Frederick George Little was a Bristol-based commercial photographer, publisher and manufacturer of hand-made ‘real photographic’ postcards.
He produced a vast number of these during the first two decades of the 20th Century.
This website - fredlittle.co.uk - exhibits his outstanding creative legacy and is part of a ongoing project to catalogue his prolific photographic output, both in the form of postcards & glass negative material.
Fred Little was a photographer in the right town at the right time. At the turn of the 20th Century there was an enormous craze for collecting and sending postcards. In an age of speedy mail service, decades before widespread electronic communication, postcards filled the gap in quick cheap mass-market correspondence. Bristol was large enough to have plenty for Fred to record, enabling him to produce postcards covering a wide range of subjects, places and occasions.
Much of the stock-in-trade business for an Edwardian photographer - garden parties, council dignitaries, royal visits – seemingly had little interest for Fred. Instead he was drawn to the history, drama and romance of the old city – the castle ruins, narrow medieval alleys and ancient doorways that inspired his stunningly evocative studies. His interest in the past also led him to copy and issue Victorian photographs and earlier paintings/engravings in addition to his own original views.
After gaining experience as a supplier of photographic materials and working as an antiques dealer, Fred became a commercial photographer around 1901, operating in premises on Castle Mill Street. He worked as a photographer until the early 1920s. He then sold photographic equipment and antiques again before retiring. His business was taken over by Salanson opticians in 1937. Within five years the Castle Park area was destroyed by bombing during World War II, and with it many of the sights Fred had meticulously recorded. He died in Bishopston, Bristol in 1953 at 79 years of age.
Please note fredlittle.co.uk is a non commercial local history resource and does not sell any reproductions or prints.