Joseph Fry (172827 March 1787) was a British type-founder and chocolate maker and founder of the Bristol branch of the Quaker Fry family. He was the first member of his family to settle in Bristol, where he acquired a considerable medical practice, and 'was led to take a part in many new scientific undertakings'. Early life and education The eldest son of John Fry (d. 1775) of Sutton Benger, Wiltshire, author of Select Poems (1774), Fry was educated in the north of England. He was bound as an apprentice to Henry Portsmouth of Basingstoke, a doctor, and married Anna, Portsmouth's daughter. Business pursuits Chocolate production After a time he abandoned medicine for business pursuits. He helped Richard Champion in his Bristol works, and began to make chocolate, having purchased Walter Churchman's patent right. The chocolate and cocoa manufactory thus started has been carried on by the family down to the early twentieth century. Type-founding The success of John Baskerville caused Fry to turn his attention in 1764 to type-founding, and he entered into a partnership with William Pine, the first printer of the newspaper Bristol Gazette, who had a large business in Wine Street. Their new type may be traced in several works issued between 1764 and 1770. The manager of Messrs. Joseph Fry & Wm Pine was Isaac Moore, formerly a whitesmith at Birmingham, after whose speedy admission to partnership the business (Bristol Letter Foundry of 1764–1773) moved and went to London. He carried on as "Isaac Moore & Co., in Queen Street, near Upper Moorfields". Philip Luckombe mentions Moore as one of three London founders. In 1774 the London firm produced a fine folio bible, and in 1774–1776 a well-printed edition in five volumes. Fry's first founts were cut in imitation of Baskerville's, the punches being engraved by Isaac Moore. About this time they turned away from their earlier Baskerville style of letter, to follow the more popular Caslon character. Joseph Fry's firm became Joseph Fry of London (1773–1776). In 1774 Pine printed at Bristol a bible in a pearl type, asserted to be "the smallest a bible was ever printed with". To all these editions, notes were added to escape the penalty of infringing the patent. Two years later the firm became J Fry & Co. (1776–1782), and issued in 1777 reprints of the octavo and folio bibles. Pine subsequently withdrew entirely. Fry took two of his