Charles was the son of Dumaresque Williamson Manning and Helena Isabella Bell. He was educated at the Diocesan College, Rondebosch, the South African College, Cape Town; and as a Rhodes Scholar at Brasenose College, Oxford, which he entered in 1914. His academic career was interrupted by military service; he enlisted in the 18th Royal Fusilliers in 1914 and was commissioned in the 7th Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry in the following year. He saw active service in France and Salonkia, 1915-17, was wounded and twice mentioned in despatches. From 1917-18 he served as an Acting Captain and Instructor in the 11th officer cadet battalion. Returning to Oxford he graduated with a First in Literae Humaniores in 1920, a First in Jurisprudence in 1921, and a First in Civil Law in 1922. He was Senior Hulme Scholar, 1921. He became a barrister in Middle Temple, 1922.
Professor H.G. Hanbury, a fellow academic lawyer, describes Manning's attitude as follows: 'From 1964 onwards he was chairman of the South Africa Society, and was a brave apologist for his own country. Though his patience must have been sometimes sorely tried by vitriolic attacks made on it, often by persons whose knowledge of it was scant, he was almost always courteous to its critics, and such was the regard in which his transparent sincerity was held, that never were attacks made personally on him.' Manning's London School of Economics colleague, Professor F.S. Northedge, refers to Manning as 'a controversial writer on South Africa'. This remark is expanded with the comment that 'Manning always insisted, with some passion, that scientific detachment did not, and must not, mean refusal to commit oneself to causes in the political area, when laboratory coat and academic gown are doffed, and Manning did commit himself to at least one such cause, that of South Africa and its regime. But scientific inquiry and political partisanship were at all times rigidly separated from each other in his mind, and only linked in so far as the political partisan, the committed voter in a democratic election or the professional politician, enact their chosen roles the better after serving their time as non-partisan students of the world in which their partisanship subsequently does its work.'
Personal life
Manning married Marion Somerville Johnston, a former pupil, in 1939; Marion predeceased him in 1977. There were no children. He retired to South Africa in September 1977. His recreations included watercolour, gardening, and music.
