FRYER, John. 1650? — London 31.3.1733. British Physician and Traveller in India and Iran. Son of William Fryer, of London. Studies of medicine at Cambridge, first at Trinity College, in 1671 moved to Pembroke College. M.B. 1671, M.D. 1683. Employed by E.I.C. embarked to India in 1672, returned after many travels in India and Iran (but hardly ever in inland) in 1682. Originally it was not his intention to write a book, but after 16 years, after many requests and after reading French and Dutch accounts of travel he accepted to write his own memoirs, which are noted for many curiosities of medicine and natural history. Oaten lauds his good description of Surat and Bombay and the analysis of the last days of Bijapur. The book also contains accurate observations in geology, meteorology, and natural history. From 1697 Fellow of Royal Society. He was married and had at least one daughter.
Publications: A New Account of East India and Persia, in eight Letters. Being nine years’ travels, begun 1672 and finished 1681. 427 p. L. 1698; edited with notes and introd. by W. Crooke. 1-3. Hakluyt Soc. 2nd Series 19, 20, 19. L. 1909-15; Dutch transl. the Hague 1700.
– “An Abstract with Some Reflections on a New Account of East-India and Persia”, Philosophical Transactions 20 (244), 1698, 338-348.
Sources: M.J. Franklin, Encyclop. Iranica 2009; G.G[oodwin], D.N.B. 20, 1889, 302f.; Oaten 228-230; *portrait in his own book; Wikipedia with the same portrait referring to an obituary in *Gentleman’s Magazine April 1733, 214.
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