He was born at Little Horsted in Sussex, and educated at Uckfield school and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1817, but missed a fellowship. Taking holy orders, he was appointed to Buxted, Sussex, in 1819, and to the vicarage of Horsham in 1821.
He had already attained some repute as a critic, which was enhanced when, after travelling in Germany, he delivered as select preacher at Cambridge, four addresses against rationalism, published in 1825 as The State of the Protestant Religion in Germany. The book was severely criticized in Germany, and in England by Edward Pusey.
In 1827 Rose was collated to the prebend of Middleton; in 1830 he accepted the rectory of Hadleigh, Suffolk, and in 1833 that of Fairsted, Essex, and in 1835 the perpetual curacy of St Thomas's, Southwark. Rose was a high churchman, who to propagate his views in 1832 founded the British Magazine and so came into touch with the leaders of the Oxford Movement. Out of a conference at his rectory in Hadleigh came the Association of Friends of the Church, formed by Hurrell Froude and William Palmer.
