Forster) was ‘a very well-disposed, conscientious old gentlewoman,’ but incapable of proper superintendence. ‘Four volumes of the “Spectator” constituted the whole school library.’ Miss Dawson had a profound admiration for William Mason the poet, then a York notability, especially on account of his ‘Monody’ upon his wife's death, and was shocked at seeing him ‘a little fat old man of hard-favoured countenance,’ devoted to whist. When she was seventeen accident brought to her father's house a Scotch advocate, Archibald Fletcher [q. v.], ‘of about forty-three, and of a grave, gentlemanlike, prepossessing appearance.’ They carried on a literary correspondence for a year, and after another meeting became engaged, though the father opposed the union, preferring a higher suitor, Lord Grantley. Miss Dawson got a friend, Dr. Kilvington, to tell Lord Grantley of her engagement. On 16 July 1791 the lovers were married in Tadcaster Church. Her father did not sanction the ceremony by his presence, but he could not withhold his blessing. For seven-and-thirty years, at the end of which time her husband died, ‘there was not a happier couple in the three kingdoms.’ Fletcher's steady adherence to his whig principles prevented his getting into practice, and they were often reduced to their last guinea. Her sympathy prevented her from ever regretting the sacrifice to principle. Afterwards success in life set steadily in with little interruption. Mrs. Fletcher died at Edinburgh 5 Feb. 1858. Her ‘Autobiography,’ of which a few copies had been printed for private circulation, 8vo, Carlisle, 1874, was published at Edinburgh the following year under the editorship of her surviving child, the widow of Sir John Richardson, the Arctic explorer. The ‘Life’ also contains a memoir by Mrs. Fletcher of her daughter Grace, and another of her son Archibald, by his widow. It is an attractive book about a most lovable woman, who seems, according to her portraits, at fifteen and eighty, to prove ‘that there is a beauty for every age.’
[Autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher of Edinburgh; Gent. Mag. 3rd ser. iv. 340; Athenæum, 1 May 1875.]
FLETCHER, GEORGE (1764–1855), a reputed centenarian, son of Joseph Fletcher, was baptised at Clarborough, Nottinghamshire, 15 Oct. 1764, but according to his own account on 2 Feb. 1747, and worked as a labourer. On 2 Nov. 1785 he enlisted in the 23rd foot, the royal Welsh fusiliers, from which regiment he deserted on 16 March 1792. Under a royal proclamation dated 1793 all deserters were pardoned, and their services restored on certain conditions. Fletcher, taking advantage of this amnesty, re-enlisted into the 3rd foot guards on 14 March 1793, stating that he had originally entered the army in October 1773. This addition of twelve years to his army services he continued to claim throughout the remainder of his life. He remained in his regiment for ten years, and was then pensioned from Chelsea Hospital on 18 April 1803 on 1s. 2½d. a day. By some oversight he was credited with twenty-four and a half years' service, and his age at the time of his discharge was entered as forty-nine instead of thirty-nine. After this period he was in the service of the West India Dock Company for thirty-six years, at the end of which time he retired on a pension. He was a local preacher in the Wesleyan methodist connexion, and in his sermons gave sketches of his own career, when he took credit for his great age, and related details of his services at the battle of Bunker's Hill in July 1775, although he was then only eleven years of age. The fame of his age caused large congregations to attend his preaching, and his portrait as a man of a hundred and six, who had lived in four reigns, was extensively sold in 1853. One of his later announcements says: ‘Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields. Two sermons will be delivered Wednesday, June 21, 1854, by the Venerable George Fletcher, in his 108th year. For the benefit of an aged minister.’ He died at 41 Wade Street, Poplar, London, 2 Feb. 1855, aged 91.
[Thoms's Human Longevity, 1873, pp. 64, 164–70; Registrar-general's Weekly Return, 17 Feb. 1855, p. 49; Gent. Mag. April 1855, p. 440, and June, p. 657; Illustrated London News, 10 March 1855, p. 221, with portrait; Times, 13 Feb. 1855, p. 7, col. 6.]
FLETCHER, GILES, LL.D. (1549?–1611), civilian, ambassador, and poet, was certainly born in or about 1549 at Watford, Hertfordshire, as appears from his own statement on being admitted to the university of Cambridge. It has hitherto been supposed that he was a native of Kent. His father, Richard Fletcher, was vicar of Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, from 1551 to 1555, and was subsequently rector of Cranbrook and vicar of Smarden, Kent. Giles was educated at Eton, whence he was elected to King's College, Cambridge, being admitted a scholar on 27 Aug. 1565, and a fellow on 28 Aug. 1568. He proceeded B.A. in 1569, and commenced M.A. in 1573. In 1576 he took an active part in opposition to the provost, Dr. Goad, and signed articles accusing the provost of maladministration and infringement of the college statutes. These articles were laid before Lord Burghley as chancellor of the university.
