1. Francis Frith was an English photographer and businessman.
18 Facts About Francis Frith
1. 2.
Francis Frith suffered a nervous breakdown in 1843, recuperating over the next two years.
3.
Francis Frith sold his companies in 1855 in order to dedicate himself entirely to photography.
4.
Francis Frith journeyed to the Middle East on three occasions between 1856 and 1860, taking with him three glass plate cameras, the largest of which measured 16" x 20".
5.
Francis Frith used the collodion process, a major technical achievement in hot and dusty conditions.
6.
Francis Frith Jr was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, the second child and only son of Francis Frith Sr and his wife Alice, nee Walker.
7.
Francis Frith was originally apprenticed in the cutlery trade, but eventually became a grocer, supplying ships at Liverpool.
8.
Francis Frith appears to have learned photography sometime in the 1850s, and in 1859 was one of the founding members of the Liverpool Photographic Society.
9.
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.
10.
Francis Frith made two other trips before 1860, extending his photo-taking to Palestine and Syria.
11.
Francis Frith noticed the compositional problems regarding the point of view from the camera.
12.
Francis Frith was "recorded" as a Quaker minister in 1872.
13.
Francis Frith served on numerous committees, and frequently spoke in favour of pacifism and abstinence.
14.
Francis Frith was an occasional contributor of philosophical and religious articles and poems to the Quaker journal, the Friends' Quarterly Examiner.
15.
Francis Frith died at his villa in Cannes, France, on 25 February 1898, aged 75.
16.
Francis Frith's family continued the firm, which was finally closed in 1971.
17.
Francis Frith website enables visitors to browse all 330,000 Frith photographs, depicting some 7,000 cities, towns and villages.
18.
The ten-part BBC series Britain's First Photo Album, presented by John Sergeant, was first shown on BBC2 in March 2012 and takes a look at the history of Francis Frith's pioneering photographic work.