Francis Frith

Francis Frith was an English photographer of the Middle East and many towns in the United Kingdom.

Frith was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, attending Quaker schools at Ackworth and Quaker Camp Hill in Birmingham (c. 1828-1838), before he started in the cutlery business. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1843, recuperating over the next two years. In 1850 he started a photographic studio in Liverpool, known as Frith & Hayward. A successful grocer, and later, printer, Frith fostered an interest in photography, becoming a founding member of the Liverpool Photographic Society in 1853. Frith sold his companies in 1855 in order to dedicate himself entirely to photography. He journeyed to the Middle East on three occasions, the first of which was a trip to Egypt in 1856 with very large cameras (16" x 20"). He used the collodion process, a major technical achievement in hot and dusty conditions.

Many of his photographs were collected into published volumes. Initially these works were compiled by established publishing companies. However, by the 1860s, Firth realised that he could profit from publishing his own images and established the publishing company F. Frith & Co. Select list of publications

Egypt and Palestine, Photographed and Described by Francis Frith, 2 volumes, London, James S. Virtue, 1858-1859

Cairo, Sinai, Jerusalem, and the Pyramids of Egypt, A Series of Sixty Photographic Views, by Francis Frith, With Descriptions by Mrs. Sophia Lane Poole and Reginald Stuart Poole, London, James S. Virtue, n.d. (1860)

Egypt, Palestine and Nubia, 4 volumes, by Francis Frith, London + Glasgow + Edinburgh, William MacKenzie, 1862

Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia, Illustrated by One Hundred Stereoscopic Photographs Taken by Francis Frith for Messrs. Negretti and Zambra, With Descriptions and Numerous Wood Engravings by Joseph Bonomi, and Notes by Samuel Sharpe London, Smith, Elder and Co., 1862

The Gossiping Photographer and Hastings, 1864

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023