James Man was born on 22 May 1783 in the parish of St. Dunstan in the East, London, the younger son of James and Sarah (Roberts) Man, and was baptized on 2 July 1789 at St Dunstan in the East, London.

He married Frances Margaret Holmes on 9 October 1821, by license, at St. Mary-at-Lambeth, Lambeth, Surrey.

James died on 5 March 1842 at 5 Princes Place, Kennington Road, Lambeth, Surrey.

Frances Margaret Holmes was born on 17 October 1799 in Westminster, Middlesex, the older daughter of Daniel and Elizabeth Catherine Holmes, and was baptized on 17 April 1805 at St Paul Covent Garden, Westminster.

She died on 17 January 1877 at 122 Kennington Park Road at Lambeth in Surrey.

James and Frances belong to Man Generation Seven; their children belong to Man Generation Eight and are:

1. JAMES NISBET and 2. ELIZABETH SOPHIA

[References: James’s birth and baptism – FHL Film # 0396188; his marriage – FHL Film# 1041641; his death – copy of death certificate; Frances’s birth and baptism – FHL Film # 0845241. Frances’s death the Free BMD. Picture above: St Dunstan in the East] Below the registry of James’s baptism.

NOTES: James’s brother Edward was a witness at his marriage. So also were Eliz. Holmes and Maryanne Holmes (Frances’s mother and sister). James would have been 38 at marriage; Frances 22. Below, a transcription of the 1851 census:

Frances M. Man	Head	Widow	50	Boarding house keeper	Born in London
Sophia E. Man	Dau	Unm	29	Governess	Surrey, Kennington
William L. Man	Nephew	Unm	19	Clerk to a lawyer	Kent, Halstead

William L. Man was James and Frances M. Man’s first cousin once removed, not nephew. James and Frances have been found on the 1841 census, Frances and her daughter Elizabeth Sophia along with William have been found on the 1851 census (as transcribed above). The two women are also on the 1861 census and the 1871 census.

Edward Man (James’ brother) became a partner in the firm with his father in 1805.  The company at that point was called James Man and Son.  James, Jun.  became a partner in his father’s and brother’s brokerage firm in 1808 at which point the firm became known as James Man and Sons.  In 1819 by agreement among James and his sons the company became known as Edward and James Man.

(Up until 1870 the law required that the name of a partnership had to list all the partners).  By 1870 the firm was known as E. D. & F. Man standing for the two brothers Edward Desborough and Frederick and has remained the same name until the company split and the financial publicly traded company became The Man Group. The commodity trading company retained E. D & F. Man as its name.

Occasionally ‘The Mans’ were involved in legal disputes such as the following found in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the English Courts of Law …, Volume 5:

The partnership of Edward and James Man, Jun. was dissolved in 1827 when James Man started his own business as a wholesale ironmonger and copper nail manufacturer with premises in Brick Hill Lane off upper Thames Street. (see House of Man, p. 51). However, James was not as successful at business as his brother Edward was as the following notices testify:

From The Jurist (1839) .

From the London Gazette:

Desborough and Young was a firm of solicitors started by a member of the Desborough family. James’ brother Edward had married a Desborough.

The following notice appeared in The Gazette (London):

But James appears to have weathered his financial difficulties:

While James was able to avoid the usual punishment for Bankruptcy – imprisonment – his first cousin Harry Stoe Man was not so lucky and ended up a few times in Newgate.

Below is the death notice for James in The Times of 8 March 1842.

After his death James was still embroiled in a court case as follows:

Man V. Ricketts. May 30, July 3, 1844.
(The case can be read in more detail here)

(Adapted from The English Reports Volume 4.)

A suit was instituted by the creditors’ and official assignee of a bankrupt. The creditors’ assignee died before decree, the official assignee died after decree, and a new official assignee being appointed, his name was, on motion, substituted as Plaintiff in the suit.

This bill was filed by James Man, the creditors’ assignee, and George Lackington. the official assignee, of a bankrupt. James Man died in March 1842, leaving Lackington surviving him, and a decree was made in the cause on the 22d of February 1844.

In March 1844, after the decree had been pronounced, but before it had been entered, Lackington, the official assignee, who was then the sole Plaintiff, died, and on the 2d of April 1844 William Turquand was appointed official assignee in room of Lackington.

A motion was now made that the name of Turquand might be henceforth substituted in the place of Man and Lackington, or of Lackington, in all further proceedings in these causes, in the same manner as if Turquand had been originally a party thereto.

By the sixty-seventh section of the 6 G. 4, c. 16, it is enacted, “That whenever an assignee shall die, or a new assignee or assignees shall be chosen as aforesaid, no action at law or suit in equity shall be thereby abated, but the Court in which any action or suit is depending may, upon the suggestion of such death or removal and new choice, allow the name of the surviving or new assignee or assignees to be substituted in the place of the former; and such action or suit shall be prosecuted in the name or names of the said surviving or new assignee or assignees, in the same manner as if he or they had originally commenced the same.”

