When he was about 14 years old he obtained a clerkship at the Home Office, and in his leisure he studied French, German, and Spanish, and practised watercolour painting and architectural drawing.
He subsequently received a permanent appointment at the Home Office, and worked on the registration of criminal offences.
Redgrave died at 17 Hyde Park Gate South, London in 1876, and was buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity, Brompton.
His first contribution to the literature of art was A Century of Painters of the British School, written with his brother Richard, and first published in 1866.
This was followed in 1874 by his Dictionary of Artists of the English School, and in 1877 by a Descriptive Catalogue of the Historical Collection of Water-colour Paintings in the South Kensington Museum, on which he was engaged at the time of his death.