Sydney Godolphin Osborne

Lord Sydney Godolphin Osborne (5 February 1808 – 9 May 1889) was an English cleric, philanthropist and writer.

Sydney Godolphin Osborne

Life

The third son of Francis Osborne, 1st Baron Godolphin, by Elizabeth Charlotte Eden, daughter of William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland, he was born at Stapleford, Cambridgeshire on 5 February 1808. He was a direct descendant of Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin, and when in 1859 his elder brother George Godolphin Osborne, succeeded his cousin Francis Godolphin D'Arcy Osborne, as eighth Duke of Leeds, he obtained the rank of a duke's son, and with it the use of "Lord", a courtesy title.^[1]

Osborne was educated at Rugby School and at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1830. Having taken orders, he was appointed rector of Stoke-Poges in Buckinghamshire in 1832. In 1841 he accepted the living of Durweston in Dorset, which was in the gift of Lord Portman, and he occupied it until 1875.^[1]

Osborne then resigned his benefice and retired to Lewes, where he died on 9 May 1889.^[1]

Interests

Osborne commented on free trade, education, women's rights, sanitation, cattle plague, and cholera. During the Crimean War, he made an unofficial inspection and aided the improvement of the hospitals under Florence Nightingale's care, and published the results in Scutari and its Hospitals, 1855. With respect to Ireland he was a Unionist, and in church matters an anticlerical. Agricultural labourers were a particular interest.^[1][2]

Works

Osborne was mainly known for his letters to The Times newspaper signed "S. G. O." He constantly and quite ferociously provoked controversy. The series started in 1844. The final letters were on the subject of the Whitechapel murders, in 1888. A selection from them was published, with a brief introduction, by Arnold White (2 vols. London, 1888). His other writings included:^[1]

• Gleanings in the West of Ireland, 1850. The result of Osborne's second visit to Ireland during the Ireland's Great Famine (1845-1852). Osborne's first Famine tour took place in late 1849 and early 1850. He wrote a series of letters concerning this first visit that were published in the London Times and almost simultaneously republished in The Illustrated London News to accompany now-famous illustrations in that journal. Osborne returned to famine-stricken Western Ireland in June of 1850 for more observations and fact-finding and published his results in Gleanings.
• Lady Eva: her last Days. A Tale, 1851.
• Scutari and its Hospitals, 1855.
• Hints to the Charitable, 1856.
• Hints for the Amelioration of the Moral Condition of a Village, 1856.
• Letters on the Education of Young Children, 1866.

Family

Osborne married in 1834 Emily, daughter of Pascoe Grenfell of Taplow Court, Buckinghamshire; and was therefore brother-in-law to Charles Kingsley and James Anthony Froude. His wife died on 19 December 1875, leaving two sons and two daughters.^[1]

Notes

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1895). "Osborne, Sidney Godolphin". Dictionary of National Biography. 42. London: Smith, Elder & Co.