Leonard Rodway was educated in Birmingham and aboard the Thames Nautical Training College ship, Worcester, obtaining double first-class certificates.
He acted as an advisory officer to the forestry department and was for some years lecturer in botany at the University of Tasmania.
[1] In 1930, Rodway assisted Harold Comber in his plant hunting expedition, during which 147 Tasmanian species were collected and despatched to the UK.
Rodway has been honoured in the specific names of the fungi Calostoma rodwayi and Entoloma rodwayi, as well the following plants:[5] A mountain range in Mount Field National Park, Tasmania, the Rodway Range, is also named in his honour.
Louisa died in 1922, and the following year he married Olive Barnard, an amateur naturalist whose photographs had illustrated Some Wild Flowers of Tasmania.