Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/292

 Gainsborough, and possessed some paintings and drawings by him, notably ‘The Mall,’ of which he executed a careful copy when in his seventy-seventh year. He was also an intimate friend of John Constable, R.A. His situation at Ipswich caused him to confine his subjects to that town and its neighbourhood, and he is little known elsewhere. He died on 28 June 1821, in his seventy-eighth year, after a painful illness.

[Gent. Mag. 1821, xci. 89; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.] 

FROST, JOHN (1626?–1656), nonconformist divine, born at Langham, Suffolk, in or about 1626, was the eldest son of John Frost, rector of Fakenham in the same county. After attending schools at Thetford, Norfolk, and Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, he was admitted pensioner of St. John's College, Cambridge, 21 Feb. 1641–2, and fellow soon after taking his B.A. degree (, Admissions to St. John's Coll. Cambr. pt. i. p. 62). He bore an active part in the educational work of the college as lecturer on logic and philosophy. In 1654 he began to preach regularly at St. Benedict's, Cambridge, and elsewhere in the town and county. He proceeded B.D. in the summer of 1656. A few months later he was invited to become ‘pastor’ of St. Olave's, Hart Street, London, but was cut off by small-pox, 2 Nov. 1656 (, Funeral Sermon, 1657). To his ‘Select Sermons,’ fol., Cambridge, 1657 (with a new title-page, 1658), is prefixed his portrait at the age of thirty-one, by R. Vaughan.

[Brook's Puritans, iii. 291–3; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, 2nd ed., iii. 46.] 

FROST, JOHN (1803–1840), founder of the Medico-Botanical Society of London, was born in 1803 near Charing Cross, London, where his parents were in business. Intending to enter the medical profession, he became the pupil of Dr. Wright, the apothecary of Bethlehem Hospital, but quarrelled with him, and gave up medicine for botany. Although only eighteen, he conceived a project which he carried into effect with remarkable success. In 1821 (16 Jan.) he founded the Medico-Botanical Society of London, having for its objects the investigation of the medicinal properties of plants, the study of the materia medica of all countries, with many other allied subjects, and the adjudging of rewards to original investigators. In this project he was first aided by Drs. Bree and Maton, and afterwards obtained an introduction to George IV, who not only appointed him botanical tutor to the two youthful Princes George (afterwards respectively king of Hanover and Duke of Cambridge), but (in 1828) became patron of the new society. Sir James McGregor, director-general of the army medical board, was the first president, and it soon gained wide support. Frost was appointed director of the society and also lecturer on botany, both of which appointments are said to have been honorary. As the society grew, so did Frost's ambition, and he incessantly sought the support of royal personages and distinguished men all over Europe. He succeeded in obtaining the adhesion of eleven sovereigns, and by incredible perseverance procured their autographs, with those of many other celebrities, in a well-known book which he was always carrying about; each signature occupied a page, surrounded by a wreath of artistically painted flowers. The book disappeared when the society collapsed, and is not now known to exist (, infra). It is recounted by Barham (Life, 1 vol. ed. pp. 119–21) that Frost, after many futile attempts, had an interview with the Duke of Wellington, dressed in a lieutenant-general's uniform, and succeeded in obtaining the duke's signature. The meetings of the society were not without interest. Frost directed everything and everybody, from the president downwards, and obtained some effective displays. Without any genuine qualification he made himself so generally known that within a few years he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and of the Linnean Society, a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, lecturer on botany at the Royal Institution and at St. Thomas's Hospital; he also entered himself at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, intending to graduate in medicine, but his career of triumph was checked when the Royal Society blackballed him almost unanimously. Frost sent a hostile message to the secretary of the society (Gent. Mag. new ser. 1840, xiv. 664).

In 1824 Frost, at the age of twenty-one, was appointed paid secretary to the Royal Humane Society, with a residence in Bridge Street, Blackfriars. At the annual meetings of the Medico-Botanical Society he always delivered an oration, in which he related the progress of the society. His arrogance disgusted many of his friends. He presented himself at the annual meeting in 1829 to deliver his oration, decorated with a dazzling display of foreign orders and other distinctions, but was received with much hostility. A private meeting of the council under the presidency of Earl Stanhope subsequently declared the office of director abolished, and called a general meeting to confirm the decree. Frost replied to Earl Stanhope's accusations