Francis Frith
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Francis Frith (October 7, 1822 – February 25, 1898) was an English photographer of the Middle East and many towns in the United Kingdom.
Frith was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire and started in the cutlery business, leaving it in 1850 to start a photographic studio known as Frith and Hayward in Liverpool. He journeyed to the Middle East on three occasions, starting with a trip to Egypt in 1856, bearing with him very large cameras (16" x 20") and using the collodion process, a major technical achievement in hot and dusty conditions.
When he had finished his travels in the Middle East in 1859, he opened the firm of F. Frith & Co. in Reigate, Surrey. In 1860, he married Mary Ann Rosling (daughter of Alfred Rosling, the first treasurer of the Photographic Society) 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.
Francis Frith was "recorded" a Quaker minister in 1872 (at this time there were little more than 250 recorded ministers in England and Wales). He undertook his share of administrative duties, serving 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 magazine, the Friends' Quarterly Examiner.
In his sixties, Frith positioned himself at the extreme liberal wing of society. In 1884, he published (with William Pollard and William Turner) 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.
Frith died in Reigate in 1898. His family continued the firm, which was finally sold in 1968 and closed in 1970.
Following closure of the business in 1970, Bill Jay, one of Britain's first photography historians, identified the archive as being nationally important, and "at risk". Jay managed to persuade Rothmans, the tobacco company, to purchase the archive to ensure its safety.
Frith was re-launched in 1976 as The Francis Frith Collection by John Buck, a Rothmans executive, with the intention of making the Frith photographs available to as wide an audience as possible.
In 1977, John Buck bought the company from Rothmans and has continued to run it as an independent business since that time.
