“ Frith also painted a considerable number of portraits of well-known people. In 1889 he became an honorary retired academician. His “Derby Day” is in the National Gallery of British Art. In his youth, in common with the men by whom he was surrounded, he had leanings towards romance, and he scored many successes as a painter of imaginative subjects. In these he proved himself to be possessed of exceptional qualities as a colourist and manipulator, qualities that promised to earn for him a secure place among the best executants of the British School. ”

“ In 1835 he was entered as a student in the well-known art school kept by Henry Sass in Bloomsbury, from which he passed after two years to the Royal Academy schools. His first independent experience was gained in 1839, when he went about for some months in Lincolnshire executing several commissions for portraits ”