Post Card Views - History of Francis Frith and his business.

The photographic business of Francis Frith
Francis Frith spent much of the late 19th century photographing views of Britain - including Edinburgh. The Frith Book Company has reproduced many of these photos in its 'Photographic Memories' series of books. In 2002, new titles to this series were being added at the rate of 100 per year, with about 150 photos in each. The Francis Frith web site currently [2005] lists about 330 books in this series, together with over 100,000 photos from 1860 to 1970 Copies of individual photos are offered for sale. Here is a very brief history of the company's business:
1850s	Francis Frith was a Quaker and owner of a wholesale grocery business in Liverpool. He sold the business in 1855 for £200,000, enabling him to travel and take photographs. His travels included visits to the Nile in the late 1850s.
1860s	As railway travel became more popular in Britain in the 1860s. Francis Frith set out to photograph every city, town and village in Britain, and to sell the photos through his chain of shops.
1880s	Francis Frith had been working with a small team of photographers. He also published the work of other photographers including Roger Fenton and Francis Bedford. In 1886, Frith's catalogue of views extended to 670 pages. It included photographs of Europe, China, Japan, USA and Canada.
1890s	Francis Frith died in 1898. His sons Eustace and Cyril continued to expand the business. A change in the British Post Office's rules permitted privately produced postcards to be posted from 1894 onward. Frith & Co took advantage of this opportunity.
1970s	Frith's business continued until around 1970, by which time the archive amounted to over 300,000 photographs of 7,000 cities, towns and villages in Britain.
Details above have been taken from the following books:. - Photographic Memories of Edinburgh & District (original work by Clive Hardy): Publ. Frith Book Co Ltd. 2000. - Francis Frith's Yorkshire Dales (Roly Smith): Publ. Frith Book Co Ltd. 2002.