His father, Johannes Bosscha Sr. (1797–1874), was a professor of history and literature and also was minister of church-state relationships in two governments (1853–1861).

He initiated the mechanical theory of electrolysis, and he was one of the first (1855) to suggest the possibility of sending two messages simultaneously over the same wire.

In 1858 he published "Conservation of Energy in Galvanic Currents", in which he applied the recently formulated first law of thermodynamics to electrical phenomena.

[2] In that year Thorbecke appointed him as inspector of secondary education for the southern part of the country, in which capacity he had much influence on Thorbecke's newly introduced schooling system, insisting, for example, on specialized classrooms for physics and chemistry.

In 1875, he published a three-volume Leerboek der natuurkunde (Textbook of Physics) in which no higher math was used and which saw many editions.