Due to the influence of his grandfather Thomas Knowles (Royal Hibernian Marine) Farquhar enrolled in the artillery at the military academy in West Point around 1877.

[2] Knowles was elected an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1889 based on his reputation as a watercolor artist.

A biographer wrote of Knowles at this time, "He was also keenly interested in literature, music, and in his moments of leisure indulged in a passion for carpentry, yachting, motoring, shooting and travel.

Some years ago his beautiful studio in Toronto was filled with pictures, rugs, and quaint curios picked up in many parts of the world, and there he and his accomplished wife, herself also a musician and artist .

[3] In 1911 Knowles installed eleven mural panels in the music room of the wealthy Eaton family of Toronto.

One of these is Windswept, a very successful rendering of air, sky and water as the tide begins to ebb on a bright boisterous day.

It is close of day, and the last rays of the sun strike the summit of the hills in the background while a ghostly schooner runs for home in the shaded lee of the cliffs."

Land and sea pictures from his brush are to be found in nearly all Toronto's seats of higher education and of his best known portraits might be mentioned those of Sir Robert Falconer, Hon.

His series The History of Music is in the deaconess home in this city, and the Finding of Leander by Hero has been for years in the Ontario Art Museum.

She wrote they, "are both awfully orthodox in their work and made a great to-do about the modern movement in art ... My prints are a darned sight more up and coming than his silly little paintings of boats and pink apple trees.

"[7] A Memorial Exhibition of paintings, prints, drawings and lithographs of F. McGillivray Knowles was held at The Art Gallery of Toronto in October 1932.