Alfred Fryer (25 December 1826 Cambridgeshire - 26 February 1912 Chatteris, Cambridgeshire), was an English naturalist and authority on the pond weeds or Potamogetons. The Fryer family had lived in the Fenlands of the Chatteris district for more than 300 years; Alfred's father was a gentleman farmer of considerable means who placed few restrictions on his son. His first schooling was at Leicester where he met Henry Walter Bates and Alfred Russel Wallace. When Bates eventually left England for South America he tried to persuade Fryer, who had just lost his first wife, to do the same.