FLETCHER, John Venour. b. Chesterfield 14 Nov. 1801; entered navy 13 Feb. 1814; captain 8 June 1841, went on half pay 24 Oct. 1841; admiral on half pay 20 Oct. 1872. d. Reading 5 Dec. 1877.
FLETCHER, Joseph. b. 1813; barrister M.T. 7 May 1841; sec. to Handloom inquiry commission 1841, to Children’s employment commission 1841–3; inspector of schools receiving grants under Privy Council 1844; one of hon. secretaries of statistical society of London 15 Feb. 1841; edited the Statistical Journal; author of Summary of the Moral Statistics of England and Wales 1850; Statistics of the Farm School system of the Continent and the education of pauper and criminal children 1851. d. Chirk, co. Denbigh 11 Aug. 1852. bur. Tottenham church, Middlesex 18 Aug.
FLETCHER, Rev. Joseph (son of Rev. Joseph Fletcher 1784–1843, independent minister at Stepney). b. Blackburn 7 Jany. 1816; in a Manchester counting house to 1833; at Coward coll. 1833; minister of Congregational ch. Hanley 1839–49, of Christchurch, Hampshire 1849–73; kept a school at Christchurch but the death by drowning of 7 of his pupils in May 1838 caused him to close the establishment; author of The works and memoirs of Rev. Joseph Fletcher, D.D. 1846; History of Independency 4 vols. 1847–49 and other works. d. Christchurch 2 June 1876.
FLETCHER, Ralph. b. Gloucester; studied at St. Bartholomews; surgeon to Gloucester county hospital; had one of finest consulting practices in the kingdom, extending to whole of South Wales and Bristol; the income from his practice, which was purely surgical, exceeded £4000 for many years; had a very fine collection of pictures; author of Sketches on the influence of the mind on the body 1833; Notes on cruelty to animals 1846. d. Barton st. Gloucester 8 Feb. 1851 aged 70 worth more than £80,000. Medical Directory 1852 pp. 646–7.
FLEXMORE, Richard, stage name of Richard Flexmore Geatter (son of Richard Flexmore Geatter, celebrated comic dancer). b. Kennington, London 15 Sep. 1824; appeared at Victoria theatre as a dancer 1832; clown at Grecian theatre, Christmas 1844, at Olympic theatre, Christmas 1845; played at Princess’s, Strand, Adelphi, Covent Garden and Drury Lane to 1860; noted for his imitations of the leading dancers of his day; acted with his wife in chief European cities in 1849, &c. (m. 28 July 1849 Franciska Christophosa dau. of Jean Baptiste Auriol famous French clown, she m. (2) her cousin Monsieur Auriol, and d. Paris 3 Sep. 1862). d. 66 Hercules buildings, Lambeth, London 20 Aug. 1860. Illust. sp. and dr. news ii, 268 (1874), portrait, iv, 294 (1875), portrait; Era 26 Aug. 1860 p. 10, col. 1, and 2 Sep. p. 10, col. 2; A first appearance, By Mrs. Evans Bell (1872), i, 129–33, iii, 195–7.
FLIGHT, Walter (son of William P. Flight). b. Winchester 21 Jany. 1841; ed. at Queenwood coll. Hampshire, D. Sci. London 1867; assistant in mineralogical department British Museum 5 Sep. 1867, resigned 1884; experimented on the constituents of meteorites; F.R.S. 7 June 1883; author of numerous papers in scientific journals, majority of them on meteorites. d. 4 Wildwood terrace, North End, Hampstead 4 Nov. 1885. W. Flight’s Chapter on Meteorites 1887.
FLOOD, Frederick Solly- (only son of Richard Solly of Walthamstow, who d. 1803). b. 7 Aug. 1801; ed. at Harrow and Trin. coll. Cam., B.A. 1825, M.A. 1828; assumed by r.l. additional surname of Flood 14 Oct. 1818; barrister L.I. 6 May 1828; attorney general for city and garrison of Gibraltar 15 Feb. 1866 to 1877. d. Gibraltar 13 May 1888.
FLOWER, Edward Fordham (younger son of Richard Flower, who d. 15 Jany. 1862). b. Marden hall, Hertfordshire 31 Jany. 1805; spent his early life in Illinois; brewer Stratford on Avon 1832–62; mayor of Stratford 3 times, also in 1864 during Shakespeare tercentenary; contested Coventry 1865 and North Warwickshire 1868; removed to London 1873; endeavoured to prevent cruelty to horses in use of bearing reins and gag-bits; author of Bits and bearing reins 1875, 7 ed. 1886 and 3 other books. d. 35 Hyde park gardens, London 20 March 1883. E. F. Flower’s Bits and bearing reins (1886) 3–15, portrait; Victoria Mag., May 1878 pp. 67–8, portrait; I.L.N. 7 May 1864 p. 453, portrait.
FLOWER, John Wickham. b. London 11 Aug. 1807; studied geology and archæology; lived at Croydon about 1848 to death; F.G.S. 1863; author of Adam’s disobedience and its results, 2 ed. 1871; A Layman’s reason for discontinuing the use of the Athanasian creed 1872. d. Park hill, Croydon 11 April 1873.
FLOWER, Richard. b. Hertfordshire about 1780; went with Morris Birkbeck to the U.S. 1817 to found an English colony in Albion, Edwards co. Illinois; instrumental in securing defeat of attempt to legalize African slavery in Illinois 1823; author of History of the English settlement in Edwards county, Illinois founded in 1817 and 1818 by Morris Birkbeck and Richard Flower, Chicago 1882. d. Grayville, White co. Illinois 15 Jany. 1862.