Experience, 1838–1910'' (2001) 3 Volumes set *Geoffrey H. Manning
Manning’s Place Names of South Australia From Aaron Creek to Zion Hill
'' (c.2006 ) "Includes facsimile of

's 'Nomenclature of South Australia' 908" (CD-ROM) *Geoffrey H. Manning ''The Place Names Of Our Land: A South Australian Anthology'' (2009)

External links

* Geoff Manning's published histories, links to place names and his subject catalogue of 100 years of South Australian newspapers (1836–1936) *
Search Manning index
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manning, Geoff 1926 births 2018 deaths Australian historians People from South Australia