In 1889 he became a student \at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, where the Flemish portrait painter Pieter Van Havermaet was one of his teachers.

[2] Much of his work, practised in a vigorous and realistic style, expressed his interest in recording Yorkshire life.

He lived for a short time in London, and then returned to Beverley in 1903, where in 1914 he married Mary Dawson Bishop (1874–1952), a painter of landscapes and interiors[6] and widow of Elwell's friend, oil broker George Alfred Holmes (died 5 August 1913).

Mary's secure financial position allowed Fred to travel abroad and paint continental landscapes.

• The Last Purchase • The Beverley Arms Kitchen (1919) • The Old Library, Castle Ashby (1927) • The Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne in their Drawing-room at Glamis (1932) • Portrait of King George V (1932) • Man with a Pint (1933) • The Lying-in-State, Westminster Hall (1936) • The First Born (1913)