Item 0042 - Letter, 29 December 1886

Sir Charles Frederick Fraser was born on January 4, 1850, in Windsor, Nova Scotia.

He was an educator, editor, and businessman. He became blind through an accident at age seven and then went to study at the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind in Boston. In 1871, he established the Halifax School for the Blind, the first residential school for the blind in Atlantic Canada and became its first superintendent (1873-1923). The school stressed literacy, the skills required for social and economic independence as well as physical education, mobility, and musical training. It also offered industrial programs, e.g., broom- and basket-making and similar kinds of craft production. In 1891, typewriting was introduced, and later massage, shampooing, and bookkeeping were added. In 1881, he established a provincial circulating library of Braille books. He edited a weekly literary and commercial journal called the Critic (1884-1894). Fraser was a member of the North British Society and was elected its president in 1885. He was knighted in 1915.

In 1891, he married Lady Ella Jane Hunter (1867–). He died on July 5, 1925, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.