He was a member of the Stirling expedition of 1827, and his report on the quality of the soil was instrumental in the decision to establish the Swan River Colony.
[1] He enlisted as a soldier in the 56th Regiment on 8 June 1815, and served in the East Indies before arriving in Sydney on board the convict ship Guildford on 8 April 1816.
Fraser's group was sent in an eastward direction, where they discovered "many curious and interesting Botanical specimens and a lump of granite from the ridge".
The report, which Statham-Drew has described as "euphoric",[4] states: "In giving my opinion of the Land seen on the Banks of Swan River, I hesitate not in pronouncing it superior to any I ever saw in New South Wales east of the Blue Mountains...."[5] Together with Stirling's effusive report on the naval, strategic and geological qualities of the area, the reports were instrumental in convincing the British Colonial Office to establish the Swan River Colony, and provided impetus to the period of excessively favorable publicity that has been labelled "Swan River mania".
Finally, Appleyard (1979) speculates that "the question must be asked: had the persuasive Stirling unduly influenced - not maliciously but seductively by his boundless enthusiasm - Charles Fraser to pen words that did little credit to his professional and administrative standing?
In a thinly veiled attack on Fraser, Eliza Shaw wrote "that man who reported this land to be good deserves hanging nine times over".
[7] A naval officer stationed at the Swan River wrote that Fraser's report was so "highly coloured" that it was inevitable that people coming to the colony would be disappointed.
Finally, in December 1832, Robert Lyon wrote of the "unpardonable sin of Fraser": that he did not state the extent of good land in the area.
[2] His specimens are now principally in the herbaria at Kew; the Natural History Museum, London; the Oxford University Druce-Fielding Collection; and some have returned to the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney Herbarium.