[Osborne, Sydney Godolphin – “S.G.O.”] – White, Arnold [Henry] (Editor).

The Letters of S. G. O. [Sydney Godolphin Osborne] – A Series of Letters on Public AFfairs written by the Rev. Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne and Published in “The Times” 1844 – 1888. With a Portrait.

First Edition. Two Volumes (complete set). London, Griffith, Farran, OKeden & Welsh, no year [1888]. Octavo. Volume I: Portrait-Frontispice, XXV, 436 pages / Volume II: 389 pages. Original publisher’s cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Bindings firm but in poor condition with heavy staining. BUT: Interior absolutely clean and nearly unread (pages of both Volumes are still uncut). This set is extremely rare !

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

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

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.

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).

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. His grandson Francis D’Arcy Godolphin Osborne was the 12th—and last—Duke of Leeds. (Wikipedia)

• Inventory Number: 31758AB

EUR 2.500,--