Richard Rogers was the son of Joseph Rogers, a mason. He was born in Adelaide and during a long life he acquired an impressive array of academic qualifications. His first medical degree was obtained in Edinburgh in 1887, two years after a faculty of medicine had been established in the University of Adelaide, and in 1888 he was registered to practise medicine in South Australia. However, he still retained ties with Edinburgh, as he married Jean Paterson, of that city, in his graduation year and was later granted his first doctorate by the same University. A son was born from the marriage.

Back in his home town (where he lived for the rest of his life, apart from service in the South African War) Rogers served as an honorary physician at the Adelaide Hospital (1897-1909); as a member of the Medical Board of South Australia (1911-40); and as superintendent (at first in a visiting and later in a deputy capacity) of the Enfield Receiving House (1922-38). He also was the visiting superintendent of the Northfield Mental Hospital (1929-36) and he remained an honorary consulting psychiatrist to mental institutions until his death. His approach to the mentally ill is likely to have been based on his gentle humanity and not on any particular psychiatric theory. During this time Rogers submitted two reports to the State Government, one of them being A Medical Survey of the Feeble-Minded in South Australia.

Among his other medical activities Rogers included the lectureship in forensic medicine in the University of Adelaide from 1919 to 1939 and it was in this role that surviving graduates remember him towards the close of his distinguished life. At this stage he was a revered figure, small in size, softly spoken, and grey-bearded. The lectures did not change from year to year so it was possible for an enterprising student to have copies of them printed and thus enable the class to keep one line ahead of the spoken words of the lecturer. It is not known whether `Daddy' Rogers (as he was affectionately known) ever realised why no one was assiduously recording his erudite remarks about cadaveric spasm, adipocere, the different types of stab `wondz' (as he pronounced them), and the like. Nevertheless, the lectures were still enjoyed although the information may not have been used very often by the majority of the listeners after graduation. It was difficult for his students then to picture him as the lieutenant-colonel in command of 7 Australian General Hospital at Keswick, an inner suburb of Adelaide, during the First World War (1914-19).

Although Rogers was a highly respected medical practitioner, he was even more famous in his lifetime (and is still often quoted) as a world authority on the orchids of the Australasian region. His interest in this unique botanical family was fostered by many field trips with his wife, who became an expert assistant, and resulted in his being elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1924. He also was closely associated with the Royal Society of South Australia for many years, and for forty-four years he was a member of the board of governors of the Public Library, Museum, and Art Gallery.

Rogers wrote many papers on orchids, and contributed the section on the family in the first two editions of JM Black's Flora of South Australia, a number of the species there described having been first discovered by Rogers himself; two species elsewhere in Australia were named in his honour by other workers. His foundation Fellowship of the RACP four years before his death was an appropriate recognition of a lovable man who had served his community all his days both as a versatile physician and as an eminent naturalist in the best traditions of his generation.