Augustus Edwin Mulready was born c 1844 in London the son of Thomas and Sarah Mulready and grandson of the painter William Mulready R.A. (1786 - 1863). Attracted by the artist's colony established in Cranbrook Augustus moved there to further his profession in the late 1860s and lived next door to F.D. Hardy at Waterloo Place in 1871. In 1874 Augustus returned to London where he married Marie who bore him two children - Claude Augustus in 1876 and Eleanor Julia in 1878.

Frederick Daniel Hardy, George Hardy, Thomas Webster, George Bernard O'Neill, John Callcott Horsley and Augustus Edwin Mulready were an informal group of six professional painters known as the Cranbrook Colony that thrived in Cranbrook in the latter half of the nineteenth century. They were a close association of colleagues and friends, and, in the case of the Hardy brothers and G.B. O'Neill, distant relatives. All six were "Genre" painters depicting scenes from daily life, either real or imaginary and, through their work, we have an accurate depiction of the people and homes in the Cranbrook area during the Victorian age. Often the Colony used their children, families and friends as models with the Hardys and Webster focused on rustic interiors and O'Neill and Horsley on picturesque historic architecture. The six painters, who occupied The Old Studio in the High Street, were prolific in their work and exhibited extensively at the Royal Academy and the British Institution.

Augustus edwin Mulready died in London at the age of 60 in 1904.