Francis Frith embarked on three pioneering photographic expeditions to the Nile and Holy Lands between 1857 and 1859. The resulting photographs established his reputation, and in 1860 he founded the world's first specialist photographic publishing business; by the 1880s this had become the greatest photographic publishing company in the world. Frith and his team of photographers travelled all over Britain, aiming to photograph every town and village.

After Frith's death in 1898 his sons and grandsons continued the business; by 1970 its collection contained over a third of a million pictures depicting 7,000 British towns and villages. The archive Frith founded now illustrates a range of successful local history books and other products published by The Francis Frith Collection. The company continues the Frith tradition of publishing photographs from its own archive and other photographers where appropriate, and is also commissioning new photographs to illustrate the changes that have taken place in our towns and cities over the last century.