Fraser, JAMES, D.D., second Bishop of Manchester, was born near Cheltenham in 1818, took a first-class in classics at Oxford in 1839, and in 1840 was elected to a fellowship at Oriel. He was ordained in 1846, and held the livings of Cholderton, Wiltshire, in 1847-60, and Ufton Nervet, near Reading, in 1860-70. He was a select preacher before the university of
Oxford in 1854-56, and again in 1862-64, and published valuable reports on elementary education in England, on the educational systems of the United States and Canada, and on the employment of children; indeed, it was specifically on the ground of his 'interest in and mastery of the question of public education' that Mr Gladstone in 1870 offered him the bishopric of Manchester. Here his energy, his wide sympathy, and his strong sense secured him a unique position in his vast diocese, and caused his death, on the 22d October 1885, to be deplored as sincerely by dissenters as by churchmen. He published a number of sermons, and two vols. appeared posthumously (1887). See Life by Hughes (1887) and Diggle (1889).