Author: Frier, John
Biography:
FRIER, John (fl 1807-16)
Official birth, death, and marriage records are lacking but the newspaper record and Frier's publications provide some information about him. He was a joiner and cabinet maker with a house and shop in the market square of South Shields, Durham. He must have been a partner with his brother Thomas (q.v.). He had difficulties. In 1807 his property and entire stock of furniture and wood were sold at auction to pay off his creditors. In 1812 he was in prison in Durham Gaol applying for release as an insolvent debtor. By 1815, however, he was working again and writing on behalf of the working class--a broadside ballad in 1815, printed in North Shields, and the protest poem about the wages of seamen, occasioned by riots in Shields, published in Newcastle in 1816. It is possible that "Mrs. Mary Frier, widow of the late Mr. John Frier," whose death in June 1821 was reported in the Durham County Advertiser had been his wife but nothing more is known of them. (Newcastle Courant 28 Mar. 1807; London Gazette Pt. 2 [1812] 1609; Durham County Advertiser 9 June 1821)