Cover image: Edward Manifold (right) as part of the Victorian polo team, cover image courtesy of the Melbourne 'Punch' 1899
The Manifold name is one of those known widely across the Victorian racing scene. At least, it was through the 1900s, and today it’s possible that recency has dulled its flame.
In any case, this Saturday the G2 Edward Manifold S. will revive it for a weekend, reminding the race-going public of a family institution that was once so critical not just to Victorian racing, but to the state as a whole.
Edward Manifold | Image courtesy of the Australasian newspaper, August 1906
Chester Manifold, for example, was chairman of the Victoria Racing Club (VRC) for 11 years from 1962, but he’s not the Manifold in question. It’s his uncle, Edward Manifold, who will take centre stage in a 3-year-old fillies’ race on Saturday that was first run in 1932 in honour of the man it was named for.
Edward Manifold was a VRC committeeman for 33 years from 1898 to his death in 1931. These were interesting years for the club, including that post-Carbine (NZ) era, the arrival of Federation and the Great War. It was also a time of great maturity for the VRC via men like Septimus Miller, Arthur Kewney and Lachlan Mackinnon.
Like many of his peers, Manifold was a sportsman. He was a deft polo player, representing Victoria with the Camperdown Polo Club on a tour of New Zealand in 1901. He excelled at cricket, athletics and football, all of the things that were expected of wealthy gentlemen at that time, and which were fostered by grammar-school education.
Chester Manifold with Queen Elizabeth II at Flemington in 1954 | Image courtesy of the Victoria Racing Club
Manifold’s immortality at the VRC is largely thanks to him being its longest-serving committeeman at the time of his death in 1931. The race was instigated the following year, and it was widely welcomed by a warm public which had liked the man immensely. By most accounts, there was nothing not to like about Manifold, one of the ‘finest and high-minded citizens’ of his time.
Born to wealthy pastoralists in November 1868, he grew up in the western districts of Victoria. His family owned that grand estate ‘Purrumbete’, and Manifold lived much of his life in the Wiridgil districts, west of Geelong. He ran sheep and cattle.
The Camperdown community, in which Wiridgil is camped, was very dear to him, and he and his brothers funded its hospital, as well as scholarships at Geelong Grammar and the local Church of England.
Boortkoi homestead where Edward Manifold lived | Image courtesy of the State Library of Victoria
Manifold was fiercely loyal to his roots, and those roots are interesting. The original Manifold brothers, which included his father, were Tasmanian settlers who arrived in Victoria with a flock of sheep and the spirit of adventure. Driving west, they discovered Lake Purrumbete.
When Edward Manifold died, the Camperdown community was stricken. Because of the Manifold family, it had a cricket field, a clock tower and a hospital. ‘No one can quite realise the loss the community will sustain through the death of Mr Edward Manifold... for his whole life has been inseparably bound up with the interests of Camperdown.’
As a racing man, Manifold was best known for his success as a jumps owner. His best horse was the 1896 Grand National Steeplechase winner Dungan, and he won the same race three years later with Mysore, then again in 1916 with Caradjil. He also raced the good mare Veronica (Wellington), who won the 1896 Moonee Valley Cup.
Tranquil Star, a winner of the 1940 Edward Manifold S.
At his death in 1931, Manifold was still a young man at just 62. He died in hospital after going in for surgery. His nephew, Chester Manifold, would overshadow his legacy in later decades at the VRC, but the timelessness of the G2 Edward Manifold S., continually staged for nearly a century, is a kind nod to one of Victoria’s most noble characters.
