Marking Manny - the man who discovered Arthur Wharton

The marble stone dedicated to Manny Harbron in Darlington’s West Cemetery says that he was a “notable trainer of athletes” and one of his most famous pupils was Arthur Wharton.

Monumental mason Craig Watson with Ron Harbron, Manny's great-grandson, Shaun Campbell of the Arthur Wharton Foundation, and Jocelyn Harbron, Manny's great-great-grand-daughter

But Manny did not just train Arthur: he let him lodge with him and his family, and he even wrote a song in his honour, called Wharton of Darlington.

“Put simply,” said Shaun Campbell of the Arthur Wharton Foundation while standing next to the gleaming headstone on Thursday, “without Manny Harbron, there would be no Arthur Wharton.”

“It’s fantastic,” said Ron Harbron, Manny’s great-grandson. “I am very taken with it. The family will be amazed.”

Wharton (above) was born in 1865 in Ghana. His mother was a member of Ghanian royalty and his father was a Scottish Methodist missionary. They sent the lad to England to study Methodism with a view to joining the church and he ended up as a 19-year-old at Cleveland College in the west end of Darlington.

In May 1885, he took part in Darlington Cricket Club’s sports day at Feethams and easily won the 120 yard sprint – although having never seen a finishing tape before, he ducked underneath it.

Manny Harbron (above), the athletics coach at Feethams, took him under his wing, quickly altering his upright stance and flat footed running so that that summer, Wharton became the star of the north – in one meeting at Crewe, he not only won the sprints but also came first and second in the cricket ball throwing competition.

That winter, he played football for the newly-formed Darlington FC at Feethams. Not as a winger, as might be expected for someone so fast, but in goal, where he couldn’t run at all. But his athleticism and speed of movement kept him away from the brutal challenges of the day and allowed him to make such exceptional saves that he was soon playing for invitational teams across the north.

For the summer of 1886, he returned to athletics under Manny’s tuition. That July, he entered the Amateur Athletics Association’s national championships at Stamford Bridge and, wearing in the colours of Darlington Cricket Club, became the first person to be reliably recorded running the 100 yards in 10 seconds flat.

It was a sensation and Arthur became a minor national celebrity.

But when the new football season opened, Arthur had promised to play for Preston North End, one of the biggest clubs in the country. This caused friction with his former teammates at Feethams, but Manny saved the day.

Manny Harbron with his daughters and his wife Catherine on the right

It seems that Arthur was now living, or lodging, with the large Harbron family in Brunswick Street in the town centre – “my grandfather used to talk about how this black man had lived with them”, says Ron.

And for the club’s annual dinner, Manny arranged for Arthur to be toasted and then serenaded by his own composition, Wharton of Darlington.

“When he (Wharton) rose to respond to the improvised demonstration which had taken place, he was received with cheers of the heartiest, the loudest, most enthusiastic in character, which rose and rose again as the youth stood half-dazed before the reiterated volleys of the guests,” reported the Darlington & Stockton Times which was published on December 25, 1886. “It was the reception of an athlete by athletes, and I do not think any prize could be dearer to the hero than such unstinted recognition of his qualities by those best able to appreciate them.”

Manny had engineered a reconciliation, and Arthur turned out for the Skernesiders, as the club was then nicknamed, when his other commitments allowed.

So he played for Preston and helped them reach the semi-final of the FA Cup, which they lost to West Bromwich Albion on March 5, 1887, which enabled him to turn out for Darlington in the Cleveland Challenge Cup final against Darlington St Augustine’s – perhaps the best team of the day in the North East.

With the Cleveland Challenge Cup at Feethams. Back row: G Millar, W Brooks, J Davison, Tommy Waites, Michael Hope, Harry Hope. Front row: RT Stabler, Arthur Wharton, JH Smeddle, RB Buckton, JT Hutchinson. Standing: Charles Craven

With Arthur practically impassable, the Skernesiders won 4-1, their first trophy.

The following season, he turned out for Darlington, Middlesbrough and Preston before moving to Sheffield to try his hand at the lucrative and popular sport of pedestrianism, and then he turned pro as a footballer for Rotherham and Sheffield United.

So Manny Harbron was crucial in launching his career. Manny’s full name was Emanuel and his great-grandson Ron, whose middle name is Emanuel, has traced the family tree 14 generations back to 1574 when Emanuel Harbron was a blacksmith for Lord Barnard in Cleatlam, near Staindrop.

Manny Harbron and his youngest son, John, who had won an athletics trophy in Edinburgh

Manny’s father, also Emanuel, was a whitesmith and bellhanger, while Manny himself was a silversmith when he wasn’t coaching athletes.

He died in 1926, and when the Arthur Wharton Foundation became aware of his significance to Arthur’s story, they decided to get the headstone cleaned and straightened. Craig Watson, of Watson Memorials, who two years ago restored Arthur’s damaged headstone in Edlington, near Doncaster, volunteered to do the work.

“It just seemed the right thing to do,” said Shaun Campbell on Thursday. “We wanted to draw attention to the role of Manny Harbron.

“When my father came over from Barbados in the Windrush years, he couldn’t even get a room and yet here in the 1880s, Arthur was living with Manny. He really was a mentor to Arthur.”