proposed a designating New Towns around London to re-house Londoners, one of which was Harlow. Manning favoured the designation of New Towns, particularly Harlow. On 5th July 1946 Manning addressed the House of Commons, explaining that the 1946 New Towns Bill, "will place in the hands of simple, honest, decent, kindly folk a key, opening to them a design of gracious living...I have a special interest in this Bill, because in the constituency which I represent, I hope - indeed, I almost pray - we shall have at one end a new town. At the other end we have a beautiful forest, one of the lungs of the most ugly and depressed parts of London." Indeed, the cottage in which Manning lived would be swallowed up by the development of Harlow. Last years Manning was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966. She remained active in educational work (opposing comprehensive schools) and her autobiography (called A Life for Education) was published in 1970. Her last years, before her death at age 91, were spent in the NUT Home for Retired Teachers at Elstree, England. Legacy She was remembered in 2002 by the renaming of a Bilbao square as Plaza de Mrs Leah Manning; a commemorative plaque from the Basque Children of '37 Association was presented to the British House of Commons. A room is named in her honour at Homerton College, Cambridge. A blue plaque was erected to Leah Manning in 2020 on the site of the former ragged school in New Street, Cambridge which is now owned by Anglia Ruskin University and is used as their Institute of Music Therapy. Her work on behalf of the new community Harlow New Town has been commemorated in the name of a day care centre for elderly people in Harlow Town Park. References External links Documents on Manning's role in the Spanish Civil War from "Trabajadores: The Spanish Civil War through the eyes of organised labour", a digitised collection of more than 13,000 pages of documents from the archives of the British Trades Union Congress held in the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. 1886 births 1977 deaths Alumni of Homerton College, Cambridge Basque history English Methodists English trade unionists Schoolteachers from Cambridgeshire English anti-fascists Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Female members of the Parliament