John Manners (cricketer)

The son of the Royal Navy admiral and theologian Sir Errol Manners (1883–1953) and his wife, Florence Maud Harrison (1883–1967), he was born in Exeter in September 1914.[2] He was descended from John Manners, 2nd Duke of Rutland.[3] He was educated at Ferndown School,[4] before attending Britannia Royal Naval College as a cadet from the age of 13, following in a family tradition of attending the college.[1][5] His time as a cadet saw him visit the West Indies and appear for the college in the schools' match at Lord's in 1930.[3]

Manners was commissioned as a midshipman in the Royal Navy in September 1932, before being made an acting-sub-lieutenant in January 1935. In September of the same year,[1] he was promoted to the rank in full.[6] He played cricket for the United Services in 1935, against a strong Hampshire Club & Ground side, scoring 20 runs and taking four wickets.[5] Manners served aboard the royal yacht Victoria and Albert at Portsmouth in 1936,[4] though with King Edward unwilling to travel to Cowes, this left Manners with more shore time.[3] He played for the Royal Navy as captain against the British Army cricket team in a two-day match at Lord's in July of that year, where he scored 23 and 47, impressing Christopher Heseltine, then president of Hampshire County Cricket Club, who recommended to Manners that he play for the county.[2][5] He was allowed by the navy to play for Hampshire in August, making his debut in first-class cricket against Gloucestershire at the United Services Ground in the County Championship,[3][7] scoring 81 runs in his first innings before he was dismissed by Reg Sinfield and thus narrowly falling short of becoming the first Hampshire batsman to make a century on their first-class debut.[3] In the fortnight following this match, he made four further first-class appearances, scoring 212 runs at an average of 35.33.[8] He headed Hampshire's batting averages in 1936 and sufficiently impressed future Test Match Special commentator John Arlott with his strokeplay.[9]

As an amateur his cricket after 1936 was heavily curtailed by his commitments with the navy.[2][3][5] In December 1937, he was promoted to lieutenant, with seniority antedated to July of that year.[10] From 1937, he served aboard torpedo boats in the Mediterranean and the Far East.[11] Prior to the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Germany in September 1939, Manners had been saving his leave in order to have a full summer playing county cricket in 1940, but the subsequent declaration would mean it would be more than ten years before he played first-class cricket again.[3][12]

Manners was assigned to the under-construction HMS Eglinton in 1940.

Prior to war being declared, Manners was serving as a watch-keeping officer aboard HMS Birmingham at China Station in Hong Kong.[13] With war looking likely Birmingham sailed for Singapore, where she patrolled the Sunda Strait.[14] When war was declared, Birmingham left for Japan, but did not enter its territorial waters. Manners was recalled back to Britain in December 1939 aboard HMS Falmouth and the troop liner SS Strathallan.[15][16]

Returning to Southampton in early January 1940, Manners spent a month on leave at the family home at Alverstoke,[17] before being assigned to the destroyer HMS Eglinton which was under construction at the Walker Yard on the Tyne in Newcastle.[15] Manners was not one of the officers based at Newcastle to be sent to assist with the Dunkirk evacuation and spent the summer escorting convoys down the east coast following the Eglinton's commissioning. While at Newcastle, he met Mary Downes (1917–1995), an actress with the Newcastle Repertory Company. The couple married in October 1940 at Marylebone and narrowly avoided being killed on their wedding night when a German bomb hit the Hyde Park Hotel when they were in its restaurant, but failed to detonate.[2] It was reported at the time to have been the second largest unexploded German bomb to have been recovered during the Blitz.[18] In the same month, Eglinton was chosen to take part in Operation Lucid, a plan to use fire ships to attack German invasion barges in ports in German-occupied northern France, however while escorting an oil tanker to Boulogne the operation command ship HMS Hambledon struck a mine, resulting in the cancellation of the operation.[19]

Six months later, with Eglinton based at Harwich, Manner's and his wife again avoided death under similar circumstances, when their rented house was hit by a bomb while they were in the bathroom; although unscathed, four other occupants of the house were killed.[3] Manners served as a lieutenant aboard Eglinton until February 1942, after which he held a brief command aboard HMS Fame which was being repaired at Chatham. After a few weeks commanding Fame, Manners was sent to HMS Eskimo at Falmouth, after her first lieutenant had fallen overboard and drowned.[20] He served aboard Eskimo in Operation Harpoon during the Siege of Malta in June 1942,[21] subsequently seeing action in the relief of Malta, for which he was later mentioned in dispatches. In September 1942, Eskimo formed part of Convoy PQ 18 escorting supply ships in the Arctic on their way to the Soviet Union,[3] before returning to the Mediterranean to take part in the Operation Torch landings.[22] Manners was made commanding officer of Eskimo in May 1943, with the ship taking part in the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, during which she was bombed and severely damaged.[3]

Manners was commanding officer aboard HMS Viceroy from 1943–45.

