Thomas Fry (priest, born 1775)

Thomas Fry (1775–1860) was an English cleric and academic.

Life

His father was Peter Fry, of Compton Bassett, Somerset. He matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford in 1792, graduating B.A. in 1796.[1] He was ordained deacon in 1797, by George Pretyman Tomline, and priest in 1798, by Edward Smallwell.[2] At this period he was living in Axbridge, and impressed Hannah More with his maturity and boldness as a preacher.[3] He took his M.A. at Lincoln College, in 1798.[1]

Emberton clock tower, in the centre of the village, erected by Thomas Fry to the memory of his wife Margaret[4]

Fry had a position as tutor at Lincoln College, and curacies at Abingdon and Hanwell.[5] He gave up his fellowship at Lincoln to become chaplain at the Lock Hospital Chapel in London, the successor to Thomas Scott and Charles Edward de Coetlogon who resigned in 1802. There was a new selection of hymns, with Fry creating a hymnbook that replaced over half of Martin Madan's, and charity school boys made up a choir.[6][7] There his assistant was Legh Richmond, and they became lifelong friends.[8] Fry became rector of Emberton, in Buckinghamshire and the Diocese of Oxford, in 1804, where he was also the patron.[1] Tithe commutation had taken place in 1798.[9] He gave up the chaplaincy, by 1812.[5]

Fry joined Joseph Fox as joint secretary of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews in 1810. In 1812 Fox was replaced by William Bengo' Collyer. Collyer and Fry both retired in 1814, and were replaced by Charles Sleech Hawtrey.[10][11]

Fry was granted a license of non-residence at Emberton in 1848, on the grounds of age and infirmity.[12]

Works

Fry wrote:

  • The Necessity of Religious Knowledge to Salvation (1805), Christ Church, Newgate Street for the SPCK[13]
  • The Reviewer Reviewed (1821) as "Heresiae Mastix", in defence of César Malan.[14][15]
  • Domestic Portraiture; or the successful application of religious principle in the education of a family, exemplified in the memoirs of three of the deceased children of the Rev. L. Richmond (1833), on the family life of his friend Legh Richmond.[16]
  • A Father's Reason for Repose (1839), by "the author of Domestic Portraiture", and an extract published as The Causes and Cure of Scepticism.[17][18]
  • New Testament in Hebrew (Berit hadashah 'al pi Mashiah: ne'etak mi-leshon Yavan lileshon 'Ivri. London: A. Macintosh,1817). Published as an early edition of the London Jews' Society's New Testament in Hebrew. Text in vocalized Hebrew; assisted by G. B Collier and other scholars

Family
Hannah Fry, 1838 portrait by Andrew Geddes

On 23 September 1802, as vicar of Radley, Fry married Anne Cresswell, daughter of Estcourt Cresswell (died 1823) of Bibury, by his first marriage to Mary Wotton.[19][20] She died in 1811, and he then married Margaret Henrietta Middleton.[21] The children of this marriage were:

  • Peter Samuel, eldest son, married in 1840 to Katherine Eliza Anne Williams, daughter of Rev. John Charles Williams, and father of Thomas Charles Fry.[22][23]
  • Thomas Osmond, second son, died in 1846, aged 26.[24][25]
  • Charles Simeon, died in 1839, aged 18.[26]
  • Hannah Mary Elizabeth, only daughter, married Harris Prendergast in 1832.[27]

Mary Ann Foster, a widow, married Fry as his third wife, in 1846. She was the second daughter of Sir William Chambers Bagshawe (1771–1832), a physician (originally Darling), and had married her first husband, William Foster, in 1817.[28][29]

Complex litigation in Chancery over Cresswell family trusts followed Fry's death in 1860.[30] He had claimed in 1845 title to and a life interest in estates of the Wottons of Inglebourne, through his deceased first wife, which had led to Spitchwick House, Widecombe-in-the-Moor in Devon being attacked.[31]

