On the death of his cousin Henry Manaton (d. 1769), the last remainderman in the trust was Francis William Manaton (b. 1715) whose date of death is unknown but occurred before 1769. Francis W. Manaton was apprenticed to the Company of Barber Surgeons in London in 1731/2. He was the son of Pearce Manaton, late of the parish of St Clement Danes. Francis married Elizabeth Acworth (c. 1721-1807) at Hammersmith Chapel by license in 1745. Elizabeth survived her husband and she died at Wandsworth in 1807 at the age of 86.
Elizabeth Acworth (b. 1721) was the daughter of John Acworth (1676-1748) by his second marriage to Anne Ball (1678-1748) in 1717. John Acworth caried out business in wine importing and in underwriting insurance risks. It may be possible that he was acquainted with Robert Manaton (1662-1740), Vintner of London, and uncle to Francis W. Manaton. Elizabeth’s cousins at Christ Church, Oxford might also have supplied introductions.
Portrait of Sir Jacob Acworth as a boy
John Acworth was second cousin to Sir Jacob Acworth (1668-1748/9), Surveyor of the Navy. Sir Jacob Ackworth or Acworth (1668–1748) was an English shipbuilder and ship designer employed by the Royal Navy. As a designer he adopted Newtonian theories to create lighter and faster ships but this approach marginalised him with the very traditional dockyards and he spent his final years on the Navy Board as an advisor. He began his career as probably apprenticed as a ship surveyor in the Royal Navy in 1682 aged 14. In August 1709 he became Master of Woolwich Dockyard. In 1715 he was appointed Surveyor of the Royal Navy. Ackworth was knighted in 1722 by King George I. His non-naval works as Surveyor included the design of Putney Bridge in West London.
Francis W. Manaton and Elizabeth left two daughters, Anne and Martha who were found to be co-heiresses to Kilworthy and the estates in the trust. Martha Manaton became the wife of Rear-Admiral Cornwaithe Ommanney (1736-1801). Ann Manaton became the wife of the Rev. Robert Holt Butcher.
Ommanney
The naval connections between the Acworths, Martha’s mother’s family, may have somehow played a role in the introduction of Martha to Cornthwaite Ommanney. It may also explain the name of Martha’s eldest son, Admiral Sir John Acworth Ommanney.
Rear-Admiral Cornthwaite Ommanney (c.1736-1801)
Cornthwaite Ommanney was in command of the sloop Zephyr in 1766. Ommanney became a lieutenant in 1758, commander in 1765 and made captain in 1772. He was captain of HMS Tartar in 1776. Ommanney was a superannuated rear admiral in 1794. Baptised at St. Mary’s Church, Portsea on 15 August 1736, the son of John and Elizabeth Ommanney, he went on to marry Martha Manaton and together they had 6 sons. Cornthwaite Ommanney died on 26 March 1801 and was buried at the Church of St. John the Evangelist, Westminster.
The union of these two families has been honoured in each generation of their progeny by the impalement of the Ommanney and Manaton arms and by at least one member of each generation assuming the name of Manaton in their given name. The descendants of Admiral Ommanney and Martha Manaton excelled in martial achievement, in the Navy and the Army, and exploration.
A brief biographical description of three of the seven children of Cornthwaite and Martha follows.
Admiral Sir John Acworth Ommanney (1773-1855)
Ommanney joined the Royal Navy in 1786. Promoted Commander in 1796, he was given command of a brig and arrested a fleet of Swedish merchant ships in the North Sea. Promoted to Post Captain in 1800, he commanded HMS Hussar, HMS Robust and then HMS Barfleur. In 1825 he took command of HMS Albion and took part in the Battle of Navarino in 1827. He was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Lisbon in 1837 and then Second-in-Command of the Mediterranean Fleet in 1840 during the Oriental Crisis. He was made Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth in 1851.
Sir Francis Molyneux Ommanney (1774-1840)
Portrait of Rear-Admiral Cornthwaite Ommanney
Portrait of Admiral Sir John Acworth Ommanney
Memoiral to Ommanney at St. Mary the Virgin, Mortlake. Note the impaled Manaton arms at the top of the monument.
Sir Francis Molyneux Ommanney, MP was an English politician who represented Barnstaple from 1818 to 1824. The second son of Rear Admiral Cornthwaite Ommanney, and brother of Admiral Sir John Acworth Ommanney.
