Alfred Fryer (1826-1912), born in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, as a young man befriended Coventry Patmore after reading his Poems (1844). Despite this literary connection, Fryer devoted most of his life to the study of British botany. Elected to the Linnean Society in 1898, Fryer began publishing his definitive The Potamogetons (Pond Weeds) of the British Isles in the following year, but died impoverished before he could complete it. He bequeathed his herbarium of pondweed specimens to the British Museum; the potamogeton fryeri is named in his honor.
Coventry Patmore (1823-1896), English poet and essayist, is best known for the long poem sequence The Angel in the House. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1864 and later published a series of odes on human and divine love, The Unknown Eros.
From the description of Fryer family papers, 1797-1912. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702179938
