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.