Sir Francis Moylneaux Ommanney was father to Sir Erasmus Ommanney (1814-1904) a Royal Navy officer and an Arctic explorer of the Victorian era. Ommanney entered the Royal Navy aged 12 in August 1826 under his uncle, Captain John Ommanney, the captain of HMS Albion, and he took part in the Battle of Navarino aged just 13. The captured flag of the Turkish Commander-in-Chief was handed down by seniority among the surviving officers until 1890, when Ommanney, the sole survivor of the action, presented it to King George I of Greece.
Having passed his naval examination in 1833, Earsmus Ommanney served for a short period as mate in the brig HMS Pantaloon. On 10 December 1835 he was promoted lieutenant, and in the same month was appointed to the transport ship HMS Cove, which was ordered to Baffin Bay to release a number of whalers caught in the ice. He received the special commendation of the Admiralty for this dangerous service. In October 1836 he joined the frigate HMS Pique, and a year later he was appointed to HMS Donegal as flag-lieutenant to his uncle, now Sir John Ommanney, Commander-in-Chief on the Lisbon and Mediterranean stations. Ommanney was promoted commander on 9 October 1840, and from August 1841 to the end of 1844 served on board the steam sloop HMS Vesuvius in the Mediterranean Sea. Here he was employed on the coast of Morocco for the protection of British subjects during the French hostilities, which included the bombardment of Tangier by the Prince de Joinville's naval squadron. Ommanney was promoted captain on 9 November 1846, and from 1847 to 1848 was employed under the government commission during the Irish Famine, carrying into effect relief measures and the new poor law.
When Captain Horatio Austin was appointed to command HMS Resolute during the Franklin search expedition in February 1850, he chose his friend Ommanney as second in command. On 25 August 1850 Ommanney discovered the first traces of the fate of Sir John Franklin, which proved that his ships had wintered at Beechey Island. In December 1851 Ommanney was appointed Deputy Controller-General of HM Coastguard, holding this position until the Crimean War of 1854, when he commissioned HMS Eurydice as senior officer of a small squadron in the White Sea, where he blockaded Archangel, stopping the coasting trade, and destroyed Russian Government property. His White Sea service ended in a battle between his squadron and a Solovetsky Monastery. Ommanney's service in the Baltic was marked by his aggressive operations against Russian shore positions and gunboats, summoning defenceless towns to surrender, and his exaggerated reports of successes.
In 1845 Ommanney was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and on 4 June 1848 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). On 14 January 1853 Ommanney was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. In March 1867 he was appointed Knight of the Order of the Bath. On 14 July 1871 Ommanney was promoted to vice admiral, retiring on 1 January 1875. He was promoted to admiral on the retired list on 1 August 1877, in which year he was knighted for his scientific work in the Arctic. He had been elected FRS in 1868 for the same reason, and to the end of his life continued to take a great interest in geographical work and service subjects. He attended meetings of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal United Service Institution, and for many years he was a councillor of both bodies, and of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He was also a JP for Hampshire.
Ommanney Bay on the west side of Prince of Wales Island in the Canadian Arctic, and Erasmus Ommanney, a small crescent-shaped island located 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) off the northwestern tip of Jackson Island in Arctic Russia, are named after him.
Portrait of Erasmus Ommanney by Stephen Pearcs
Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney, pictured on the cover of The Army & Navy Illustrated, 1898.
