as arbitrator in the Grimsby fishery dispute; in 1902 he sat as president on the court of arbitration connected with the water companies of London. His remuneration for this heavy work was £5,000, of which he returned over £3,000 as he declined to receive more than would have made up his salary if he had been sitting as a lord justice. In 1906 and 1907 he acted as arbitrator between the London and North Western Railway Company and its men, and issued an award (February 1909) that worked smoothly and well for a time. He declined any fee for ‘the most tiresome piece of business which I ever transacted’.
In the meantime Fry was brought into touch with international affairs in 1902–1903 by acting as arbitrator at the Hague between the United States and Mexico in the pious funds of California dispute, the first case to be brought before the Hague tribunal created by the first Hague Conference of 1899. In November 1900 he had been given a place on the list of judges for this court. The five arbitrators, after some difficulties, settled and issued their award. Fry’s next task was to act as the British legal assessor on the commission appointed to deal with the North Sea (Dogger Bank) incident in October 1904, when the Russian fleet attacked in a moment of panic the British herring fleet—an incident that threatened war. Fry’s work on the commission—the findings of which upheld the British case—was highly commended. He played an active part at the second Hague Conference of 1907, when he was the doyen of the conference as ambassador extraordinary and first plenipotentiary delegate of Great Britain. Fry, although an octogenarian, made his personality felt; he took a leading part in the debates, and was entrusted by the British government with the duty of raising the question of the limitation of armaments and of making the offer that Great Britain would exchange information with any other nation on the subject of naval construction. In the next year he again acted at the Hague as one of the arbitrators in the quarrel between France and Germany over the Casablanca incident. In May 1909 the award was made, and the two nations acted on it and exchanged apologies according to the sentence of the court.
The remaining nine years of Fry’s life were occupied with the various pursuits, literary, scientific, and educational, in which he delighted. His interest in the university of London lasted for nearly half a century. He joined the council of University College during the busiest of his years at the bar, and strove hard and successfully to secure a teaching university for London. He did much on the senate of the university to bring into the university all the institutions of high educational character in the metropolis. The scheme which eventually was adopted was not very different from that for which he had always striven. His efforts were not limited to London. In 1906 he presided over a commission to inquire into the condition of Trinity College, Dublin, and of the Royal University of Ireland with a view to the solution of the problem of university education in Ireland. He dissented from the main report, and the view taken by himself, Sir Arthur W. Rücker, and (Sir) J. G. Butcher that the ancient foundation of Trinity College should be preserved was accepted by Mr. Birrell when he became chief secretary in 1907.
Fry, who on two occasions declined the offer of a peerage, was created G.C.B. in 1907; he was also elected fellow of the Royal Society (1883) and honorary fellow of Balliol College, Oxford (1894). He died 18 October 1918 at Failand. He had nine children, two sons and seven daughters, of whom one died at the age of four. Lady Fry survived him.
[The Law Reports, passim; J. B. Scott, The Proceedings of the Hague Conferences, 1920; Agnes Fry (daughter), A Memoir of the Right Honourable Sir Edward Fry…compiled largely from an Autobiography (containing a bibliography of his numerous publications from 1846 to 1913), 1921.]
FRY, JOSEPH STORRS (1826–1913), cocoa manufacturer and quaker philanthropist, was born in Union Street, Bristol, 6 August 1826, the eldest son of Joseph Fry, of Bristol, by his wife, Mary Ann, daughter of Edward Swaine, of Henley-on-Thames, A younger brother was the distinguished jurist, Sir Edward Fry [q.v.]. He was educated chiefly at home, but was at Bristol College for a short time. After learning business methods in an accountant’s office, he entered the family business of cocoa and chocolate manufacture, established in Bristol in the middle of the eighteenth century by his great-grandfather, Joseph Fry [q.v.]. In 1855 he became a partner in the firm.
Fry’s interest in local affairs of a religious and social character was deep and constant. For many years he conducted a brief service with the employees of the cocoa works, and in his will he left £42,000 to be distributed among them.
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