He was educated at Uckfield School by his father, and admitted a pensioner at Peterhouse, Cambridge, on 25 June 1817, but migrated to St John's College on 3 October 1818.
For a short time (March 1832 to September 1833) he was minister of St Edward's, Cambridge, and in 1833 was Hulsean lecturer.
In 1837 he was appointed by his college to the rectory of Houghton Conquest, near Ampthill in Bedfordshire, and in 1866 obtained the archdeaconry of Bedford, preferments that he held until his death.
There Rose's brother-in-law, John William Burgon, passed his long vacations for about thirty years, and many English and continental scholars made the acquaintanceship of the rector.
His library included many of Bishop George Berkeley's manuscripts, which he allowed Alexander Campbell Fraser to edit.
For his brother he also edited the first volume of Rose's New General Biographical Dictionary, the preface being dated from Houghton Conquest in February 1840.