He was the son of Archdeacon R. H. Froude and the elder brother of historian James Anthony Froude, and a friend of John Keble and John Henry Newman, with whom he collaborated on the Lyra Apostolica, a collection of religious poems. He became a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, in 1826 where he met Newman, with whom he travelled in the Mediterranean in the winter of 1832—33. He was associated with the Tractarians in the early stages of their movement. Much of the rest of his life was spent outside England to alleviate the consumption from which he later died.

After his death, Newman and other friends edited the Remains, a collection of Froude's letters and journals.