Rowcroft was educated at Eton, after which he went to Hobart Town, Australia, in 1821 and took up a grant of 2,000 acres (8 km2), near Bothwell, where he and his brother Horace (Horatio Nelson Rowcroft) were among the first European settlers.
In 1822 he was made a justice of the peace, he was also a member of the committee of the Agricultural Society of Van Diemen's Land and an original shareholder of the Van Diemen's Land Bank.
In 1824 he was sued, successfully, for "criminal conversation", by Edward Lord, with damages of £100 awarded against Rowcroft.
In 1827 Rowcroft bought a boarding school in Streatham, London.
In 1843 he published Tales of the Colonies, the first Australian novel of the immigrant genre, followed by The Bushranger of Van Diemen's Land (1846).