John Cruikshank Rose was born in Muswell Hill, London, England on 10 March 1907. Nothing is known about his training as an architect. He was elected an Associate if the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA) in 1930. In the mid-1930s he was in partnership with Douglas Francis William Grant-Collie (1900-1983). A house in Highgate, London designed by Cruikshank and Grant-Collie is discussed in Small Houses £500-£2500, edited by H. Myles Wright (1937 p. 65).
Rose was a friend of the crime writer Agatha Christie and her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan. He accompanied Mallowan during his first independent archaeological expedition to Arpachiyah in present day Iraq in 1933. He also did the drawings of artefacts found during the dig. Christie dedicated her novel A Caribbean Mystery (1964) to Rose.
Rose's address was given as 103 Rosebery Road, Muswell Hill, London in 1939. Following World World War Two he moved to St. Lucia and died in Castries, St Lucia on 26 May 1971