Admiral Henry Manaton Ommanney (1778-1857)
This officer entered the Navy, in June, 1787, on board the Colossus, Capt. Hugh Cloberry Christian, lying off Woolwich. He removed, in June, 1788, to, the Arrogant, commanded in the river Medway by Capt. John Harvey; and after a servitude of four years and ten months on the Newfoundland and Channel stations as Midshipman in the Rose frigate and Childers sloop, Capts. Jacob Waller and Robt. Barlow, and Queen Charlotte, flag-ship of Earl Howe, was made Lieutenant, 10 April, 1794, into the Hazard sloop, Capt. John Loring, at Sheerness. During the after part of the French revolutionary war he was employed in the Channel and West Indies, off Lisbon and Cadiz, and in the North Sea and Mediterranean, on board the Aquilon, Capt. Robt. Barlow, Raisonnable and Swiftsure, flag-ships of the late Sir Wm. Parker, Ville de Paris, Commodore Robt. Calder, Blenheim, bearing the flag of Sir W. Parker, Alliance, Capt. Geo. Davies, Caesar, Capts. Roddam Home and Sir Jas. Saumarez, Waakzamkeidt, Capt. Robt. Hall, and Active frigate, Capt. Chas. Sydney Davers. For his services in the last-mentioned ship during the campaign of 1801 in Egypt, he obtained the Turkish gold medal. Being awarded the rank of Commander 29 April, 1802, he served in that capacity from the following May until March, 1804, in the Falcon sloop, on the Newfoundland station, and from Jan. to Dec. 1805 in the Thames, attached to the force in the North Sea. He acquired Post-rank 22 Jan. 1806; and afterwards, from 17 Sept. 1807, until 20 March, 1808, and from 29 Jan. 1812 until 12 Jan. 1813, commanded the Pallas frigate off L’Orient, and the Vigo, flagship of Rear-Admiral Jas. Nicoll Morris, in the Baltic. He was placed on the Retired List of Rear-Admirals 28 June, 1838; and on the Active, 17 Aug. 1840.
Other children of Cornthwaite and Martha are Edward Symons Ommanney, a Merchant of North Yarmouth, Cornthwaite Ommaney, a Captain in the 24th Light Dragoons, Ann Symons Ommanney who married Captain Pipon of the 7th Hussars, and Montagu Ommanney, a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery who died on service in the West Indes in 1796.
Manaton Ommanney
The Ommanney family appears to have adopted the tradition of incorporating the Manaton surname in each generation of descent from Martha. The following is a list of the descendants of Admiral Ommanney and Martha Manaton who continued to observe the Manaton surname. This list is not considered comprehensive.
1st Generation
Admiral Henry Manaton Ommanney (1778-1857)
2nd Generation
Manaton Collingwood Ommanney (1813-1857) who died at the
siege of Lucknow. Son of Sir Francis Molyneux Ommanney.
3rd Generation
Arthur Manaton Ommanney (1842-1865) Lieut. in the Cavalry of the Guide Corps stationed at Murdan, died in the line of service. Son of Edward Lacon Ommanney (1810-1896), son of Edward Symons Ommanney (1780-1848).
Manaton Francis Ommanney (1847-1861), son of Manaton Collingwood Ommanney (1813-1857)
Ernest Manaton Ommanney (1851-1862), son of Francis Ommanney (1811-1899), son of Francis Molyneaux Ommanney (1774-1840).
Rosalie Maud Acworth Ommanney, the great granddaughter of Martha Manaton, married
Charles Frederick Coyndon Luxmoore (1872-1933) on August 17, 1897 at Kensington.
Luxmoore was an explorer who went on an expedition to the Amazon find Percy Harrison
Fawcett DSO (1867 – 1925) a British geographer, artillery officer and explorer of South
America who disappeared in 1925 (along with his eldest son, Jack, and one of Jack's
friends, Raleigh Rimell) during an expedition to find an ancient lost city which he and
others believed existed in the jungles of Brazil. About 1912, Luxmoore purchased
Stafford Barton at Dolton, Devon and commenced extensive renovations which were
completed by 1920. The renovations included the addition of a series of stained glass
windows, one of which commemorated his marriage to Rosalie. This window displays
the Luxmore Arms on the left. At right, those on the 1st and 3rd quarters are Ommanney
and at the 2nd and 4th quarters Manaton.
Their son, Charles Manaton Grosvenor Luxmore (1898-1944) was a Captain in the Royal
Marines in the First World War. He married Francis Dalton of Dolton. He was a Squadron
Leader in the Royal Air Force when he died during the Second World War.
4th Generation
Harold Manaton (1885-1964), who was the son of Charles Henry Ommanney (1852-1915), who was the son of Francis Ommanney (1809-1899), the son of Francis Molyneaux Ommanney (1774-1840)
5th Generation
Cecil John Manaton Ommanney (1913-1995) A Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Temporary Lieutenant, 7 May 1941, was the son of Harold Manaton Ommanney (1885-1964).
Members of the Ommanney family in the sixth generation living today continue to observe the tradition of the Manaton surname. Their names have not been included out of concerns for privacy.
