Jock Bowes-Lyon was educated at Oxford University where he played first-class cricket for the university side in three matches in 1906 and 1907, playing as a fast-medium bowler.
On 29 September 1914, John married The Honourable Fenella Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis (19 August 1889 – 19 July 1966), the younger daughter of Charles Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton. They had five children, all girls:
Patricia Bowes-Lyon (6 July 1916 – 18 June 1917), died in infancy
Anne Ferelith Fenella Bowes-Lyon (4 December 1917 – 26 September 1980)
Nerissa Jane Irene Bowes-Lyon (18 February 1919 – 22 January 1986)
Diana Cinderella Mildred Bowes-Lyon (14 December 1923 – 1986) m. Peter Gordon Colin Somervell. Their daughter Katherine (b. 1961) is a god-daughter of Queen Elizabeth II.[3]
Katherine Bowes-Lyon (4 July 1926 - 23 February 2014)

Before the outbreak of World War I, John worked as a stockbroker in the City of London for the firm Rowe and Pitman.In 1915, he was posted with the Black Watch and just prior to the Battle of Aubers Ridge that year, he accidentally shot himself in his left forefinger. It was amputated the following day and while receiving treatment in the UK, he admitting having experienced a nervous breakdown in 1912 and also suffered from neurasthenia. Late that year, he was posted to the Ministry of Munitions and then in the Territorial Army in 1916. After the war, he was twice threatened with courts-martial after having failed to show on parade for demobilisation and later returned to his job in the City.

Jock died at the family home of Glamis Castle just after midnight on the morning of 7 February 1930 of pneumonia, aged 44, leaving his widow to care for their four young children alone. (Two of them, Nerissa and Katherine, were severely mentally disabled. Three days later he was buried at St Paul's Walden Bury