Horace Walter Nicholls was born in Cambridge in 1867 to his mother Charlotte and photographer father Arthur. Aged 19 he worked as a studio photographer in Chile for three years. In 1892 he first went to South Africa and in 1899 he was appointed war correspondant for South Africa during the Boer War. In 1902 he returned to England to pursue his career as a freelance photographer. Nicholls became an offical photographer of the Home Front during the first world war. His brief was to produce suitable material on industrial and military activity.