Jonathan Harold Fryer (born Graham Leslie Morton; 5 June 1950 – 16 April 2021) was a British writer, broadcaster, lecturer, and Liberal Democrat politician. His biographies of Oscar Wilde and Christopher Isherwood were the best-known of his fifteen books.
Early Life and Education
Fryer was born in Manchester on 5 June 1950 under the name Graham Leslie Morton. He was adopted as an infant following the divorce of his natural mother. He attended Branwood School in Eccles and later the independent Manchester Grammar School. He won an Open Exhibition to St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he initially read Geography before switching to Oriental Studies (Chinese with Japanese). He spent a year in the Far East in 1971–1972, studying part-time at the University of Hong Kong and in Tokyo.
Career
Fryer joined Reuters as a graduate trainee, serving in London and Brussels. After receiving his first book contract for The Great Wall of China (1975), he went freelance and based himself in Brussels for seven years, travelling widely in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. He returned to England in 1981 and settled in London.
As a freelance writer on international affairs, he worked mainly for the BBC (Radio 4 and World Service) and contributed to The Guardian, The Independent, The Economist, The Spectator, The Oldie, The Tablet, and The Liberal, among others. For a decade, he regularly appeared on the Today Programme's "Thought for the Day" as a Quaker. He became well known for his despatches on From Our Own Correspondent and travelled to 160 countries.
From 1993, Fryer taught Humanities part-time at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and later taught at City University. He lectured frequently on cruise ships and, through the British Council and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, gave seminars on democracy-building and the media in locations such as Egypt, Ethiopia, and Uruguay.
Politics
Fryer joined the Young Liberals after Jo Grimond visited his school during the 1964 general election. He served as a London borough councillor in Bromley from 1986 to 1990 and fought five UK general elections: Chelsea (1983), Orpington (1987), Leyton (1992), Poplar and Limehouse (2010), and Dagenham and Rainham (2017). He stood for the European Parliament in London South East in 1979, 1984, and 1994, and on the Liberal Democrat list for the London region in every election from 1999 to 2019, coming within 0.6 per cent of winning a seat in 2004. He held various party positions, including Chairman of the London Liberal Democrats and Chairman of the Liberal International British Group.
Outside party politics, he was active within the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and was part of the group that established the Quaker Council for European Affairs in 1979.
Illness and Death
On 24 March 2021, Fryer announced on Facebook that he had an incurable brain tumour. He died three weeks later on 16 April 2021 at age 70.
Selected Bibliography
- The Great Wall of China (1975)
- Isherwood (1977)
- André & Oscar (1997)
- Robbie Ross (2000)
- Wilde (2005)
- Eccles Cakes: An Odd Tale of Survival (2016)
