The prolific writer, editor and compiler Josiah Conder was born in Aldersgate, London, on 17 September 1789, the son of a map engraver and bookseller, Thomas Conder. At the age of ten his first essay was published in The Monthly Preceptor, and on reaching thirteen, he began work as an assistant in the family's City bookshop. In 1811, at the age of twenty-one, he took it over. Shortly afterwards, Josiah married Joan Elizabeth Thomas (Eliza Thomas). He had initially formed a literary association with her in 1810 to jointly contribute to the book The associate minstrels.

Josiah Conder was a close friend of the engraver and educationalist Isaac Taylor (1759-1829) and his wife, and Conder addressed poems to them both, having been a regular visitor to their home.

Another of Conder's earlier works was The withered oak (1806), otherwise The reverie (1811), The star in the east (1824), A dictionary of geography (1834), The epistle to the Hebrews, a new translation, with notes (1834), The congregational hymnbook (1834), The literary history of the New testament (1845) and The harmony of history with prophecy, an explanation of the Apocalypse (1849) are among the publications of which he was author, editor or compiler. Josiah Conder's political work included a tract on the superior value of free labour over slave labour, Wages or the Whip (1833).

Josiah Conder died on 27 December 1855, at St John's Wood, Hampstead, following an attack of jaundice, and was buried at Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington. His literary wife Joan, died aged 91 in 1877 and was buried with him.