Fry, William Thomas

William Thomas Fry was born in 1789 in Britain. He trained as an engraver, specializing primarily in stipple technique, a method that creates tonal gradations through patterns of small dots. His early career coincided with important technical developments in printmaking, particularly experiments with steel plates as an alternative to traditional copper. Fry was among the pioneering engravers to work with this new medium, and his stipple portrait of Reverend William Naylor became one of the first engravings published using decarbonized steel plates, a significant technical innovation.

From 1824 to 1830, Fry exhibited his work with the Society of British Artists, gaining professional recognition and establishing connections within London's artistic community. During the late 1820s and 1830s, he contributed to several major publication projects that brought historical portraits to a wide audience. Between 1829 and 1835, he engraved eight portraits for the second edition of Edmund Lodge's Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain, a prestigious biographical and iconographic work. He contributed four plates to Fisher's National Portrait Gallery (1830-34) and eleven plates to Jones's National Gallery (1836). These publications established him as a skilled reproductive engraver capable of translating painted portraits into high-quality prints. Fry died in 1843, having contributed significantly to both the technical development and popular dissemination of engraved portraiture in early nineteenth-century Britain.