Rowland Ferrers Pickering was the son of Sydney journalist, newspaper proprietor, and one-time New South Wales M.L.A., George Ferrers Pickering, (q.v.). He appears to have briefly owned and edited Bell's Life in Sydney during its final months in 1870-1871, before moving to the Sydney Morning Herald, and its weekly stablemate, the Sydney Mail, where he worked as racing columnist until his retirement in 1896. He then lived on his farm near Gosford, where he died in 1913. Pickering's racing columns appeared under the name 'Nemo', however it is unclear whether he wrote any creative works under this name.