John Frere
John Frere (10 August 1740 – 12 July 1807) was an English antiquary and a pioneering discoverer of Old Stone Age or Palaeolithic tools in association with large extinct animals at Hoxne, Suffolk in 1797.
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[edit] Life
Frere was born in Roydon Hall, Norfolk, the son of Sheppard Frere and Susanna Hatley. Ellenor Fenn was his sister.[2] In 1766, Frere received his MA from Gonville and Caius College, where he was Second Wrangler, Cambridge, and was elected to a fellowship.[3] He subsequently held several political offices, and was a Member of Parliament from 1799 to 1802.
[edit] Antiquary
An interest in the past, instigated by observing worked stone tools in a clay mining pit, led him to become a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and the Royal Society and to conduct excavations at a site just south of Hoxne, not far east, and across the River Waveny, from his home in Diss. Frere wrote a letter to the Society of Antiquaries about flint tools and large bones of extinct animals that he had found at a depth of approximately twelve feet (four meters) in a hole dug by local bricklayers. He described the worked flints as ...weapons of war, fabricated and used by a people who had not the use of metals... The situation in which these weapons were found may tempt us to refer them to a very remote period indeed, even beyond that of the present world.... In addition, Frere carefully described the stratigraphy of the find, with the tools lying below an apparent ancient sea floor. The letter was officially read at the Society on 22 June 1797 and published in 1800, but Frere's interpretation was so radical by the standards of his day that it was overlooked for six decades.[4]
Frere's is presently considered one of the important middle Pleistocene sites in Europe, because of what he observed in his letter: juxtaposition of artifacts, animal remains and stratigraphic evidence.
[edit] Family
Frere married Jane Hookham, daughter of John Hookham, on 12 June 1768. John Hookham Frere was their eldest son.[3] Their second son Edward was the father of Sir Henry Bartle Frere, 1st Baronet.[2] The fourth, fifth and sixth sons were William Frere, Bartholomew Frere, and James Hatley Frere. In all they had seven sons and two daughters.
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Frere, John: "Account of Flint Weapons Discovered at Hoxne in Suffolk", in Archeologia, vol. 13.- London, 1800.- Pp. 204-205
- ^ a b thepeerage.com John Frere
- ^ a b Venn, J.; Venn, J. A., eds (1922–1958). "John Frere". Alumni Cantabrigienses (10 vols) (online ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- ^ See Ronald Singer et al., The Lower Paleolithic Site at Hoxne, England (University of Chicago Press, 1993) for the letter and later investigations and evaluations of the site, also paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey, Disclosing the Past: An Autobiography, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1984, p. 15. (Leakey was a direct descendant of John Frere through her mother, Cecilia Marion Frere.)
- Robert Beatson, A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807) [1]
"Frere, John (1740-1807)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs
[edit] External links
| Parliament of Great Britain | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by William Windham Hon. Henry Hobart |
Member of Parliament for Norwich 1799– 1800 With: William Windham |
Succeeded by Parliament of the United Kingdom |
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by Parliament of Great Britain |
Member of Parliament for Norwich 1801– 1802 With: William Windham |
Succeeded by Robert Fellowes William Smith |
- English antiquarians
- British archaeologists
- Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
- Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies
- British MPs 1796–1800
- Members of the United Kingdom Parliament for English constituencies
- UK MPs 1801–1802
- Second Wranglers
- 1740 births
- 1807 deaths
- Fellows of the Royal Society
- Prehistorians
