Sunday, 22 December 2013
360 Ralph Osborne
Constituency : Chipping Wycombe 1841-7, Middlesex 1847-57, Dover 1857-9, Liskeard 1859-65, Nottingham 1866-8, Waterford City 1870-74
Ralph came in at Liskeard to replace Ralph Grey when he became Commissioner of Customs.
Ralph was the son of the wealthy landowning MP Ralph Bernal. He was educated at Charterhouse and Cambridge. He adopted the surname Osborne on marrying Isabella Osborne the daughter of an Anglo-Irish baronet possibly to mask his family's Sephardic Jewish origins. He joined the army in 1831 and rose to the rank of captain before leaving in 1844. By that time he was already MP for the first of his six constituencies having unexpectedly triumphed against the influence of Lord Carington. Ralph was a frequent speaker for advanced liberal causes; Disraeli described his passion as "a wild shriek of liberty". He was known for his manners and wit and always had a good audience. He switched to Middlesex in 1847 and held it in 1852 despite fierce opposition from the Church party. Along with Roebuck and Hume he had been a Radical critic of Russell's ministry in the House. He became First Secretary of the Admiralty under Aberdeen and held the post until the fall of Palmerston's first ministry. He switched to Dover for the 1857 election and was defeated there in 1859 partly due to some injudicious remarks about dockyard wages.
Ralph was opposed to Palmerston's fortifications scheme and criticised the government over Schleswig-Holsten. This did not go down well in his constituency and the local association invited Arthur Buller to contest the forthcoming election. Ralph promptly resigned his seat in a fit of pique causing two unnecessary by-elections as Buller switched seats.
Ralph returned in 1866 as the victor in a hotly contested by-election in Nottingham but he was trounced there in 1868. In 1869 he contested Waterford City in a by-election. He was defeated but unseated the victor on petition and won the second by-election. In 1874 he was ejected by the Home Rule League bringing his political career to an end.
William Courtney writing in the Dictionary of National Biography said "His failure to reach those positions which his talents justified was due to his want of official industry and to the absence of that sobriety of judgement which is dear to the average Englishman".
He died in 1882 aged 73.
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