"A Victorian Society" is a book about early photography and photographers, told against the backdrop of life in what was to become the most productive cotton spinning town in the world. In 1867, when photography was still in its infancy, a group of photographers from Oldham and District met at the Hare and Hounds Inn, Yorkshire Street, and founded the Oldham Photographic Society and some of these men would provide the early photographic studios in the town. The photographic portrait had been accessible only to the wealthy but now it was beginning to be affordable by all but the poorest in...