Leah
Manning was
born in 1886. Educated at St. John's School, Bridgwater,
and Homerton College, Cambridge. A
member of the Labour Party, Manning became
President of the National Union of Teachers in 1930. The following
year she was elected to represent East Islington in the House
of Commons.
An
opponent of Ramsay MacDonald and his
National Government, Manning lost her seat in the 1931
General Election. Four years later Manning unsuccessfully contested
Sunderland.
In
the 1936 Labour Party Conference, several party members including
Ellen Wilkinson,
Stafford Cripps, Aneurin
Bevan and Charles Trevelyan, argued
that military help should be given to the Spanish
Popular Front government, fighting for survival against General
Francisco Franco and his right-wing Nationalist
Army.
Despite a passionate appeal from Senora Isobel de Palencia, the Labour
Party supported the Conservative
Government's policy of non-intervention.
Manning
disagreed with the Labour leadership and served as secretary of the
Spanish Medical Aid Committee. In the spring of 1937 Manning helped
to arrange the evacuation of Basque children to Britain and while
there witnessed the bombing raid of Guernica.
In 1938 Manning returned to Spain where
she wrote a report on the hospitals where British doctors and nurses
were working.
Manning
became the Labour
Party candidate
for Epping and won the seat in the 1945 General Election. Defeated
in 1950 she unsuccessfully contested Epping in 1951 and 1955. Her
autobiography, A Life for Education,
was published in 1970. Leah
Manning died
on 15th September, 1977.
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(1)
Leah Manning wrote about the bombing of Guernica
in her autobiography, A Life
For Education (1970)
I had arrived in Bilbao on April 24 and on
the next day had gone to Mass with the Foreign Secretary and his family,
spending the rest of the day in his office. The morning of the 26th
I spent quietly at the office of Asistencia Social, discussing in
outline the plans for evacuation.
In the afternoon I made
my way down to La Prensa where a group of journalists had invited
me for a drink, among them Philip Jordan and George Steer, who during
the next few weeks were to prove towers of strength and encouragement
to me. A day begun so quietly was to end in indescribable horror and
dismay.
"A raid's coming
up," said Jordan. "Do you want to go down to the shelter?"
I shook my head, so we went outside. Phil's ear had caught the sound
of bombers in the air, although there had been no warning. Across
the hills to the east the air was alive with Heinkels as wave after
wave drove in from the sea. They were followed by Junkers. Horror-striken,
the Basques amongst us shouted, "Guernica! they're bombing Guernica!"
It seemed incredible that such a monstrous thing
could happen to this quiet little market town, renowned from time
immemorial as the home of Basque liberation where, before the famous
oak tree, rulers of Spain had traditionally sworn to observe Basque
local rights. Helpless to do anything we watched from the hills. Until
nearly eight in the evening, incendiary bombs and high explosives
rained down every twenty minutes. The town was open and defenceless;
it was crowded with market day visitors and as people fled
from the destruction they were dive-bombed and machine-gunned from
the air. The roads out of the town were jammed with dead and injured:
1,654 killed; 889 injured.
(2)
Leah Manning, report to the Spanish Medical Aid Committee from Catalonia
(September 1938)
I
suppose that in all the history of modern warfare there has never
been such a hospital. It is the safest place in Spain, beautifully
wired for electric lights and with every kind of modern equipment.
This hospital is evacuated twice a day. It is tragic to add that a
large proportion of the evacuations are by death, because only the
gravest cases are brought here from the front, and the only ones who
remain for longer than the first day or two are abdominals and serious
amputations.
Patience Darton and Ada
Hodson were working there when we arrived. Patience was just coming
on duty for the night and as we went into the cave, the stretcher
bearers brought in an English comrade from the British Battalion who
was gravely wounded in the abdomen.
He had had his spleen removed and Reggie Saxton had given him a blood
transfusion. As I stood by he opened his eyes and spoke my name. I
recognised him as a comrade whom I had met at a by-election in South
Wales, a miner from Tonypandy named Harry Dobson.
Dr. Jolly told me that it was not possible that he could live in fact
they thought only a few hours, so I determined to stay by him until
the end. Actually, it was fifteen hours before he passed away but
I did not leave him during that time and he seemed very happy to have
me there.
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