He took command of the destroyer HMS Viceroy in December 1943, while she was being refitted at Jarrow.[3] After a few weeks aboard Viceroy, Manners was seconded to HMS Watchman at Derry, after her captain had fallen ill and an officer with experience was required to replace him.[15] He returned to command Viceroy after six weeks. Forming part of the Rosyth Escort Force as an anti-aircraft and anti-E-boat escort to convoys in the North Sea which were carrying supplies from the Firth of Forth to London, Viceroy was escorting a convoy on 11 April 1945, when the tanker SS Athelduke which was carrying 12,600 tonnes (27,800,000 lb) of molasses was hit by a torpedo from the German submarine U-1274 near the Farne Islands, causing two explosions to rock the ship.[2] Realising the convoy was under attack from a U-boat, and that the water was too deep for mines, he turned the ship to port and took off in pursuit, obtaining a contact at 2,200 yards (1.3 mi). Manners commanded an urgent attack with depth charges set to “shallow”, the explosion of which temporarily knocked out the electrics aboard Viceroy. Ten minutes later power was restored and a second attack on the U-boat was made, which brought oil to the surface. Reckoning that the U-boat had been sunk at a depth of 250 metres (820 ft), a third depth-charge set to “deep”, which caused a prolonged explosion and brought more oil to the surface.[3] Two weeks later the kill was confirmed and Manners returned to the scene of the sinking with Eskimo and HMS Vivien, recovering twelve bottles of brandy which he sent to Winston Churchill, for which Churchill conveyed his thanks and congratulations on the successful attack.[15] His actions in the sinking saw him mentioned in dispatches and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.[23][24]

As the war neared its conclusion, Manners took part in Operation Conan, the Royal Navy's contribution to the liberation of Norway following the formal German surrender at Oslo in May 1945. He was the British naval officer in charge in Trondheim, where he received the German surrender there and entertained Crown Prince Olav aboard Viceroy.[3][15] Having been an acting lieutenant commander since May 1945, he achieved the war-substantive rank in July 1945.[25]

Upon leaving Viceroy in July 1945, Manners was assigned to the troop ship RMS Otranto for its voyage to Australia,[2] where he was to be loaned to the Royal Australian Navy.[3] When the ship arrived in Australia, which was the birthplace of his mother, it docked at Melbourne and shortly thereafter Manners sailed for Sydney, with him describing his stay there as one of the dullest periods of his life. With no prospect of being assigned aboard a ship, he flew back to Melbourne aboard a Royal Air Force Dakota, where his uncle found him work at a sheep station in the Western District of Victoria.[26] After a fortnight at the sheep station, Manners received a phonecall and was assigned to HMS King George V in October 1945, after her first lieutenant had been court-martialled and commander relieved of his duties.[27] The ship spent the majority of the next two months in dry dock at Sydney, during which Manners entertained himself by playing in cricket matches against Sydney's leading public schools, including Cranbrook School whose headmaster was the Oxford Blue Brian Hone.[3][28] He remained aboard King George V until May 1946.[1]

Manners scored his maiden first-class century in 1947 for Hampshire against Kent at the St Lawrence Ground (pictured in 2017).

Returning to England, he was appointed the naval liaison officer at Sandhurst, which allowed him to resume playing county cricket.[11] He played his first first-class match since 1936 when he played for the Combined Services cricket team against Gloucestershire at Bristol in 1947.[7] His first match back for Hampshire saw him score his maiden first-class century with 121 at almost a run a ball against Kent at Canterbury.[9][29] Wisden described the innings as “perfect stroke play, drives, cuts and hooks”.[3] He played three further first-class matches for Hampshire in the 1948 County Championship, in addition to playing for the Combined Services against Hampshire and Gloucestershire in that same year.[7] Against Gloucestershire, he recorded what would be his highest first-class score of 147.[30] His commitments as an officer still limited his availability for Hampshire, with Manners not playing for the county after 1948.[3] He did continue to play first-class matches for the Combined Services until 1953, making twelve appearances.[7] He made 123 against the touring New Zealanders at Gillingham in 1949,[31] and scored 75 against the touring South Africans in 1950.[9] Manners also appeared for the Marylebone Cricket Club and the Free Foresters in a first-class match apiece for each in 1953.[7] He returned to sea in 1953, ending his first-class playing days, before retiring from the navy with the rank of lieutenant commander in April 1958 to become the bursar at Dauntsey's School in Wiltshire.[32][33]

His time at Dauntsey's was not without controversy, when in 1964 he was temporarily suspended after pupils organised a strike to protest the food they were being served. However, he was reinstated after a week following a letter of support, signed by all but one of the teaching staff.[3] He retired after eighteen years at Dauntsey's.[4]

Manners was also a photographer who contributed to Country Life. He had an interest in crafts, and was the author of the books Country Crafts Today (1974), Country Crafts in Pictures (1976), Crafts of the Highlands and Islands (1978), and Irish Crafts and Craftsmen (1982).[3][15] His collection of rural photographs and research files are held at the Museum of English Rural Life at the University of Reading.[34]

His wife, with whom he had a son and two daughters, died in April 1995.[1] He was invited to the Russian Embassy in London in 2014, where he was decorated with the Medal of Ushakov for his service in the Arctic convoys.[4][35] In September 2017, at the age of 103, Manners took part in the ITV documentary 100 Year Old Driving School,[36] but gave up driving after his appearance.[3] The documentary also featured the England women's Test cricketer Eileen Whelan, who is the oldest living women's cricketer. Shortly after this he suffered a fall and injured his shoulder, which stopped him from visiting his daughter, Diana, who had emigrated to Australia and who Manners would visit each Christmas.[2][9] In September 2018, he became the longest-lived first-class cricketer, surpassing Jim Hutchinson's (1896–2000) record of 103 years and 344 days.[5] Paying tribute, Hampshire chairman Rod Bransgrove said: "Everyone involved in Hampshire Cricket, past and present, salutes John Manners for his terrific innings and hopes that he holds the record as the oldest living first-class cricketer for a very long time."[5]

In November 2019, Manners was presented with a commemorative medal by the Norwegian Defence Attaché John Andreas Olsen for his role as British naval officer in charge of Trondheim during the German surrender in 1945.[37][38] Manners died on 7 March 2020 at the age of 105 at the Bupa Bayford House nursing home in Newbury, Berkshire. He was survived by three children, eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.[3]

• List of centenarians (sportspeople)
• Lists of oldest cricketers

• John Manners at ESPNcricinfo
• Audio of John Manners, interviewed at Lord's in 2014