Sir Walter Morley Fletcher, 1873 - 1933
Sir Walter Morley Fletcher died on June 7, 1933, with unlooked for suddenness when he was just approaching his sixtieth birthday, but when his physique and brain were still those of a man in the most vigorous prime. Years of fruitful work had seemed to lie ahead of him, for he embodied the strength of a family of tenacious vitality. His father and mother had each lived beyond the ninetieth year, and all their ten children were alive when they celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their wedding day. Walter Fletcher was their youngest and sixth son, being born in 1873. His parents on both sides were from Yorkshire, and of that independent spirit which showed itself in Nonconformity to the Church. They were Congregationalists, and in each of them religion was blended with a sensitiveness to art and culture that made goodness and beauty seem to them almost the same. Walter Fletcher never lost these spiritual impressions that he received in his early years at home. His praise of clean scientific work rose to its highest appreciation when he spoke deliberately of its beauty, and characteristically in public addresses he was wont to choose a phrase from the Bible or related sources when he wished to express emotions that had been stirring deeply within him.