received by politicians. With outwardly unruffled content he settled down quietly to the life of an English gentleman, and, as had always been his wont, used his best endeavours to do good to those about him. To raise the fallen, to instruct the ignorant, and to help the needy were objects which he had pursued throughout his career, and it came, therefore, as a familiar employment when he found himself advocating from platforms in England the claims of charitable institutions, educational establishments, and religious societies. During this period he was chosen for the third time president of the Royal Asiatic Society. The last letter he penned was one resigning this office. In his last year the university of Edinburgh conferred on him the degree of LL.D. On 29 May 1884 Frere died, after an illness of some weeks' duration. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. His wife, a son, and four daughters survived him. The son, Bartle Compton Arthur, succeeded as second baronet. A statue of Frere was erected on the Thames Embankment by public subscription, and unveiled by the Prince of Wales in 1888.
To those who merely knew Frere as an acquaintance, his unvarying kindness and chivalrous courtesy will probably be considered as his leading characteristics; but those who had a deeper knowledge of his character will recognise that these outward graces were but the reflection of the brave, constant, unselfish, and religious nature of the man. Repeatedly he risked his life in the cause of duty, and it is not too much to say that in everything he did his last thought was of himself.
Frere was not an author in the sense of having written any large independent works. He, however, published separately a number of lectures delivered before societies, papers from scientific journals, speeches, and letters. Among the most important of these were: ‘Report on the Nature and Effects of the “Thugg Duty,”’ 1838?; ‘The Scinde Railway,’ 1854; ‘Correspondence with the Revs. Gell and Matchett relative to certain Inscriptions on the Wall of a Shop in Hyderabad,’ 1858; ‘A Letter … on the reorganisation of the Indian Army,’ 1858; ‘Indian Missions,’ 1870; ‘Christianity suited to all Forms of Civilisation,’ 1872; ‘Eastern Africa as a Field for Missionary Labour,’ 1874; ‘On the impending Bengal Famine,’ 1874; ‘Correspondence relating to the Recall of Sir Bartle Frere,’ 1880; ‘The Union of the various portions of South Africa,’ 1881; ‘Afghanistan and South Africa: a Letter to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone … regarding portions of his Midlothian speeches,’ 1881. He wrote also a memoir of his uncle, Hookham Frere, which is prefixed to the ‘Works of J. H. Frere,’ and an introduction to ‘Old Deccan Days,’ written by his daughter, Miss Mary Frere. He contributed several articles to ‘Macmillan's Magazine’ on Zanzibar, the Banians, and the Khojas, an article to the ‘Quarterly Review’ on Turkey and Salonica, and two articles to the ‘Fortnightly Review’ on the future of Zululand and the abolition of slavery in India and Egypt.
In religious opinions Frere was a strong churchman. But he was no bigot, and on several occasions he checked missionaries in their too zealous efforts to assert Christianity in defiance of the beliefs and prejudices of the natives of India.
[Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, obituary notice, 1884; Celebrities of the Day—Life of Sir Bartle Frere, 1882; Sir Bartle Frere's Speeches and Addresses, 1870; Proceedings of the Legislative Council of India, vol. vi. 1860; Report of the Bombay Bank Commission, 1869; Parliamentary Papers, South Africa; Recreations of an Indian Official, 1872; Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. iii.; Miss Colenso's History of the Zulu War, 1880; Greswell's Our South African Empire, 1885; Nixon's Complete Story of the Transvaal, 1885; private letters. A life by Sir W. W. Hunter is in preparation.]
FRERE, JAMES HATLEY (1779–1866), writer on prophecy, born in 1779, was the sixth son of John Frere, F.R.S. [q. v.], of Roydon, Norfolk, and Beddington, Surrey, by Jane, daughter and heiress of John Hookham of London (Burke, Landed Gentry, 7th ed., i. 689). He married, 15 June 1809, Merian, second daughter of Matthew Martin, F.R.S., of Poets' Corner, Westminster (Gent. Mag. vol. lxxix. pt. i. p. 579), by whom he had five sons. He died at the residence of his third son, the Rev. John Alexander Frere, Shillington vicarage, Bedfordshire, on 8 Dec. 1866 (ib. 4th ser. iii. 124). His biblical studies were deemed worthy of notice by G. S. Faber, S. R. Maitland, and other well-known divines. He also took an interest in educational questions, and about 1838 introduced a phonetic system for teaching the blind to read. He had the advantage of having his plan carried out by a very clever blind man, who suggested several important changes. His characters consist of straight lines, half circles, hooked lines, and angles of forty-five degrees, together with a hollow and solid circle. He also invented the ‘return’ lines—that is to say, the lines in his book are read from left to right and from right to left alternately, the letters themselves being reversed in the return lines.
