His drawings of horses were the delight of his family; and when his favourite hunter died he wrote a graceful elegy on the afflicting event.

The influence of his genial kindness was never forgotten by his youngest brother; but there was a stronger and more dominating personality of which the effect was less beneficial to a sensitive and nervous child.
Richard Hurrell Froude is regarded by High Churchmen as an originator of the Oxford Movement, and he impressed all his contemporaries by the brilliancy of his gifts.

Dean Church went so far as to compare him with Pascal.

But his ideas of bringing up children were naturally crude, and his treatment of Anthony was more harsh than wise.

His early character as seen at home is described by his mother in a letter written a year before her death, when he was seventeen.