Sir John Fryer, 1st (and last) Bt, Lord Mayor of London

Sir John Fryer, 1st Baronet (14 September 1671 – 11 September 1726) was a prominent Presbyterian layman, London pewterer, merchant and Lord Mayor of London. The baronetcy became extinct on his death in 1726. He was created a baronet on 13 December 1714

"The King was pleased to make me a Barronett & my pattent was ordered accordingly it bears date This favour was conferred on me for my fidelity to the Protestant Succession in the House of Hanover & not laying down my Gown(?) when the Torie Ministry had made the Law against Occasional Conformity contrived on purpose to throw & exclude Dissenters out of Publick places."

Biography

Born in Buckinghamshire, the son of Francis Fryer, he believed his family came from Oxfordshire and his grandfather (known as Francis Freer) settled in Little Marlow settling in the dissolved nunnery there called The Abbey and renting a farm of 50 acres. John was the only surviving child of his father's third wife, Susannah, daughter of maltster John Boulter, twice mayor of Abingdon, county town of Berkshire. Susannah's marriage portion had been £100 but her mother's brother was rich London merchant and baronet Sir John Cutler and when Cutler's heirs died young his estates fell back to his sister's numerous Boulter children.

These estates included Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire and Gawthorpe Hall and Harewood Castle near Leeds in Yorkshire, Little Haseley Oxfordshire, estates in Lincolnshire, the manor of Deptford near London, and estates in Hampshire Wherwell and Goodworth Clatford. Fryer was to receive Wherwell through his uncle Edmund Boulter, build a mansion there, Wherwell Priory, and make it his home. He was succeeded there by his Iremonger descendants.

John Fryer was a Pewterer by trade and (in his last few years so as to be eligible for the mayoralty) a member of the Fishmongers. He obtained election to Alderman of Queenhithe from 7 February 1710 retaining it until his death, and was created a baronet on 21 December 1714. He was a Sheriff of the City of London for 1715–16, and Lord Mayor for 1720–21. He was elected a director of the East India Company and the South Sea Company and inherited an estate at Wherwell, Hampshire.

He married three times. Katherine née Weedon died 12 November 1718 and Dorcas née Roberts 17 August 1723. He married thirdly Isabella Gerard on 11 March 1725 and she survived him.

In 1715 he began to enter in a small leather-bound ledger a note of the major events of his life making additions from time to time and he maintained this until near his end.

His only son who survived to adulthood, John Fryer by Katherine Weedon, died at Wherwell two years before him on 16 August 1724 aged 24. His daughter Delicia, by Dorcas Roberts, was adopted by Obadiah Hughes husband of her mother's sister, Delicia Roberts.

Sir John died in his 55th year of gout in the stomach at his seat at Wherwell on 11 September 1726 when the baronetcy became extinct. Presbyterian John Ball preached the funeral sermon. His widow married as his second wife, Henry Temple, 1st Viscount Palmerston, on 11 May 1738 at St Antholin, Budge Row.

Some notable descendants:

• William Iremonger (1776–1852), nineteenth-century English colonel who erected the monument to Earl Athelwold of Wherwell
• Frederic Athelwold Iremonger, DD (1878–1952), eminent Anglican priest, radio broadcaster and Dean of Lichfield
• Harold Iremonger (1882–1937), Royal Marine officer and acting Governor of Saint Helena
• Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977), Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister
• Thomas Iremonger (1916–1998), British Conservative Party politician

Source: wikipedia.org