Francis Godolphin Osborne (1777 - 1850)

Ancestors

Descendants

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Roger Churm [send private message]

Biography

Francis Osborne was a member of the aristocracy in British Isles.

Sources

• http://www.thepeerage.com/p1176.htm#i11757
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Osborne,_1st_Baron_Godolphin

Lord Francis Godolphin Osborne Born 18 Oct 1777,2nd son of Francis Godolphin Osborne 5th Duke of Leeds (d.1799) and 1st w Lady Amelia Darcey the daughter and heir of Robert 4th Earl of Holderness School Greenford 1783, Christchurch, Oxf 1795 Northern European tour 1797/8 M 31 Mar 1800, Hon Elizabeth Charlotte Eden the da of William Eden,1st Bar, Auckland,5s

Offices Held . Commdtd, Stapleford vols ,1803, Capt Militia 1831

High Steward Cambridge 1836

Osborne's inherited stake in Cambridgeshire consisted of a substantial house built within the ramparts of the iron age Fort at Wandlebury four miles south of Cambridge, together with some surrounding land. A Foxite Whig ,who had come in for the County by a couple at the expence of the Hardwicke interest in 1810, he offered for the fourth time in 1820. Rumours of a disturbance came to nothing and Osborne, who on the hustlings expressed his contempt for attempts to label him "a Jacobin" or "a Radical" was returned at a reported cost of £2000,with the ministerial sitting Member Lord Charles Manner brother of the 5th Duke of Rutland, when accused later in the day of professing atheism Osborne retorted that the path he has followed led neither to a place nore employment, but to sarcasm in Parliament and obliquy out of it. For a county Member and adherent of opposition, Osborne was not particularly active on the House in this period largely because of his health, despite his comparative youth. was unreliable Yet he was reasonably assiduous when fit, and in any case, so strong was his electoral position as the representative of the independent freeholders and Whigs of Cambridgeshire that he received little local criticism.

Osborne voted against government on the civil list 5.8.May , the appointment of an additional Baron of exchequer in Scotland. 15 May the aliens bill, 1 June and economies in revenue coll collection, 4 July 1820 , He voted against Wilberforce compromise resolution on the Queen Caroline affair, 22 June . On 21 August, he condemned the bill that pains and penalties and in protest against the 'mock trial' which would 'convert' that House into a judicial tribunal moved an address for the protogation of Parliament he withdrew it when Tierney the whig leader raised practically objections . Some of our parliamentary friends ' he told Tierney, suggested that he should 'repeat' his motion for an address when the House reconvene on 18 September.

"Much as I dislike personally intruding myself on the attention of the Commons , yet I feel so strongly on this subject that I should certainly concur in the propriety of so doing provided no person more eligible or no other mode of proceeding more expedient should be pointed at"

In the event he merely questioned Lord Castlereagh on ministers intentions regarding the Royal divorce and voted in the minority of 12 for Hobhouse's call for a prorogation . He was the prime mover behind a requisition for a Cambridgeshire County meeting to appeal to the king to dismiss ministers for failing to relieve distress and sanctioning proceedings against the Queen. He secured the prestigious Whig signatures of the Duke of Bedford Lord Tavistock, Lord Dacre and Lord Fitzwilliam to whom he explained 27 Dec 1820

"My object was and is to address the King to remove his ministers. .but in order to obtain respectable signatures both of residents and non-residents and likewise to obtain their attendance....I thought it better to throw out more than one inducement...The dismissal of the ministers is the old constitutional remedy for general distress, which we will admit to prevail , but such is the difference of opinion on some of the leading political subjects that now occupy the public mind, that I thought myself justified in endeavouring to awake the feeling of each interest in order to bring them to councide in one general resolution"

As it happened illness prevented Osborne from attending the meeting, 16 Jan 1821, when Dacre stood in for him, but he was voted thanks for his parliamentary conduct. He took almost no part in the opposition campaign on the queen's behalf early in 1821 he presented and vouched for the respectability of the Cambridge petition for the restoration of her name to the liturgy , 6 Feb , but only paired for the censure on Catholic relief, 28 Feb. He voted for repeal of additional malt duty, 3 Apr., and presented the Cambridgeshire petition for parliamentary reform, 17 Apr, though he had not attended the meeting which adopted it. No other trace of parliamentary activity has been found for 1821: leaves of absence for a month because of ill health, 5 March ., 30 Apr., would appear to explain why.

Osborne was in the opposition minorities on the treatment of Alderman Waithman and for reduction of the salt duties , 28 Feb 1822. He pleaded attendance for the latter as his excuse for not appearing at the county meeting on agriculture distress that day. He presented a petition from the agriculturalists of the Isle of Ely calling for rechenchment and reform, 2 Apr.