Mr. Hallett, in support of the motion.

Mr. Kent, contra, for the Defendant T. B. Ricketts, objected to the form of the notice of motion, it not stating on whose behalf the motion was made, and contended that this section did not apply to the present case, and that a supplemental bill was necessary.

The Master Of The Rolls [Lord Langdale]. I think that the Vice-Chancellor of England has made orders of this description, and I will take an opportunity of looking at them.

The Act provides that the estate shall vest in the new assignee, and that the new assignee may be substituted by “suggestion.” I should have felt some difficulty as to the proper mode of giving operation to the direction as to the suggestion, but for the orders of the Vice-Chancellor of England.

The Master Of The Rolls ordered the name of Turquand to be substituted in the place of Lackington deceased as a Plaintiff in the suit; and that the suit should be prosecuted in the same manner as if Lackington had been originally a Plaintiff therein.

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In Edward Garnet Man’s (EGM) school boy diary Vol. 1 written in 1850-1851 the following entry can be found: ‘September 27 1851, had a letter from Miss Frances Man with an invitation for Monday. Wrote to say we could not come.’ And later on in the diary Edward writes: ‘Miss Frances Man staying at Mrs. Laurence, Lee Grove, Blackheath’. What is puzzling is that no ‘Miss Frances Man’ alive in 1851 presents herself as an obvious candidate for this reference. However Ed Man has pieced together the following which shows that this Miss Frances Man was to the wife of James Man.

• From the parish register of St Dunstan-in-the-East, London: James Man, Jnr., son of James Man and Sarah Roberts, born 22 May 1783 and baptized 2 July (see image above).
• From “The House of Man”: James, Jr., made a partner in the firm that was now called “James Man & Sons.”
• From “The House of Man”: “Young James, who married a girl named Margaret, seems always to have been a misfit.”
• He married Frances Margaret Holmes on 9 October 1821 by license at St Mary-at-Lambeth, Lambeth, Surrey.
• From James Man’s will: “. . . that which she [Georgiana] does not choose I give and bequeath to Margaret the wife of my son James.”
• From James Man’s Family Bible: among sponsors at the christening of Harriot Man [dau. of Edward & Georgiana Man] on 26 Jun 1821 Margaret Frances Man [therefore James and Margaret married before 1821].
• From Bishops’ Transcripts of St Mary, Lambeth, Surrey: James Nisbet, son of James & Frances Margaret Man, baptized on 5 September 1823.
• Same source: Elizabeth Sophia, dau. of James (Jnr.) & Frances Margaret Man, baptized on 14 January 1825.
• From “The House of Man”: The partnership of Edward and James Man (Jnr.) was broken in 1828 when James started his own business as a wholesale ironmonger with premises in Brickhill Lane, off Upper Thames Street.
• From a letter, dated 24 September 1907, from Mary Awdry [Mary Louisa Man, dau. of Edward Desborough Man] to Miss Dorothy Man [ dau. of Edward Garnet Man]: (in answer to questions posed to her by Dorothy – Who was “Cousin Sophy” ? Did she have a brother James?). The response was:  “Cousin Sophie was the daughter of James brother to Edward (who married Georgina Desborough). James married ___?___’s governess and when I can remember her (living at Kennington) she was a very beautiful old lady. She and cousin Sophie were sweet people, but very poor. Sophie died about 10 years ago.[1] Your uncle Septimus used to see a great deal of them at one time. She has a brother – a bad lot – sailor I believe and he married a woman with the surname of Mann. I never saw either one. His name was James.”
• Compiled by H.W.M. 1908, revised 1933: “E. Garnet Man in his researches came across an ironmonger’s assistant near Soho who was named Man and had in his possession a gold watch with the ‘Man’ arms on it. He declared himself to be descended from this John Man [of Hurst]. He stated that John Man had a brother Captain John Man of the Royal Navy and that the brothers went to sea in the same ship ‘finding it to their mutual advantage’. There was a Capt. John man buried at St Dunstan’s, Stepney, about 1719. The ironmonger’s story may be apocryphal.”
• From James Man’s Family Bible: among sponsors at the christening of James Lawrence Man [son of Edward & Georgiana Man] on 16 December 1818 – James Man Junior and Thomas Lawrence.

So! From these 11 pieces above put together by Ed Man, what conclusion can be drawn about Frances Man mentioned in EGM’s schoolboy diary?

Therefore ‘Miss Frances Man’ mentioned in Edward Garnet Man’s diary is James’s widow (he died in 1839 at Penzance). She would have been about 70 in 1851, but we know from Mary Awdry’s letter that she lived to an old age. Mary was born in Kennington in 1852 so would have known her as a young girl.

One other thing that is clear from this is the fact that the various members of the two branches of the Man family (Henry and James) were well acquainted with each other and communicated and visited back and forth. The only strange thing is that the descendants of Frederick Man were not acquainted with the descendants of Edward Desborough Man, but were in touch with the descendants of Edward Garnet.