| Description | One album containing 119 photographs, mostly of Fuzhou (Foochow), China, and area, and some photographs taken in Shanghai and Singapore, c.1869-1870. The album is thought to have been compiled by John Gurney Fry (1838-1877), merchant and resident partner in the firm of John Silverlock & Company, Fuzhou. He assisted in several public undertakings in the port, notably the Foochow Club, of which he was the principal promoter. John Gurney Fry was the brother of Jane Augusta Fry (1839-1887) and Frederick William Fry (1842-1901 or 1910) – all being grandchildren of Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845), the prison reformer.
The album includes fifty-two confirmed photographs by Lai Fong (Afong Studio) and twenty-one photographs known to be by John Thomson. Lai Fong and John Thomson are regarded as the best nineteenth century photographers in China.
The photographs in the John Gurney Fry Collection have been digitised. The digital images of Chinese subjects are on the Historical Photographs of China site - https://www.hpcbristol.net/collections/fry-29. Historical Photographs of China ref: Fr. |