In 1871 he joined the Young Men’s Christian Association in Bristol, and he became president in 1877. In 1887 he was elected a member of the committee of the Bristol General Hospital, becoming later chairman, treasurer, and president. Up to the last few years of his life he visited the hospital every Christmas Eve and spoke to each patient at his bedside. In 1909 he became an honorary freeman of the city, and in 1912 the university of Bristol conferred on him the honorary degree of LL.D.
Fry was born a member of the Society of Friends and throughout his life gave ungrudging attention to its interests. He rose to the highest position in this religious body, being ‘clerk’ (or president) of the ‘London Yearly Meeting’ for fifteen years (1870–1875, 1881–1889), the longest period for which that office has been held by any individual since 1704. He was a preacher among the Friends and a pioneer in many organizations connected with their Sunday schools and home and foreign missions.
Fry’s private life was singularly uneventful. The room which he occupied on the business premises to the end of his life was, he believed, the room in which he had been born. He lived with his mother for sixty years and never married. The things which usually interest men in his position—travel, politics, art, science, intercourse with nature—had no attraction for him. The distribution of his charities occupied no inconsiderable portion of his time and thought. He died 7 July 1913. The funeral was a remarkable demonstration of the esteem in which he was held by his fellow-citizens.
[The Annual Monitor, 1914; Proceedings of London Yearly Meeting, 1914; numerous magazine articles; manuscripts in Friends’ Reference Library, Devonshire House, London; personal knowledge.]
FRYATT, CHARLES ALGERNON (1872–1916), merchant seaman, was born at Southampton 2 December 1872, the second son of Charles Fryatt, merchant seaman, by his wife, Mary Brown Percy. He first attended the Freemantle school in his native town, but was transferred to the corporation school at Harwich when his father removed to that port on entering the service of the Great Eastern Railway Company, in which he eventually rose to be a chief officer. Young Charles Fryatt adopted his father’s calling, served his apprenticeship, and worked his way upward in large sailing-vessels till in 1892 he entered the service of the Great Eastern Railway as an able seaman on the paddle-steamer Colchester, which was then the company’s latest passenger vessel and was engaged on the route between Harwich and Antwerp. This vessel he eventually commanded (1913), it being the practice of the company to select its officers from those in the lower ranks of its own service. The system stood the test of war conditions; in spite of the removal of guiding lights and buoys, under the constant menace of enemy warships, submarines, and mines, the company maintained a service between British and Low Country ports throughout the European War, Captain Fryatt himself making no fewer than 143 trips before he was captured by the enemy.
Fryatt’s first encounter with an enemy vessel was on 2 March 1915, when, being in command of the chartered steamer Wrexham, he was chased for forty miles by a German submarine but eventually made Rotterdam in safety. His own skill and determination and the exertions of the engine- and boiler-room staffs were suitably recognized alike by the directors of the company and by the lords of the Admiralty. Captain Fryatt was now transferred to the Great Eastern Railway Company’s s.s. Brussels, and on 28 March following was again attacked by a submarine, the u. 38. The enemy was sighted off the Maas light-vessel when four miles distant, and made direct for the mail steamer. Fryatt at once realized that the attacker was far speedier than his own ship. If, therefore, he attempted to get away he would soon be torpedoed; if he stopped in obedience to the enemy’s signal he would make his ship an easier mark. He accordingly made up his mind to ram his enemy. He steered straight for the submarine, discharging rockets as he went, in order to call for any aid there might be in the neighbourhood and to make it appear that his ship had been supplied with guns. As the vessels approached, the u-boat submerged, and Captain Fryatt and others aboard the Brussels thought that the submarine was struck as they passed over her. In this they were mistaken; but the Brussels got safely away. For this exploit Captain Fryatt received from the Admiralty a gold watch ‘in recognition of the example set by him when attacked by a German submarine’. In the following month the lords of the Admiralty, in a letter to the Great Eastern Railway Company, stated that the attention of the secretary for foreign affairs had been called to the ‘highly courageous and. meritorious conduct of
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