Portrait of a working man

Osman wrote "Bolding was not only a photographer but also an artist, archaeologist, brewer, maltster, landowner, farmer, miller and shipowner! On his father's death in 1846 he took over the family business in Weybourne, North Norfolk and from 1850 photographed the people of the village which he and his family dominated.

In the 1840s Bolding had been introduced to the "Norwich Brotherhood", a society meeting regularly to discuss art and science including photography. The Brotherhood had been instructed in calotype photography by Dr Hugh Welch Diamond, a noted scientist and photographer who, in turn, had learned the technique from Fox Talbot himself."