Born at the Manor House, Chatteris, Cambridgeshire. A man of wide-ranging accomplishments he was a good field naturalist, a talented musician, an athelete, and much involved in public work in the Isle of Ely both as a magistrate and as a County Councillor. Fryer's parents and his uncle, the botanist Daniel Fryer, were all collectors of butterflies, and it is not, therefore, surprising that his initial entomological interests were with the Lepidoptera, his first recorded capture being made in 1868. His serious interest in Coleoptera, and also to some extent in Hemiptera-Heteroptera and Homoptera, appears not to have begun until 1905 and may have been stimulated by his son J.C.F.Fryer. Certainly this is the date from which captures are recorded in the well known articles on ‘Coleoptera in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire’ which they wrote jointly in EMM., 49, 1913, pp.246-250, 266-268; 50, 1914, 10-13, 85-88, 109-111, although there is also mention of some species having been taken between 1879 and 1882, and Herbert did write two notes on Coleoptera at this time in the Ent.: ‘Phaedon betulae, the Blue Beetle’, 14, 1881, pp.44-45, and ‘Atomaria linearis a Mangold enemy’, 15, 1882, p.138. Not just this list but almost all the other articles which he wrote on the Coleoptera at this time were published jointly with his son. These included the addition of a number of species to the British list eg. Bledius denticollis, taken at Nethy Bridge before David Sharp brought forward the insect as British on the basis of his capture at Inverness (EMM., 45, 1909, p.6); Anthicus bifasciatus from old manure heaps at Chatteris; (ibid.,50, 1914, pp.84-85); Sitona gemellatus also from the Chatteris area (ibid., 59, 1923, pp.80-81); Lygus rubicundus and Grypotes pinetellus. Some of these insects were given at the time to the NHM by J.C.F. and it is tempting to surmise that he should really be credited with their capture, however, in his obituary of his father in EMM., 66, 1930, p.114, J.C.F. specifically credits him. FES 1876-1921. (MD 12/02)
Dates
1854-1930