A successful grocer, and later, printer, Frith fostered an interest in photography, becoming a founding member of the Liverpool Photographic Society in 1853.

These words express the ambitious goal that Frith set for himself when he departed on his first trip to the Nile Valley in 1856 with his inventive friend Francis H. Wenham, who acted as lighting technician.

[9] In addition to photography, he also kept a journal during his travels elaborating on the difficulties of the trip, commenting on the "smothering little tent" and the collodion fizzing – boiling up over the glass.

(cited from "A World History of Photography") When not taking photographs in the Middle East, he was back in England, printing them and reproducing them in delightful illustrated books – including his Egypt and Palestine photographed described by Francis Frith 1858–60 and Egypt, Palestine and Sinai (1860) with text by Mrs Sophia Poole and Reginald Stuart Poole - both of which became very popular.

[10] When he had finished his travels in the Middle East in 1859, he opened the firm of Francis Frith & Co. in Reigate, Surrey, as the world's first specialist photographic publisher.

Jay managed to persuade McCann-Erikson the London advertising agency to approach their client Rothmans of Pall Mall on 14 December 1971 to purchase the archive to ensure its safety.

[18] On 25 August 1977, Buck bought the archive from Rothmans, and has run it as an independent business since that time – trading as The Francis Frith Collection.

In 2016 the company completed a two-year project to scan the entire archive and now holds over 330,000 high resolution digital images.

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.