Background
Francis Frith was born on October 7, 1822 in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, United Kingdom. The second child and only son of Francis Frith Sr and his wife Alice.
Francis Frith was born on October 7, 1822 in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, United Kingdom. The second child and only son of Francis Frith Sr and his wife Alice.
Francis Frith was originally apprenticed in the cutlery trade, but eventually became a grocer, supplying ships at Liverpool. He appears to have learned photography sometime in the 1850s, and in 1859 was one of the founding members of the Liverpool Photographic Society.
Francis Frith was one of the first of a new type of entrepreneurial photographer to establish himself as a retailer of scenic photographs on a large scale. During his travels he noted that tourists were the main consumers of the views of Italy, but armchair travellers bought scenes from other parts of the world in the hope of obtaining a true record.
In addition to photography, Francis Frith also kept a journal during his travels elaborating on the difficulties of the trip. He also noticed the compositional problems regarding the point of view from the camera.
When Francis Frith had finished his travels in the Middle East in 1859, he opened the firm of Francis Frith & Co. in Reigate, Surrey, as the world's first specialist photographic publisher.
In 1860, Francis Frith married and embarked upon a colossal project—to photograph every town and village in the United Kingdom; in particular, notable historical or interesting sights. Initially he took the photographs himself, but as success came, he hired people to help him and set about establishing his postcard company, a firm that became one of the largest photographic studios in the world. Within a few years, over two thousand shops throughout the United Kingdom were selling his postcards.
The Hypaethral Temple, Philae
(From the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland)
1857Four men and a table of food, Egypt
Entrance, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem
Restored albumen print of the Suez Canal at Ismailia
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Francis Frith was "recorded" as a Quaker minister in 1872. He served on numerous committees, and frequently spoke in favour of pacifism and abstinence. He was an occasional contributor of philosophical and religious articles and poems to the Quaker journal, the Friends' Quarterly Examiner.
In his sixties, Frith positioned himself at the extreme liberal wing of society. In 1884, he published A Reasonable Faith, a highly controversial pamphlet which challenged evangelical orthodoxy by questioning the factuality of the Bible. Although the liberal views expressed in A Reasonable Faith were quickly and vociferously attacked by leading evangelical Quakers, liberal theology rapidly gained support and within ten years became the majority view. Thus it was Francis Frith and his co-authors who began the liberalisation of the Quaker movement and paved the way for the philanthropic and educational reforms for which the movement is well known today.
In 1860, Francis Frith married Mary Ann Rosling (sister of Alfred Rosling, the first treasurer of the Photographic Society). They had five children: Mary Alice, Eustace, Francis Edgar, Mabel and Cyril.