[j.  o.]

FRASER,  James  (1818-85),  Bishop  of  Man-
chester, was  educated  at  Shrewsbury  and
Lincoln  College,  Oxford,  and  became  Fellow
of  Oriel  in  1840.  His  work  as  Assistant
Commissioner  to  the  Education  Commission
(1858)  and  in  similar  capacities  induced
Mr.  Gladstone  (q.v.)  in  1870  to  offer  him
the  bishopric  of  Manchester,  a  centre  of  the
religious  education  controversy,  upon  which
Fraser's  views  were  in  accordance  with  the
Act  of  that  year.  He  quickly  proved  him-
self a  hard-working  bishop.  '  Striding  about
his  diocese  on  foot,  carrying  his  own  blue  bag
containing  his  robes,  stopping  runaway  carts,
and  talking  familiarly  with  every  one  he  met,'
he  took  the  diocese  by  storm.  He  addressed
meetings  of  railwaymen,  actors,  cab-drivers,
medical  students,  slaughtermen,  and  others,
interested  himself  in  social  questions,  and
was  arbitrator  in  more  than  one  trade  dispute.
He  married  in  1880.
Fraser  professed  himself  a  churchman  of
the  school  of  Hooker,  but  his  broad  sym-
pathies did  not  include  a  toleration  of  so-
called  '  extreme '  High  Churchmen,  though
they  won  him  the  title  of  '  bishop  of  all
denominations.'  He  refused  preferment  to
a  clergyman  of  whose  belief  in  the  deity  of
Christ  he  was  not  satisfied.  In  1879  he
allowed  proceedings  to  be  taken  under
the  Public  Worship  Regulation  Act  (q.v.)
against  S.  F.  Green,  Rector  of  St.  John's,
Miles  Platting.  Mr.  Green  conscientiously
disregarded  the  judgment  of  Lord  Penzance,
and  his  imprisonment  in  Lancaster  Castle
caused  much  scandal  and  distress.  He
refused  to  purchase  his  release  by  any
recognition  of  the  jurisdiction  under  which
he  had  been  condemned.  Eventually  his
living  became  vacant  by  lapse,  and  in  1882
he  was  discharged  on  Fraser's  application,
after  an  imprisonment  of  nineteen  months.
