The Kay-ye-my and the name Manly
While scouting for fresh water, Captain Arthur Phillip met members of the Kay-ye-my clan, part of the Dharug-speaking Gayemaygal people. After a kidnapping, one of the clan speared him in the shoulder as a punishment ritual, and Phillip ordered his men not to retaliate. Phillip gave the place the name Manly Cove, for the Aboriginal Australians living there, writing of their "confidence and manly behaviour".
Henry Gilbert Smith and the ferries
In the 1850s Henry Gilbert Smith pictured Manly as a seaside resort. In 1853 he bought two large parcels of land, one granted to John Crane Parker in 1837 and one to John Thompson in 1842. At first a paddle steamer was chartered to Manly.
Other vessels called at Manly irregularly, in what were described as "excursion" visits. Smith put up a wharf on Manly's harbour side, finished in October 1855, and took an interest in steamers himself, part of a push for more regular services that would help sales of his subdivided land. By 1873 he had sold the wharf lease and his share in the steamers to the ferry operators.
Ownership passed to the Port Jackson & Manly Steamship Company. The company promoted its ferries with a phrase contrasting the short trip from Sydney with a far greater distance from care. It built attractions including a large ocean pool, a bathing pavilion and the Manly Fun Pier. It was sold to Brambles in 1972 and to the New South Wales government in 1974, and it now forms part of Sydney Ferries.
From the Sudan to the surf club
In March 1885, with the New South Wales Contingent preparing to leave for the Sudan, a letter reached Premier William Bede Dalley. It held a cheque for £25 for the Patriotic Fund, and a note sending the best wishes of a little boy at Manly. The departure of the New South Wales Contingent for the Sudan was Australia's first overseas military adventure. The "Little Boy from Manly" became a symbol of patriotism for some and, among opponents of the adventure, of mindless chauvinism, helped along by a cartoon by Livingston Hopkins in The Bulletin.
Shot in 1896, a film by Marius Sestier of passengers leaving the ferry Brighton at Manly showed the PS Brighton arriving at the wharf, and is described as the first film made in Australia. It was first shown at the Salon Lumière on Pitt Street on 27 October 1896. Nothing is known to have survived of the film.
For much of the 19th century and into the early 20th, Manly counted among Australia's most popular seaside holiday resorts. At Manly Beach, a ban on bathing in daylight is said to have been challenged for the first time in Australia. In October 1902 William Gocher swam at midday in a neck to knee costume, having announced the plan in the newspaper he had set up. Police escorted him from the water at a second swim after he criticised the authorities; no charges were laid.
In November 1903 the council agreed that bathing could continue all day, as long as a neck to knee costume was worn. In the first official bathing season that year, 17 people drowned at Manly Beach, and a surf club was formed there a year later to help keep the public safe. Which club is the oldest is debated, but the Manly Life Saving Club is counted among the earliest surf life saving clubs in the world.
Later years
George Robey, an original Anzac who lived at Manly, began the Air Mindedness Development League there in 1934. It was later renamed the "Australian Air League", and a squadron has run in Manly without a break since. Manly Town Hall opened in 1937. In 1973 people in Manly's Eastern Hill asked the NSW Builders Labourers Federation to place a green ban on two large tower blocks planned by LJ Hooker. The federation agreed, and asked the residents to set out a community plan for the area's future.
Several places in Manly hold heritage listings: St Patrick's Seminary on Darley Road, the North Head Quarantine Station on North Head Scenic Drive, the Ivanhoe Park cultural landscape on Sydney Road, the Manly Cove Pavilion and the Manly ferry wharf on West Esplanade, and the Manly Substation on Whistler Street.