Early life

Fry was the son of Joseph Fry

Joseph Fry (type-founder)

Joseph Fry , was an English type-founder and chocolate maker and founder of the Bristol branch of the Quaker Fry family...

, and member of the Bristol Fry family

Fry Family (Chocolate)

The Fry family was prominent in England especially Bristol, in the Society of Friends, and in the confectionery business in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.-Origins:...

, born at Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

. He studied medicine; took the degree of M.D. at Edinburgh, and spent some time at St. George's Hospital, London.

Fry & Co.

In 1782 his father admitted him and his brother Henry, as partners in the type-foundry business in Queen Street, London

Queen Street, London

Queen Street is a street in the City of London, which runs from Upper Thames Street north to Cheapside. The thoroughfares of Queen Street and King Street were newly laid out, cutting across more ancient thoroughfares in the City, following the Great Fire of London of 1666; they were the only...

. The father retired in 1787, when the new firm, Edmund Fry & Co., issued their first ‘Specimen of Printing Types,’ followed the next year by an enlarged edition. Several founts of the oriental type, which fill twelve pages, were cut by Fry.

In 1788 the printing business was separated from the foundry, and remained at Worship Street as the ‘Cicero Press,’ under the management of Henry Fry. The foundry was removed to a place opposite Bunhill Fields

Bunhill Fields

Bunhill Fields is a cemetery in the London Borough of Islington, north of the City of London, and managed by the City of London Corporation. It is about 4 hectares in extent, although historically was much larger....

 in Chiswell Street, and new works erected in a street then called Type Street. Homer's series of the classics (1789–1794), printed by Millar Ritchie, were from the characters of the Type Street foundry. In 1793 ‘Edmund Fry & Co., letter founders to the Prince of Wales,’ produced a ‘Specimen of Metal-cast Ornaments curiously adjusted to paper,’ which gained vogue among printers. The next year Fry took Isaac Steele into partnership, and published a ‘Specimen’ which ‘shows a marked advance on its predecessors’.

On the admission of George Knowles in 1799, the firm took the name of Fry, Steele, & Co. At the start of the nineteenth century the modern-faced type supplanted the old-faced. ‘Specimens of modern cut printing types from the foundry of Messrs. Fry & Steele’ are given in Caleb Stower's ‘Printer's Grammar,’ 1808. About this time Fry reassumed sole management of the business. In 1816 a ‘Specimen of Printing Types by Edmund Fry, Letter Founder to the King and Prince Regent,’ was published. The firm soon after became Edmund Fry & Son, on the admission of his son, Windover.

In a ‘Specimen’ printed in 1824 the name is changed back to ‘Edmund Fry’ at ‘the Polyglot Foundry.’ In 1828 he moved to dispose of his business, and issued a descriptive circular. It was purchased by William Thorowgood of Fann Street, and the stock removed in 1829. It was then in the hands of Thorowgood & Besley, then R. Besley & Co., and finally Sir Charles Reed & Sons, before closing in the early twentieth century.

Later life

Fry was one of the most learned of the English typefounders, but retired with little. He was a member of the Company of Stationers. He died at Dalby Terrace, City Road, London, at the age of eighty-one, on 22 December 1835.

Works

In 1798 he circulated a ‘Prospectus’ of the major work on which he had been occupied for sixteen years, published as Pantographia

Pantographia

Pantographia, with the full title being Pantographia; containing accurate copies of all the known alphabets in the world; together with an English explanation of the peculiar force or power of each letter is the title of a 1799 work on writing systems and typography by Edmund Fry, one of the most...

, containing accurate Copies of all the known Alphabets of the World, together with an English explanation of the peculiar Force and Power of each Letter, to which are added Specimens of all well-authenticated Oral Languages, forming a Comprehensive Digest of Phonology, 1799. The volume contains more than two hundred alphabets, including eighteen varieties of the Chaldee and thirty-two of the Greek. Many of the characters were expressly cut by Fry for his book.

Fry cut several founts of oriental types for the university of Cambridge, the British and Foreign Bible Society

British and Foreign Bible Society

The British and Foreign Bible Society, often known in England and Wales as simply as Bible Society, is a non-denominational Christian Bible society with charity status whose purpose is to make the Bible available throughout the world....

, and other bodies.

In 1833 twenty designs for raised type for the blind were submitted to the Royal Scottish Society of Arts

Royal Scottish Society of Arts

The Royal Scottish Society of Arts is a learned society in Scotland, dedicated to the study of science and technology. It was founded as The Society for the Encouragement of the Useful Arts in Scotland by Sir David Brewster in 1821 and dedicated to "the promotion of invention and enterprise"...

, who had offered a prize for the best example. Among them was one from Fry, to whom the gold medal was awarded a couple of years after his death.

Family

He was married twice: first to Jenny, daughter of Nicholas Windover, of Stockbridge

Stockbridge

-Places:In the United States* Stockbridge, Georgia* Stockbridge, Massachusetts* Stockbridge, Michigan* Stockbridge Township, Michigan* Stockbridge, New York* Stockbridge, Vermont* Stockbridge, Wisconsin* Stockbridge , WisconsinIn the United Kingdom...

, Hampshire

Hampshire

Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

, of whose issue one son only survived, Windover Fry (1797–1835); secondly to Ann Hancock, by whom he had a son, Arthur (1809–78). A portrait of Fry, painted by Frédérique Boileau, was shown at the Caxton Exhibition in 1877. A silhouette has been reproduced by Reed and Fry.