Britain Then & Now: The Francis Frith Collection

by Philip Ziegler

200 pages in color & 300 b/w illustrations! How has Britain changed over 150 years? Examine remarkable historical photographs that date back to the 1860s, and which are complemented by photographs of the same scene today, and you'll have a good idea. The photographs are chosen from the world-famous Frith collection and show the British at work and play, and what the cities, towns, villages, coast and countryside looked like. Provides an interesting way of getting to know a country, then and now. Trim 8 1/2 x 11.

Genres: History, Photography, Reference, Nonfiction

432 pages, Hardcover

First published October 9, 1999

About the author

Philip Ziegler was a British biographer and historian known for his meticulously researched works on historical figures and events. After studying at Eton and New College, Oxford, he served in the British Foreign Service, with postings in Laos, South Africa, Colombia, and NATO. He later transitioned into publishing and writing, eventually becoming a distinguished biographer.
His notable works include Mountbatten: The Official Biography, Edward VIII: The Official Biography, and The Black Death. He also wrote about figures such as Lord Melbourne, Harold Wilson, and George VI. Over the years, Ziegler contributed to major publications like The Spectator, The Times, and History Today.
His personal life was marked by tragedy when his first wife was killed during a home invasion in Bogotá in 1967. He later remarried and continued his literary career until his passing in 2023 at the age of 93.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

The core of this book is a large collection of photographs taken in Britain mostly not actually by Francis Frith, a famous Victorian-era photographer, but by the company that he founded. It includes old pictures from the late 1800 and early 1900, but It also a number of more recent BW photos (1950-1960) and some contemporary color photos. Most of the pictures forming the “Frith collection” were produced to be distributed as postcards, so they are both really well done and informative. With this collection, the book tries to illustrate how life in Britain has changed since Victorian times, topic by topic. There are 20 topics in total, divided into two parts – the country (London – Cities – Towns…) and life (advertising – eating – mining – traveling by rail…). Each topic is presented with interesting concise narration and richly illustrated with photographs. Some of these photographs show the changes in the same location over time, but the rest simply illustrates aspects of the topic. Altogether, really interesting and informative book. A clear split of it into separated chapters makes it easier to read whenever time is available.

[Carlton]

An interesting browse

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Francis Frith was a professional photographer in Great Britain (having already made a substantial fortune with a printing company) from about 1860, and the picture postcard company he founded and which was carried on by his sons and grandsons lasted until 1970. But its heyday was the twenty years either side of 1900 -- the high Victorian and Edwardian eras and on through the Great War -- in which every post office and village shop in the country, it seemed, carried his images of local sights for sale to tourists. Frith’s photos are still very popular among collectors and local historians, for he and his assistants set out to record every single view of interest in the whole of England. The huge collection of images the company left behind were well on the way to uncaring destruction when a group of collectors were able to get hold of the surviving items -- “merely” 60,000 original glass plates and a quarter-million prints, now the basis of an unparalleled visual museum of the lives, work, and social mores of the English people over several generations. Ziegler has contributed the text for this collection of some 650 historical photos, which are accompanied by several hundred recent photos of the same views by John Cleare. For the student of modern social history, the result is fascinating, especially when a series of photos of, say, a seaside resort captures visitors from the 1890s, 1920s, 1950s, and late 1990s; in some cases, the clothing styles are the only significant change. Ziegler is generally quite able at providing context and historical discussion -- where the hedgerows went, the difference in status between the topper and the bowler. My only real complaint in that regard is that the captions of the photos much too frequently simply repeat a sentence or two from the text on the same page; under proper editorial guidance, this would have been an opportunity to slip in an additional remark or observation without adding to the book’s length.

[Andrea Engle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating comparative study of the pace of change in Britain, by means of the photographic record created by the late Victorian photographer, Francis Frith ... vintage photos of British cities, towns, and villages are compared with photos from the 20s, 60s, and 1998 (the year before the book was published), and sociological conclusions are drawn ... photos of the British at work and at play are also analyzed ...

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives you a real taste of what life in Britain was like and how beautiful the scenery was and still is in some cases.

[David Catlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five stars for the photographs, three stars for the commentary which often had a tendency to be depressingly negative.