His parents divorced when Fraser was a teen, his mother moving to Letchworth, buying property with her own funds.
Going to China with CIM (China Inland Mission), he was stationed in the then remote province of Yunnan to work with the local Chinese, but Fraser was a keen climber and revelled in climbing through the mountains meeting and preaching to the Lisu people, particularly in the upper Salween River valley.
Readily accepted by them and able to live in their mud floor huts, he was able to communicate a little through Chinese and then to learn their language, which is in the Tibeto-Burman group.
Initial success was followed by years of doubt and difficulty until 1916, when he and fellow missionaries started to see scores of families convert to Christianity and enthusiastically pursue a new life without the fear of the spirits that had previously characterised them.
Fraser was known for his ability to organise the people into strong indigenous churches that became models for church-planting ventures not only for other minority peoples in China's southwest but also for other Aware that they would soon need material in their language, he began work immediately on Mark's gospel and a hymnbook since they showed great interest in writing and were already great singers and natural musicians.
Fraser went back to England on furlough in 1924 and when he returned to "Lisuland" in 1929, he was married, to Roxie Dymond, the daughter of a Methodist missionary stationed in Kunming.
Fraser developed a script for the Lisu language and used it to prepare a catechism, portions of Scripture and eventually, with much help from his colleagues, a complete New Testament.
Working initially on Mark and John and then on a handbook of Lisu history and language, Fraser handed on the translation task to Allyn Cooke and his wife, Leila.
Fraser maintained a consistent policy of training the Lisu converts (usually whole households and whole villages at a time) to be self-supporting and to pay for their own books and church buildings.
That was something that put the Lisu in good stead for the years of Japanese occupation and the Communist persecution, particularly during the Cultural Revolution.
After seeing great fruit for his labours, James Outram Fraser died in Baoshan, in Western Yunnan in 1938 of cerebral malaria, leaving his pregnant wife and two children.
The rapid development of Yunnan as a tourist region and the tidal wave of emigration of young tribal people from the remote mountain valleys to the cities in search of work are bringing many changes to the Lisu church, not all of them positive.In 1992, the Chinese government officially recognised the Fraser alphabet as the official script of the Lisu language.
Today, Fraser is remembered as one of Christianity's most successful missionaries to East Asia in modern times.