When he arrived in Sydney around 1841, Francis Cunninghame had had ten years experience as a printer in Glasgow. In 1842 he was working for the Australasian Chronicle as a reporter (and probably as a printer). In partnership with Edward Hawksley he commenced publication of the democratic paper the Peoples Advocate in 1848. He spent a period on the Turon goldfields in 1851-2, then took over Thomas Trood's Albion Printing Office in King Street, Sydney, in 1853.
Cunninghame was a skilled and experienced printer and a talented designer who excelled in decorative work. The company that he founded was still printing in the 1970s.