Plowright's training as a doctor began when he was apprenticed to Dr. John Lowe, Surgeon to the West Norfolk and Lynn Hospital.

He was also a Medical Officer for Health for many years in Freebridge Lynn, and was the Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology at the Royal College of Surgeons from 1890 to 1894.

Starting in 1873, Plowright published a series of fasciculi (pamphlets intended to be collected into a book) titled Sphaeriacei Britannici describing members of the fungal genus Sphaeria (species which can be placed in Pseudovalsa, Macrospora, Homostegia families, and others).

[2] With his collaborator William Phillips, Plowright published a series of papers titled New and Rare British Fungi (1871–1884) which described almost 300 new species.

Plowright also contributed to The Gardeners' Chronicle for over thirty years, writing principally on fungal diseases of plants; he was an early advocate in England of the use of Bordeaux mixture.