Frederick Rhodes moved with his family to New Zealand in 1880 where he was educated at Auckland Primary School. After a career as a seaman, he enlisted in 1917 and served on a British destroyer. At the end of World War I, during which he had attained the rank of Captain, he returned to his maritime career, and became involved in politics. By 1923 he was provisional General Manager of the Cotton Growers' Union, as well as manager and editor of the journal Cotton Farmer. He was a prolific writer, contributing many articles to the Australian press. He wrote a regular column for the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin as Junius, eventually becoming associate editor of that journal and the Central Queensland Herald. As Historicus he contributed an intermittent series of historical articles to the Central Queensland Herald between 1948 and 1951.
As well as book reviews and short stories, Rhodes wrote Central Queensland, the Land That Clothes Millions (1923), Australia's Maritime History : As Shown by a Stately Pageant of Long-gone Ships (1933), Pageant of the Pacific : Being the Maritime History of Australasia (1937), Fifty Years of Federal Labour : A Chronological Review (1945), Port of Rockhampton (1949) and A Trip Down the Fitzroy River (1949).