Notes
  1. s:Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886/Fry, Thomas (2)
  2. Persons: Fry, Thomas (1797–1814) in "CCEd, the Clergy of the Church of England database" (Accessed online, 5 March 2017)
  3. Anne Stott (2003). Hannah More: The First Victorian. Oxford University Press. p. 211. ISBN 978-0-19-924532-1.
  4. Kelly's directory of Buckinghamshire. Kelly's Directories Ltd. 1939. p. 116.
  5. Terry, Garnet (1812). The Pulpit; or, A biographical and literary account of eminent popular preachers, interspersed with occasional clerical criticism, by Onesimus. p. 80.
  6. John Stewart Reynolds (1975). The Evangelicals at Oxford, 1735-1871: A Record of an Unchronicled Movement with the Record Extended to 1905. Marcham Manor Press. p. 73.
  7. Nicholas Temperley, The Lock Hospital Chapel and Its Music, Journal of the Royal Musical Association Vol. 118, No. 1 (1993), pp. 44–72 at pp. 54 and 61. Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Musical Association. JSTOR 766542
  8. Taylor, Clare L. "Richmond, Legh". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/23595. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  9. Benjamin Clarke (1852). The British gazetteer: political, commercial, ecclesiastical, and historical; showing the distances of each place from London and Derby--gentleman's seats--populations ...&c. Illustrated by county maps, with all the railways accurately laid down. Published (for the proprietors) by H. G. Collins. p. 135.
  10. R. H. Martin, United Conversionist Activities among the Jews in Great Britain 1795-1815: Pan-Evangelicalism and the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, Church History Vol. 46, No. 4 (Dec., 1977), pp. 437–452, at p. 445. Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church History. JSTOR 3164439
  11. W.T. Gidney. The history of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews. Рипол Классик. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-177-64426-6.
  12. Accounts and Papers. 1850. p. 56.
  13. Thomas Fry, The necessity of religious knowledge to salvation. A sermon, preached at Christ-Church, Newgate-Street, for the benefit of the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, Hume Tracts, 1805. Contributed by: UCL Library Services. JSTOR 60207453
  14. Samuel Halkett (1926). Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature. Ardent Media. p. 114. GGKEY:0HXUCXC4634.
  15. The Life, Labours, and Writings of Caesar Malan: Minister of the Gospel in the Church of Geneva, Doctor of Divinity, and Pastor of "L'eglise Du Témoignage". James Nisbet. 1869. p. 31. ISBN 9780790549538.
  16. Legh Richmond; Thomas Fry (1833). Domestic Portraiture; or the successful application of religious principle in the education of a family, exemplified in the memoirs of three of the deceased children of the Rev. L. Richmond. [By Thomas Fry.]. R. R. Seeley & W. Burnside.
  17. Halkett, Samuel and John Laing (1883). "A Dictionary of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great Britain: Including the Works ..." Internet Archive. Edinburgh: William Paterson. p. 905. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
  18. Catalog Record: The causes and cure of scepticism, Hathi Trust Digital Library. Presbyterian board of publication. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
  19. Foster, Joseph (1887). "The Royal Lineage of our Noble and Gentle Families. Together with their paternal ancestry ." Internet Archive. London: Hatchards. p. 130. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
  20. The Gentleman's Magazine. F. Jeffries. 1802. p. 1223.
  21. Nicholas Simons (1832). Reports of Cases Decided in the High Court of Chancery. J. & W. T. Clarke. pp. 248–.
  22. Edward Cave; John Nichols (1840). The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle. Edw. Cave, 1736-[1868]. p. 536.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  23. Curthoys, M. C. "Fry, Thomas Charles". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33287. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  24. The Gentleman's Magazine. W. Pickering. 1846. p. 328.
  25. "Fry, Thomas Osmond (FRY839TO)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  26. The Court Magazine and belle assemblée [afterw.] and monthly critic and the Lady's magazine and museum. 1839. p. 434.
  27. The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal. Henry Colburn and Company. 1832. p. 418.
  28. The Gentleman's Magazine. W. Pickering. 1846. p. 639.
  29. Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry. H. Colburn. 1875. p. 43.
  30. The Weekly Reporter. Wildy & sons. 1864. p. 299.
  31. Widecombe-in-the-Moor (1876). R. Dymond (ed.). "Things new and old" concerning the parish of Widecombe-in-the-Moor and its neighbourhood. pp. 30–1.
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