Manual actuating device for the actuation of an appliance, subjected to a force in a direction opposite to the actuation direction, especially in the production of mineral oil or natural gas, such as a blowout preventer (BOP), valve, actuator, throttle or similar, with a rotating spindle, which can be connected to a displacing element of the appliance, moveable in the actuation direction, and with a regulating device, drive-connected through at least one mechanism and which can be manually actuated.In order to improve such a manual actuating device such that, even with a low number of revolutions of the regulating device, high forces on the rotating spindle and therefore on the displacing element can be transferred and there is no need for supporting equipment, such as hydraulics or similar, the mechanism exhibits a screw drive with screw drive nut and the rotating spindle as recirculating spindle, whereby the screw drive nut is drive-connected to the regulating device.