Andrew Fingar Brophy [commonly known as A.F. Brophy; also known as Andrew Fengar Brophy, and as Andrew Finger Brophy] was born in Limerick, Ireland in December 1844. He began his career as a teacher of mechanical drawing. In 1882 he was appointed Master of the City of London Guilds Technical Institute.
He worked as a freelance pattern designer and from the 1870s to the early 1900s designed wallpapers for Wm. Woollams & Co., Arthur Sanderson, Scott, Cuthbertson, and Jeffrey & Co. Between 1900 and 1912 Brophy supplied 140 designs to Sanderson.
Examples of wallpaper designed by Brophy are included in the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the archive of Sanderson
Brophy apparently practised as an architect, however, no work by him in this field has been traced
Brophy died in Hendon, Middlesex on 12 December 1911
‘Contemporary Decorative Artists - III: Mr. Andrew Fingar Brophy’. The Journal of Decorative Art vol.7, no. 74, February 1887 pp. 20-27
Oman, Charles C. and Hamilton, Jean. Wallpapers: a history and illustrated catalogue of the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum. London: Sotheby Publications in Association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1982 pp.287-288