Gordon Manley, geographer and meteorologist, 1902-1980

Gordon Manley was born in 1902, and grew up in Blackburn. He studied geography at Cambridge University, graduating in 1923, then worked for a year for the Meteorological Office, and was a member of the 1926 Cambridge Expedition to East Greenland. He was a lecturer at Durham University from 1928 to 1939, becoming Senior Lecturer and Head of the new Department of Geography. He was Curator of the University Observatory from 1931-1939.

He then moved to Cambridge University, until in 1948 he became Professor of Geography at Bedford College (University of London). In 1964 he moved to the newly-founded University of Lancaster until 1967, when he retired and moved back to Cambridge. His studies of meteorology and the measurement and recording of weather, especially the British climate, still form the basis for the study of historical British weather records, especially that for central England. He combined direct observation, such as that in the North Pennines during his work on the Helm Wind at Cross Fell, with careful archival research into the weather records collected in previous centuries.

During his time in Durham, Manley began work on the Durham University Observatory temperature series ( The Durham meteorological record 1847-1940, Q. J. R. Met. Soc. 67, 1941, 363-80). He took up this interest again in retirement, when he travelled frequently from Cambridge to Durham, working on the extension of a temperature series for Durham back to 1794, using similar methods to those used in creating the Central England Temperature Series mentioned above. He died in 1980, before publishing the results, and his working papers including those on his earlier work on the Durham record are in the Cambridge University Library, but a series of letters to Joan Kenworthy, detailing the methods he was using and his interim results, is deposited in Durham University Library Palace Green (DUL ADD-851). See also J. M. Kenworthy, The Durham University Observatory record and Gordon Manley’s work on a longer temperature series for north-east England, Chapter 2 in Tooley and Sheail op cit, 17-38, and M. Eglise, A monthly temperatures series for Durham from 1784, PhD. Thesis (2003), Durham University.

From the guide to the Gordon Manley Papers, 1918-2009, (Durham University Library, Archives and Special Collections)