Engineer, of Enniskillen and Dublin. Richard Hastings Frith, who was born circa 1815, came from a family of builders and architects in Enniskillen.. He was living at Islandview, Enniskillen, in early in December 1844, when he was appointed a district surveyor for Co. Dublin from a field of eighteen candidates. He was attached to No. 1 District from 1847 until 1855 and to No. 3 District from August 1856 until his retirment in 1865. He was one of a group of officials from Dublin who attended the banquet to mark the opening of the Birkenhead Street Railway on 30 August 1860. He was the inventor of Frith's patent double valve and the author of a pamphlet on 'The Drainage and Water Supply of Dublin'.
In 1847 Frith, acting on behalf or the Royal Irish Academy, conducted excavations of the tumulus at Dowth, Co. Meath. Although praised by the Academy for his work, no report was ever published.
Frith died at the age of fifty-eight on 17 December 1873, and was buried in Mount Jerome cemetery, Dublin. He was married twice: first in Dublin in 1851 to Maria, née Sewers; second in Athenry, Co. Galway in 1863 to Lavinia, née Lambert, who survived him.
ICEI: elected member, 1847; council member 1852,1855-1863.
RIA: member by 1863.
Geological Society of Dublin: reads paper on the volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands, 1861.
Addresses: Islandview, Enniskillen, 1844; Balbriggan, 1848; Balbriggan House, Balbriggan, 1849; Balbriggan and 87 Marlborough Street, 1856; 53 Leinster Road Rathmines, 1863; 51 Leinster Road, Rathmines, 1863; 19 Dawson St, 1870.
See WORKS and BIBLIOGRAPHY. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
References
All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from Brendan O'Donoghue, The Irish County Surveyors 1834-1944 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), 176-177, which gives the fullest account of Frith's career.
Armagh Guardian, 3 Dec 1844.
DB 2, 1 Sep 1860, 324.
IB 9, 15 Nov 1867, 298-301.
Peter Harbison, 'In Retrospect: The Royal Irish Academy's only archaeological excavation: Dowth in the Boyne Valley', Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature Vol. 107C (2007), 205-213 (information from Brendan O'Donoghue, 2015).
Inscription on gravestone in Mount Jerome Cemetery (B.O'D.); his death is recorded in TICEI 11 (1874-76), Report of Council 1875, 2.
Irish Genealogy, www.churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie (last visited Feb 2016).
www.familysearch.org.
IB 12, 15 Aug 1870, 197.
TICEI 5 (1855-58), 37; Jones, citing Thom's directories.
DB 5, 15 Oct 1863, 172.
DB 3, 15 Mar 1861, ?.
From Thom's directories unless otherwise stated.
See note 1, above.
DB 5 15 Oct 1863, 172.
See note 7, above.