Sarah (Byng) Osborn (1693 - 1775)

Ancestors

Descendants

Biography

Sarah (Byng) Osborn is Notable.

Born in October 1693, Sarah Byng was the eldest and only surviving daughter of George Byng, Viscount Torrington and his wife, Margaret Master, however six of her brothers survived.

In August 1710, still just 16 years old she married John Osborn son of John Osborne, 2nd Baronet Osborne of Chicksands. They had two sons, Danvers born in 1715 and John in 1718, before her husband's untimely death in January 1719. The baby, John, followed him to the grave in the summer. Not yet 21 Sarah was left with the management of the family estates finding it difficult, being a woman, to deal with bureaucracy to such an extent that she needed the help of her brother, Robert.

Danvers Osborn married Lady Mary Montagu, daughter of George, Earl of Halifax in 1740. She died in 1743 leaving two sons and a widower so distressed that he withdrew himself from family affairs leaving Sarah to continue running the estate and rearing his children. Danvers died in New York in 1753.

In 1757 her brother Admiral John Byng was sentenced to be shot for dereliction of duty. Sarah used all her influence to secure a pardon but to no avail. John was executed on 14 March 1757.

Sarah died in November 1775 and was buried at Campton in Bedfodshire on the 22nd. She is remembered because of her letters which were published in 1890.

Sources

• Barbara Brandon Schnorrenberg, ‘Osborn , Sarah (1693–1775)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 3 Dec 2016. This is a subscription site but access is free to readers of British libraries whose library subscribes.
• Wikipedia biography of her father, George Byng [1]
• Political and social letters of a lady of the eighteenth century, 1721-1771;

by Osborn, Sarah Byng, 1693-1775, Emily Osborn ed., 1891 Publisher New York, Dodd, Mead & Company, https://archive.org/details/politicalsociall00osbo/page/170