FRENCH, THOMAS VALPY (1825–1891), first bishop of Lahore, the eldest son of Peter French, vicar of Holy Trinity with Stretton, Burton-on-Trent, was born at the Abbey, Burton-on-Trent, on 1 Jan. 1825. Educated first at Reading grammar school, Burton grammar school, and Rugby, he matriculated from University College, Oxford, on 20 March 1843, graduating B.A. in 1846 and M.A. in 1849. In 1848 he won the chancellor's prize for a Latin essay, and in the same year was elected a fellow of University College. He was ordained deacon by the bishop of Ripon in 1848, and priest by the bishop of Lichfield in 1849. In 1850 he offered his services to the Church Missionary Society, and was sent out as principal of St. John's College, Agra. During the mutiny he was foremost in protecting native Christians. In 1858 he came home, but in 1861 returned to found the Derajat mission on the Indian frontier. In 1863 he came to England again, and was vicar of St. Paul's, Cheltenham, from 1865 to 1869. He then returned to India and founded the Lahore divinity school. After short incumbencies at Erith, Kent, and St. Ebb's, Oxford, he was consecrated first bishop of Lahore on 21 Dec. 1877, and received the degree of D.D. from Oxford University on 11 Dec. French was equally remarkable as an evangelist, an administrator, and a linguist. In 1887 he resigned his see, and in 1891 he went as a simple missionary to Muscat, where he died on 14 May 1891. He published a number of sermons.
[Birks's Life and Correspondence of T. V. French; Stock's History of the C.M.S., vol. iii.; Record, 1891, pp. 509, 510.]
FRIPP, GEORGE ARTHUR (1813–1896), water-colour artist, born at Bristol in 1813, was the son of the Rev. S. C. Fripp, who married a daughter of Nicholas Pocock [q. v.], a leading artist in Bristol, and one of the founders of the Old Watercolour Society in 1804. Fripp learned the rudiments of oil painting from J. B. Pyne [q. v.], but his real master was Samuel Jackson (1794-1869) [q. v.], the father of the Bristol school. For some years he worked at portraits in oils at Bristol, and in 1834 he passed seven months in Italy with his friend William John Müller [q. v.] On his return in 1835 he contributed to the picture gallery at Bristol. His London career began at the Old Watercolour Society's gallery in 1837, with a drawing of Lake Walenstadt; he moved to London in the following year, and in 1841 was elected an associate of the Old Society. In 1838 and 1841 he contributed oil paintings to the Royal Academy and British Institution, and Turner sent him a message highly praising the powerful ‘Mont Blanc, from near Courmayeux,’ a painting which Mr. Robinson of Liverpool presented to the corporation gallery of that city.
Fripp became a full member of the Old Society in 1845, and during the following fifty years sent nearly six hundred drawings to its exhibitions. Some of his works are commented on by Ruskin in his ‘Notes on some of the Principal Pictures in ... the Society of Painters in Watercolours’ for 1856, 1857, and 1858. From 1848 to 1854 Fripp was secretary of the society, a post which was held by his younger brother, Alfred D. Fripp (d. 1895), from 1870. In 1860 the queen commanded him to stay at Balmoral while he completed for the royal collection a series of drawings of the neighbourhood.
Fripp died on 17 Oct. 1896 at 50 Holmdale Road, N.W., after a long illness, and was buried on the 20th at Highgate, a few yards from George Eliot's grave. He married, in 1846, Mary Percival, and among his children were George Fripp, Charles E. Fripp, an associate of the Old Society, and the Rev. Edgar Fripp, minister at Mansfield.
Fripp was a good draughtsman, with great love for his art. Preferring tender and pure tints, he painted with quiet-toned pigments known to be permanent, and did not attempt to rival oil paints. The reverse of an impressionist, he fortunately had faithful patrons who supported him in his effort to carry on the early traditions of English water-colour art. Some good specimens of his work are in the Prescott Hewett bequest at South Kensington.
[Athenæum, 1896, ii. 569; Times, 19 and 21 Oct. 1896; Roget's History of the Old Water-colour Society, 1891.]
FROST, PERCIVAL (1817–1898), mathematician, born at Kingston-upon-Hull on 1 Sept. 1817, was the second son of Charles Frost [q. v.] He was educated at Beverley and Oakham, and entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in October 1835, graduating B.A. as second wrangler in 1839 and M.A. in 1842. He was chosen first Smith prizeman in 1839, beating the senior wrangler, Benjamin Morgan Cowie [q. v. Suppl.], his fellow-collegian, and he was
