Helen Taft Manning, professor emeritus of history and longtime dean of Bryn Mawr College, died Saturday of pneumonia at a nursing home in suburban Philadelphia. She was 95 years old.

Mrs. Manning, a specialist in British colonial history, served as dean from 1917 to 1919 and from 1925 to 1941. She later served as professor of history and head of the department, retiring in 1957.

She was the daughter of William Howard Taft, the 27th President and, until his death in 1930, the 10th Chief Justice of the United States.

Miss Taft graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1915, was named dean in 1917 and rose to acting president in 1919. She left to earn her doctorate at Yale, reclaiming the deanship in 1925.

In 1920, she married Frederick Johnson Manning, a history professor who then moved from Yale to Swarthmore College.

Mrs. Manning is survived by two daughters, Helen Manning Hunter, an economics professor at Bryn Mawr, and Caroline Cunningham, a teacher at the Manhattan School of Music.

A funeral service has been scheduled for 2:30 P.M. Saturday at the Church of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr.