John McLandsborough was born on May 3, 1820, in Otley, West Yorkshire, England.

He was a civil engineer, amateur geologist, and author. He was educated at Otley's Grammar School and apprenticed to a currier and leather merchant. Unsatisfied, he got employment on the Ordnance Survey and soon became an expert surveyor. Desiring to be a civil engineer, he left for Edinburgh, Scotland, where he trained with John Millar, a civil engineer. He returned to Bradford in 1850 and started his general practice laying out and constructing railways. He was greatly interested in sanitary engineering and carried out various waterworks undertakings and drainage works. He started a Mutual Improvement Society which merged with a Mechanics' Institute. In 1868, he established a meteorological station in Bradford. He was interested in astronomy and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1873. He left a fine collection of British minerals and fossils to the Cartwright Memorial Hall and about 250 volumes of scientific books to the Central Free Library in Bradford. He published the books "Meteorology of Bradford ... Computed from Daily Observations Made at the Exchange, Bradford" (1888) and "Our Galloway Ancestors: Their Descendants and Connections" (1898).

In 1864, he married Mary Jane Robinson (1833–1908). He died on February 24, 1900, in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England.