Sir John Fryer, 1st Baronet

Sir John Fryer, 1st Baronet (14 September 1671 11 September 1726) was a prominent Presbyterian layman, London pewterer, merchant and Lord Mayor of London. The baronetcy became extinct on his death in 1726.[1] He was created a baronet on 13 December 1714[2][3]

"The King was pleased to make me a Barronett & my pattent was ordered accordingly it bears date
This favour was conferred on me for my fidelity to the Protestant Succession in the House of Hanover & not laying down my Gown(?) when the Torie Ministry had made the Law against Occasional Conformity contrived on purpose to throw & exclude Dissenters out of Publick places."[4]

Biography

Born in Buckinghamshire, the son of Francis Fryer, he believed his family came from Oxfordshire and his grandfather (known as Francis Freer) settled in Little Marlow settling in the dissolved nunnery there called The Abbey and renting a farm of 50 acres. John was the only surviving child of his father's third wife, Susannah, daughter of maltster John Boulter, twice mayor of Abingdon, county town of Berkshire. Susannah's marriage portion had been £100 but her mother's brother was rich London merchant and baronet Sir John Cutler and when Cutler's heirs died young his estates fell back to his sister's numerous Boulter children.

Haseley memorial St Nicholas Deptford
Haseley Court
Little Haseley, Oxfordshire

These estates included Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire and Gawthorpe Hall and Harewood Castle near Leeds in Yorkshire, Little Haseley Oxfordshire, estates in Lincolnshire, the manor of Deptford near London, and estates in Hampshire Wherwell and Goodworth Clatford. Fryer was to receive Wherwell through his uncle Edmund Boulter, build a mansion there, Wherwell Priory, and make it his home. He was succeeded there by his Iremonger descendants.[4]

John Fryer was a Pewterer by trade and (in his last few years so as to be eligible for the mayoralty) a member of the Fishmongers. He obtained election to Alderman of Queenhithe from 7 February 1710 retaining it until his death, and was created a baronet on 21 December 1714. He was a Sheriff of the City of London for 1715–16, and Lord Mayor for 1720–21. He was elected a director of the East India Company and the South Sea Company and inherited an estate at Wherwell, Hampshire.[1]

He married three times. Katherine née Weedon died 12 November 1718 and Dorcas née Roberts 17 August 1723. He married thirdly Isabella Gerard on 11 March 1725 and she survived him.[4]

In 1715 he began to enter in a small leather-bound ledger a note of the major events of his life making additions from time to time and he maintained this until near his end.

His only son who survived to adulthood, John Fryer by Katherine Weedon, died at Wherwell two years before him on 16 August 1724 aged 24.[4] His daughter Delicia, by Dorcas Roberts, was adopted by Obadiah Hughes[5] husband of her mother's sister, Delicia Roberts.

Sir John died in his 55th year of gout in the stomach at his seat at Wherwell on 11 September 1726 when the baronetcy became extinct. Presbyterian John Ball preached the funeral sermon.[1] His widow married as his second wife, Henry Temple, 1st Viscount Palmerston, on 11 May 1738 at St Antholin, Budge Row.[1][6]

Timeline

attended the Grammar School in the parish taught by Minister Mr Thomas Beesly. "a very solid preacher and a good liver".[4]
"naturally of a weak constitution & being the only surviving child my dear mother had not inured me to any hard labour &, which was worse, in my infancy I had been cured of a rupture & I found such carrying or burdens strained which part and did me much hurt . . . my master put me on doing the servile part of the trade . . . not commonly done by other apprentices."[4]
Boulter has left him his house in Prince's Street (to which Fryer moves his family) and, amongst other things, estates in Hampshire and Fryer soon starts building Wherwell Priory.[4]

He was survived by:

daughters by Katherine Weedon:
daughter by Dorcas Roberts:

Some notable descendants:

Arms and crest

His coat of arms was Sable a chevron between three dolphins naiant Argent, a canton Ermine.

His crest was from a coronet Or, an heraldic antelope's head Argent, antlered and tusked, and tufted of the same.

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Cokayne, George Edward (1906) Complete Baronetage. Volume V. Exeter: W. Pollard & Co. LCCN 06-23564. p. 25
  2. 1 2 The London Gazette: no. 5278. p. 4. 16 November 1714.
  3. page 5, British Mercury, 17 November 1714 – 24 November 1714; Issue 490
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Sir John Fryer, Autobiography or Some account of the Life &c of John Fryer & of severall of his Relations written by himself 1715 &c; G.L., MS. 12,017.
  5.  Gordon, Alexander (1891). "Hughes, Obadiah". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 28. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 186.
  6. Debrett's Peerage pp. 662 col 1 and Kearsey's Peerage (1804) vol, 2 p. 546 both state that Isabella Gerard married Lord Palmerston in 1738 (not 1728), and this matches the death date of his first wife Anne nee Houblon (she died 1735). Arthur Collins's The English Baronetage: Containing a Genealogical and Historical ..., Volume 1 (1741), in the entry "Gerard of Bryn" p. 53, closest in date to the event, gives no date for Lady Fryer's remarriage. Cokayne's Complete Baronage is not always correct on dates, although generally more reliable than others.
  7. Sir John Fryer, Autobiography. Parish register
  8. History Today, periodical, page 555, Volume 17, Issues 7-12
  9. Gazette Issue 5385 published on 26 November 1715. Page 4 of 5
  10. Whitehall Evening Post, 9 April 1719 – 11 April 1719; Issue 89
  11. London Journal, 29 October 1720 – 5 November 1720; Issue LXVII
  12. Gazette Issue 6003 published on 28 October 1721. Page 1 of 2
  13. Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer, Saturday, 4 November 1721.
  14. Evening Post, 10 September 1726 – 13 September 1726; Issue 2674.

References

External links

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