Rev. Henry Phibbs Fry : Short Biography

Henry Phibbs Fry (1807-1874), Church of England clergyman, was the son of Oliver Fry, of Sligo (aka Major Oliver Fry) and the grandson of Henry Fry I of Frybrook, Boyle. 

He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin with a B.A. in 1828.

In 1838, he emigrated to Australia having been nominated for service in Van Diemen's Land by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Ordained deacon that August, he was Australia-bound by November when he embarked in the Trafalgar (which was shipwrecked near Cape Town). He arrived in May 1839 aboard the Arabian. 

Fry was married Phinneah Dunn on first arriving in Tasmania. His wife had no children and suffered much ill health. (Ref. Fabienne Durdin, The Elusive Mrs. Fry, Tasmanian Ancestry, March 2017, pp233-235.)

He wrote The Scriptural Evidence of the Apostolic Ministry and Tradition of the Church Catholic (Hobart, 1843) which preached a full-blooded traditionalism. Anti-Romanism characterized his theology as editor of the Hobart Town Herald  (1845-46).

Fry repatriated in 1849 and graduated with an M.A., B.D., and D.D. from Trinity in 1850 and by the end of that year had departed again for Australia. His wife remained in Britain and died soon afterwards.

In 1851, Fry returned to Hobart where he continued his anti-Roman propaganda (Forty Reasons for Leaving the Church of Rome, Hobart, 1854) and other social and educational interests. An anonymous enemy described his characteristics as 'restless vanity, insatiable craving after notoriety, questionable ambition and peculiarity of temperament' (A Letter From John Smith to John Jones …, Hobart, 1852, p. 15).

On 16 December 1852 Fry married Catherine Dunn, eldest daughter of John Dunn and widow of T. L. Belcher, a Tasmanian Banker. They had several children; the second son, Oliver Armstrong Fry, won renown in British education and journalism. 

Suffering ill health Fry returned to Britain on leave early in 1858, and this time stayed there. His last two children were born in London. By 1863 they had moved to 28 Kensington Gardens Square in Paddington, where his children appear in the 1871 census.

He died at Oxford on 11 January 1874. 

THE FUNERAL OF THE REV. DR. FRY.—The mortal remains of the Rev. Dr. Fry, who died at his residence, St. Catherine’s, Banbury-road, on Sunday evening last, after a painful illness, were interred in the Jericho Cemetery on Thursday last, in the presence of a large number of persons. The service was impressively read by the Rev. E. C. Dermer, Vicar of St. Philip and St. James. The deceased, who was a Good Templar, and took a lively interest in the Temperance Cause, was followed to the grave by about 60 members of that Order, wearing their regalia.   [Jackson’s Oxford Journal 17 January 1874]

The effects of his will came to under £3,000, and administration was granted to his widow, Catherine Fry, who was granted the lease of their home at 66 Banbury Road, Oxford as well. By the time of the 1901 census Mrs Fry was living at 27 Morpeth Mansions, Westminster. Catherine Fry died in London on 5 January 1905.