Daniel Manship (1822-1893) & Selina, nee Nolloth (1835-1881)

Daniel MANSHIP was born in about 1822 at Martham to Isaac & Rebecca MANSHIP and was baptised on 15^th January at St Mary the Virgin, Martham.

He grew up with his parents living at The Green in Martham where his father was a tailor and then a farmer. Their home was a house and land that once stood where the Co-operative Store now stands and in his early years, Daniel helped his father on the small farm they had. 

Generally speaking, the Manship family were steeped in farming.  Daniel’s father had been a small-time farmer and he died in 1849. Daniel had two other brothers who were both farmers; Thomas, who farmed 140 acres in 1851 and William who had 130 acres in 1871. It is no surprise, therefore, that Daniel was drawn to farming but by 1849 he was also a tanner employing four people.   He also showed an entrepreneurial streak when he was only 21 and purchased about three acres of land called Clamps Close on 20^th December 1843 for £250 from a widow called Mary Pratt. The land he bought is shown on the map below in red and you can see that it was directly adjacent to Repps Road.

He probably farmed the land at first but later must have realised that the village had an expanding population and more land was needed for housing, so he began dividing Clamps Close into separate building plots. On 26^th December 1849, he sold a plot for £22 at the west end of the field to George Self, who built the house that is there now called Loxwood Villa. He also sold another plot, for £24, to the east of the first one to Charles Braddock who built the house named The Wilderness on it. Other plots must have been sold later as houses occupy the rest of the site now.

When he was 34, Daniel married Selina NOLLOTH on 5^th November 1856 at Great Yarmouth by licence. They went on to have four children as follows:

1. John Daniel MANSHIP, who was born on 22^nd September 1857 at Martham. He married Edith Blanche BIGGS in 1886 in New Zealand.
2. Alexander Isaac MANSHIP, who was born on 18^th November 1860 at Martham.
3. Edward William MANSHIP, who was born in 1862 at Martham, He married Emily Gertrude CRISP, whose father was a well-known doctor and surgeon at Martham, on 28^th March 1892 at St Mary the Virgin, Martham. He died on 9^th August 1954 in Surrey. England.
4. Harry Benjamin MANSHIP, who was born on 15^th February 1872 at West Somerton.   

At the time of the census in 1861 Daniel & Selina were living at The Green in Martham where he farmed 27 acres and employed five labourers and five boys. Over the course of the next 10 years, Daniel expanded his farming interests massively and by 1871 lived at Bloodhills Farm House, West Somerton where he farmed 270 acres and employed 10 labourers, three boys and two servants. We will probably never know if he over-stretched himself; if there were several bad harvests or if there was a down-turn in farming at the time but in March 1881 things had caught up with Daniel and he was declared bankrupt. The two entries below announced his downfall in the press.

We don’t know if they were trying to escape their creditors or just wanted a fresh start but Daniel and Selina emigrated with their sons Alexander and Harry to the USA. They left Liverpool on the S.S. Wisconsin and arrived at New York on 21^st July 1881.  

S.S. Wisconsin
21st March 1870, issue of Shields Daily Gazette.
"LAUNCHED ON THE TYNE.— On Saturday, there was launched from the shipbuilding yard of Messrs Palmer and Co., at Jarrow, an iron screw-steamer, 287 feet in length. The steamer, which is named the Wisconsin, was built for the Guion line of steamers between Liverpool and New York, and measures 380 feet over all; 43 feet wide; 28 feet deep; with a 7 feet 6 inches spar deck. She has saloons and berths to accommodate about 100 first-class passengers and on the main deck there is room for about 1,500 emigrants, while a lower deck is set apart for cargo. The Wisconsin is built on the flush-plate plan, which was first introduced in the building of the Nevada and Idaho last year by Messrs C. M. Palmer and Co., for the same owners. The engines, which are ready to be fitted into the vessel, are compound engines of 600 horse-power.

The dark days for the family did not let up after their move to America because Selina died on 5^th August 1881 at the Lutheran Medical Centre, Brooklyn, New York only two weeks after they arrived. She was only 45 and her cause of death was recorded as ‘diarrhoea, dysentery and asthenia’ (abnormal physical weakness or lack of energy). It is almost certain that Selina contracted her illnesses on the Wisconsin travelling to America rather than after she arrived. Steamship companies had long since realised that migration was good business and built bigger and bigger ships to cater for demand. Millions of people had migrated to America in the early to mid-19th century and America had seen a rapid period of industrialisation and urbanisation, attracting immigrants in their million. Most people travelled in third class, called “steerage” which consisted of a huge open space at the bottom of the ship. As many as 2,000 people could be crowded into the biggest ships in steerage. These provided little privacy and nothing more than precarious and insufficient toilets. Passengers would often have to take their own food to cater for the whole of the 7 to 10-day crossing. During this period, there were reports that conditions in steerage were nothing less than horrifying. There were no cleaning services whatsoever, food (if provided) was of appalling quality and the overcrowding led to poor hygiene and an unbearable stench. Matters were often as bad after they arrived in New York with accommodation in high demand they were most likely to have ended up in wretched tenement buildings in sub-standard shared rooms that would not have helped with Selina’s problems.

Sadly, Daniel also died about 21 months later on 10^th May 1893 at Hoboken. New Jersey. He was 71.

On a brighter note, both their sons stayed in America and lived a full life there. Alexander married a lady, called Sarah Ella (surname unknown) in 1886. They lived in New Jersey for a while and he eventually he died on 27^th October 1947 at Yankton, South Dakota.
Harry married Pauline Boitz at Chicago in 1895 and they had two children. He was a printer and died in Chicago on 9^th October 1936.

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