Manning, James (1738 - 1791)
Role: First PresidentDates: 1764 - 1791
Portrait Location: Sayles Hall 108
Artist: Lincoln, James Sullivan (1811 - 1888)
Portrait Date:
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 29 3/4
Framed Dimensions: 40 1/2
Brown Portrait Number: 3
Brown Historical Property Number: 595
James Manning, first president of the College of Rhode Island, later called Brown University, was born and grew up in New Jersey. He graduated in 1762 from the College of New Jersey, later called Princeton University, ranking second in his class. In the spring of 1763 he married Margaret Stites (BP 58) and became ordained in the Baptist Church. Shortly thereafter he was transferred to Rhode Island to found a Baptist college, or, as he put it to a group of gentlemen in Newport, "a seminary of polite literature." Rhode Island College was chartered in Warren under Manning's leadership in 1764-1765. Two years later Manning engaged another professor, and in 1769 he marked the first commencement, honoring seven graduates. In 1770 Providence and Newport vied for the new location of the college, with Manning greatly favoring Providence. An offer of financial support from the Brown family of Providence served Manning's wishes. University Hall was built, and Manning received an appointment at Providence's First Baptist Church, the country's oldest but poorest Baptist church.
College was suspended during the war years, reopening in 1783 with a severely battered college edifice. Funding fell forever short of need, and wrangles with the prominent local families of some undeserving students marred Manning's final years. He dreamed of retiring to a farm in New Jersey or of traveling westward. But he stayed put, serving the College, the Church, and his community with an unblemished character, suddenly dying at age 54 in "a fit of apoplexy" in 1791. He was buried in the North Burial Ground next to the College's benefactor Nicholas Brown, Sr.
Many have described Manning's generous character. "Nature seemed to have furnished him so completely that little remained for art to accomplish. The resources of his genius were great,' wrote David Howell, the first professor Manning hired. In later life, manning became quite corpulent, but one of his students remarked, "His motions and gestures were so easy and graceful, that ordinary observers thought not of his immense volume of flesh."
James Sullivan Lincoln painted this portrait posthumously, directly but not entirely faithfully, from a portrait painted by Scottish artist Cosimo Alexander in 1770 (BP 01). Lincoln, originally of Taunton, Massachusetts, apprenticed as an engraver in Providence from the age of fourteen, but turned to full-time painting in 1837. From that moment until his death, he reigned as Providence's premier portraitist. In his later years he often painted from photographs, producing portraits that are considered less strong than his earlier works.