Josias English was an amateur etcher. He was originally thought to have died in 1718, but upon the discovery of his will it transpired his death actually occurred in 1705. English was a gentleman of independent means who resided at Mortlake which was then in Surrey and is now a district of London. He was an intimate friend and a pupil of Francis Cleyn, the manager of the Mortlake Tapestry Works, and etched numerous plates in the style of Wenceslaus Hollar, after Cleyn's designs; these include a set of eleven plates, etched in 1653, entitled "Variæ Deorum Ethnicorum Effigies, or Divers Portraicturs of Heathen Gods", a set of four representing "The Seasons", a similar set of "The Four Cardinal Virtues", and a set of fourteen plates of grotesques and arabesques.