Portrait of Thomas Carlyle, personally signed

This print was engraved by Joseph Brown from a photograph by Elliot & Fry.  The print was personally signed by Thomas Carlyle for his sister, Miss Jean Carlyle Aitken.  Along with the print is a fragment of backing paper with the name and address of Miss Carlyle Aitken.   The firm of Elliott & Fry was founded in 1863 by Joseph John Elliott (1835 = 1903) and Clarence Edmund Fry, who opened their first premises at 55 Baker Street where they stayed at until 1886. The firm employed a variety of operators who took the photographs, including Francis Henry Hart and Alfred James Philpott in the Edwardian era, Herbert Lambert in the 1920s and 1930s and subsequently William Flowers. In the early 1940s the studio was bombed and most of the early negatives were destroyed. Shortly after the firm's Centenary in 1963 it was taken over by and amalgamated with Bassano & Vandyk. The National Portrait Gallery owns all the surviving negatives.