105 



ALFKED FRYEK. 



(1826-1912.) 



(with portrait.) 



British botanists will have learnt with the greatest regret 

 that Alfred Fryer died at his residence at Chatteris, in Cambridge- 

 shire, on February 26th, in his eighty-sixth year. 



Living quietly for the greater part of his life in a small 

 country place, few but his most intimate friends were aware of 

 the depth of his intellect or appreciated at their full worth his 

 literary and scientific attainments. To take only one instance, 

 few persons can read with ease French, German, Dutch, and 

 Latin, with the addition of a little Swedish or Danish; such know- 

 ledge is especially useful to the botanist in England who has to 

 study, and make comparisons with, foreign forms of plants. But 

 what impressed his friends most deeply, when he was in the prime 

 of life, was his wonderful enthusiasm for any pursuit he took up, 

 and in another direction his marvellous fund of anecdotes con- 

 nected with the men of the Fens, with whom he always identified 

 himself. What Fryer might have accomplished with a very slight 

 change of Fortune's wheel it is impossible to say ; he witnessed 

 many phases of life both in London and the country, made the 

 acquaintance of many men of eminence in different lines, and 

 in his younger days had many advantages ; but, in spite of his 

 enthusiasm, he was of a modest and retiring nature, and never 

 could bring himself to make full use of opportunities as a more 

 pushing man would have done. 



The Fryers are an old Cambridgeshire family of the northern 

 fenland, and the branch to which Alfred belonged has been resi- 

 dent for at least three hundred years in the Chatteris district ; 

 his father was a gentleman-farmer of considerable means, who did 

 not consider it necessary to bring up his son to any regular pro- 

 fession, but allowed him to follow the bent of his natural tastes. 

 Eventually this proved unfortunate, as the son did not inherit 

 any portion of his father's capital, as it was supposed he would 

 be provided for by a rich aunt. The aunt, at her death, was 

 found to have left her money elsewhere, and Alfred was thrown 

 almost entirely on his own resources. 



Born on Christmas Day, 1826, he was sent to school at 

 Leicester in or before the year 1840, and there, among others, met 

 a dreamy clever boy of the name of Bates, who was afterwards to 

 become the celebrated traveller and explorer of the Amazon. The 

 two boys became very intimate, and they soon proved them- 

 selves to be more devoted to natural history and poetry than to 

 school work ; their love for the former subject was no doubt 

 stimulated by the fact that they made the acquaintance of Alfred 

 Russel Wallace, who doubtless even then showed signs of the 

 talent strikingly brought to light by his joint paper with Charles 

 Darwin on the Origin of Species. When Bates subsequently left 

 Journal op Botany.— Vol. 50. [April, 1912.] i 



