The son of Richard John Farre, a medical practitioner, he was born on 31 January 1775 in Barbados.

After the expedition failed he came back to London, and afterwards entered practice in the island of Barbados.

He edited James's book on Arterial and Secondary Haemorrhage in 1805 and John Cunningham Saunders on Diseases of the Eye in 1811.

This work contains an account of nearly all the cases recorded in England up to its date, and of several observed by the author.

His specimens, with others, illustrative of other parts of morbid anatomy, were preserved in the museum of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, to which they were presented by his sons.