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John Man (1749-1824)
came to Reading in 1770 and took over a small academy for young
gentlemen off Castle Street. An account by an ex-pupil describes
him as ‘a singular, naturally clever, and kind-hearted man
… he was now and then the purchaser of old books by the sack-full;
these were tumbled out upon the floor, the arm-chair, or a table,
just as it might happen’. Man retired early at 45; soon he
was Secretary to the Reading Provident Society and joint owner of
a Thames barge, but it was his intense interest in local life, past
and present, that ensured him an important place in the annals of
Reading. Perhaps spurred on by his more famous elder brother, the
writer Henry Man, he filled notebooks with political satires and
historical anecdotes. His only publications under his own name were
the first large-scale plan of the town (1798) and its second History
(1816); but in 1810 he had brought out the anonymous Stranger, supposedly
written by a Londoner in a series of letters home. |