Born at Monmouth on 20 September 1807, he was the only son of Charles Dolman, a surgeon there, by his wife Mary Frances, daughter of Thomas Booker, a Catholic publisher in London.
On leaving Downside he studied architecture for a while at Preston in Lancashire, under the guidance of Joseph Aloysius Hansom.
Among these were Daniel Rock's Church of our Fathers, Kenelm Henry Digby's Broad Stone of Honour, and William Gideon Michael Jones Barker's Three Days of Wensleydale.
In 1850 Dolman completed the publication of the fifth edition, in 10 volumes, of John Lingard's History of England, containing final corrections.
[1] On 12 January 1841 Dolman married Frances, daughter of James and Apollonia Coverdale of Ingatestone Hall in Essex, by whom he had an only son, the Very Rev.