He was commissioned to carve four allegorical figures for Parliament House, Melbourne, each 12 ft high and for £2,100.

[4] He founded F. W. Commons Monuments in 1875, on the corner of Webster Street and Creswick Road in Ballarat, on the site of an old butter factory.

Awarded first and second Premiums in open competition for sculpture for the decoration of Parliament House, Melbourne".

[8] Many memorials in public buildings, such as the Ballarat Town Hall, and hundreds of headstones in district cemeteries bear the inscription F. W.

[4] He commissioned the Queen Victoria Memorial Fountain in the Sturt Street Gardens,[9] the Snake Valley District War Memorial,[10] and a devotional sculpture at the Convent of Mercy, Ballarat East (Sacred Heart College).