Publication: A Grand Spell of Sunshine. The Life and Legacy of Francis Frith

[Michael Pritchard]

This is the story of Francis Frith, a Victorian adventurer, pioneer photographer and visionary businessman, and his amazing legacy – a unique archive of over 300,000 photographs illustrating the changing face of Britain over 110 years.

Between 1856 and 1860 Francis Frith made three arduous expeditions to Egypt and the Holy Land, where he took some of the earliest photographs ever seen of those regions. He then founded his own photographic publishing company and began an incredible project – the creation of what is widely considered to be the first extensive photographic record of Britain.

For the next 30 years he and his company photographers travelled around the country recording thousands of cities, towns and villages, landmarks, historic buildings, coasts and countryside in photographs to sell to tourists as souvenir prints. After Frith’s death in 1898 his successors continued his project into the 20th century, by which time the Frith company had become one of Britain’s leading postcard publishers. By the time it closed down in 1970 it had created an unrivalled record of Britain over more than a century of change, which is now recognised as a photographic collection of national significance.

• Published to mark the 200th anniversary of Francis Frith’s birth in Chesterfield, Derbyshire in 1822, this book tells the story of his eventful life and is also a celebration of the extraordinary photographic legacy of this remarkable man, which is now viewed by millions of people
  around the world on the Frith website francisfrith.com.
• Extensively researched, it contains new information about his Middle Eastern expeditions, including the identification of a number of his companions and extracts from letters written by one of them on their journey through the Sinai Peninsula.
• Lavishly illustrated with over 500 period photographs, ranging from the monuments of ancient Egypt to nostalgic images of the people and places of Britain between 1860 and 1970.
• An absorbing read for anyone interested in the early history of photography, travel and exploration in the 19th century and Egyptology, as well as British history.

A Grand Spell of Sunshine. The Life and Legacy of Francis Frith
Julia Skinner
The Francis Frith Collection
£35. 400 pages, paperback
ISBN: 978-1-84589-924-0
email: [e-mail]
web: www.francisfrith.com