He was examined before the select committee appointed to inquire into the Museum in 1835–6, and made revelations on the subject of patronage.
After his resignation he lived in retirement, spending much of his time, until his death, at the Foundling Hospital, of which he had been appointed chaplain in 1829.
Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford married Francis Smith, the only daughter of Richard Smith of Harborne Heath near Birmingham, at Edgbaston, Warwickshire.
[2] Their children were: Josiah Forshall died at his house in Woburn Place, London, on 18 December 1863, after undergoing a surgical operation.
[5] Forshall edited the catalogue of the manuscripts in the British Museum (new series): pt.
fol., and also the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Orientalium: Pars Prima Codices Syriacos et Carshunicos amplectens, 1838, &c. fol.
He published with Frederic Madden The Holy Bible … in the earliest English Versions made by John Wycliffe and his followers, 1850, 4 vols., a work of two decades.
He also published editions of the Gospels of St. Mark (1862), St. Luke (1860), and St. John (1859), arranged in parts and sections, and some sermons.
His works The Lord's Prayer with various readings and critical notes (1864), and The First Twelve Chapters of … St. Matthew in the received Greek text, with readings and notes, 1864, were published posthumously.