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Whilst still at the Academy at Northampton, Samuel Merivale had formed an attachment to the daughter of a gentleman of some means in that town. Miss Betsy Bottrell, who he flattered himself returned his affection. It was not however till after he had been some years at Sleaford that he ventured to make her an offer of marriage; and considering the narrowness of his circumstances, he can hardly have been surprised that it met with a refusal. The lady had, in deference to her father's wish, become engaged to Mr. William Manning, whom she married shortly afterwards. Samuel's proposal and her refusal, the tenderness of which induced him to believe it was not quite voluntary on her part, are described in one of his letters with great naivete. He will have more to say of her at a later period. In the meanwhile the disappointment of his hopes brought on a tedious attack of ague and fever, after his recovery from which he was glad to accept a " call " from a congfregation in a very distant part of the country, the small town of Tavistock in Devonshire.
Mrs Merivale's son by her first marriage, the Rev James Manning, succeeded to his stepfather's duty in preaching to the congregation at Thorverton, and afterwards became minister to the Unitarian chapel in Exeter, known as George's Meeting. He held this ministry for 53 years, and died in 1831. He left several children, on of whom was Serjeant Manning, a well known London barrister; another went out to New South Wales, and was the father of Sir William Manning, a Judge in Sydney. Miss Anne Manning, the authoress of "Mary Powell" and other semi-historical fictions of great popularity in their day, was a grand-daughter of the Exeter minister; she died in 1879.[1]