Author: Fricker, Thomas
Biography:
FRICKER, Thomas (1803-58: findmypast.com)
He was born into the London family of Thomas and Hannah (Guy) Fricker on 27 Sept. 1803 and baptised at St. James, Piccadilly, on 25 Dec. 1804. His younger brother John James (1804-63) became a well-known tenor singer under the stage name John James Frazer, and Thomas--who had a good tenor voice himself--supplied lyrics for some of his songs. He was probably already working as a journalist when he published two miscellanies of prose and verse in London in 1833-4, including contributions by John Davies (q.v.). Reviewers received them generally as agreeable "Trifles" (Bell's). La Sylphyde (1834) was later included in a revised Wreath of Wild Flowers published by subscription under only his own name (1838). In 1835 he married Millicent Sharp at St. George, Hanover Square; they had at least two children, probably several more. They settled in Lincolnshire, first at Stamford and later at Boston, where Fricker was involved in local theatre and newspaper publishing. He wrote dramatic pieces for performance ("My Wife's Lover," an Interlude [1837], St. Leonard's Priory [1838], and A Father's Crime [1839]) which he had printed in Stamford. But he found his métier as printer and publisher of the Lincolnshire Chronicle from about 1840, and later of the Boston, Stamford, and Lincolnshire Herald from 1843 to about 1853. Increasingly a prominent citizen, he was elected one of the county coroners in 1849 and alderman in Boston. He died at home in Boston on 22 June 1858 after a short illness; his wife Millicent was the chief beneficiary of his will. (findmypast.com 23 Nov. 2021; Kurt Ganzl, Victorian Vocalists [2017]; Boase; Bell's New Weekly Messenger 11 Jan. 1835; Lincolnshire Chronicle 15 May 1840, 29 Sept. 1843; Morning Post 2 Aug. 1849; Sleaford Gazette 26 June 1858)