Frederick William Stevens was born in Bath, England on November 11, 1847. He was articled in 1862, and became an engineer attached to the India Public Works Department in 1867. After a year in Pune, he was transferred to Bombay and the office of the Architect to the Government of India.
In 1877 his services were loaned to the Great Indian Peninsula Railway for the design of the Victoria Terminus, renamed in 1996 as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, and probably the second most highly photographed building in India after the Taj Mahal. The high-priest of the Indian Gothic style, he also designed several other buildings in Mumbai, including the Municipal Corporation Building, the Royal Alfred Sailor's Home, the Post-Office Mews at Apollo Bunder, the head offices of the Bombay, Baroda, and Central India Railway (BB&CI) at Churchgate, and the Oriental Life Assurance Offices at the Flora Fountain in Mumbai.
He died in Mumbai on March 3, 1900, of malarial fever, and was buried in the Sewri cemetery.