Thomas Manning (sinologist)

Thomas Manning (8 November 1772 – 1840) is considered the first lay Chinese studies scholar in Europe and was the first Englishman to enter Lhasa, the holy city of Tibet.

After leaving school, he entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge to study mathematics where he became a friend of future writer and essayist Charles Lamb and was expected to achieve Second Wrangler.

[1] In practice Manning received little official help but with a single Chinese servant he travelled through Bhutan into Tibet, arriving in Phari at the head of the Chumbi Valley on 21 October 1811.

[2] His medical skills were much in demand and led to a request to travel on with the amban to Gyantse, a journey made uncomfortable by the extreme cold and an unpredictable horse.

[citation needed] Manning never published anything regarding his journey, and its occurrence was known to few, until his narrative was printed, through the zeal of Sir Clements Markham, secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, in 1876.

The avenues are full of dogs, some growling and gnawing bits of hide which lie around in profusion, and emit a charnel-house smell; other limping and looking livid; others ulcerated; others starved and dying, and pecked at by the ravens; some dead and preyed upon.