who succeeded his mother as Baron Conyers and his father as sixth Duke of Leeds, became master of the horse to George IV, and died on 10 July 1838; and Francis Godolphin, born on 18 Oct. 1777, who was created Baron Godolphin of Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire, on 14 May 1832, and died on 15 Feb. 1850—and one daughter, Mary Henrietta Juliana, born on 6 Sept. 1776, who married on 16 July 1801 Thomas, lord Pelham, afterwards second Earl of Chichester, and died on 21 Oct. 1862. He married secondly, on 11 Oct. 1788, Catherine, daughter of Thomas Anguish, accountant-general of the court of chancery, by whom he had one son, Sidney Godolphin, born on 16 Dec. 1789, who died on 15 April 1861; and one daughter, Catherine Anne Sarah, born on 13 March 1798, who married, on 1 June 1819, John Whyte-Melville of Strathkinness, Fifeshire, captain of the 9th lancers, and died on 23 Dec. 1878. His widow, who was an accomplished musician, became mistress of the robes to Queen Adelaide, and died in Grosvenor Street, London, on 8 Oct. 1837.
A portrait of Leeds by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in a group with Lord Mulgrave and others, was lent by the Dilettanti Society to the Loan Collection of National Portraits at South Kensington in 1868 (see Catalogue, p. 182). There is a whole-length engraving of Leeds by Meadows, after Sir Thomas Lawrence.
[Political Memoranda of Francis, fifth Duke of Leeds (Camden Soc. Publ.), 1884; Selections from the Letters and Correspondence of Sir James Bland Burges, 1885; Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, first Earl of Malmesbury, 1844, vol. ii.; Journal and Correspondence of Lord Auckland, 1861, vols. i. and ii.; Diary and Correspondence of Lord Colchester, 1861, vol. i.; Lord Stanhope's Life of William Pitt, 1861, vols. i. and ii.; Wraxall's Hist. and Posthumous Memoirs, 1884, ii. 178–80, 412, iii. 201–2, v. 165–6; Westminster Review, new ser. lxviii. 443–86; Gent. Mag. 1799, pt. i. pp. 168–169; Hunter's South Yorkshire, 1828, i. 143, 144, 149; Collins's Peerage, 1812, i. 260–1; Doyle's Official Baronage, 1886, ii. 330–1; Foster's Peerage, 1883, p. 418; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1866, iii. 1046; Alumni Westmonast. 1852, pp. 547, 556; Haydn's Book of Dignities, 1890; Official Return of Lists of Members of Parliament, pt. ii. pp. 143, 149; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. iii. 267, 318.]
OSBORNE, GEORGE ALEXANDER (1806–1893), pianist and musical composer, born on 24 Sept. 1806 at Limerick, was the third son of the organist and a vicar-choral of Limerick Cathedral. From his father Osborne learnt organ-playing in early life, and to such good purpose that when barely fourteen he was able to take his father's place occasionally on the organ-bench. With no definite idea of adopting the profession of music, Osborne when about eighteen went to Brussels on a business visit to an invalid aunt. A spirited account of his journey will be found in the ‘Proceedings of the Musical Association,’ 1882–3, in a paper entitled ‘Musical Reminiscences and Coincidences.’ Osborne ultimately stayed at Brussels several years. At first he was intended for holy orders, and, with this in view, he attended the classes at Prince's classical academy. While in statu pupillari his skill as a musician attracted the attention of several prominent persons, among whom was the Prince de Chimay, an able and enthusiastic musical amateur, husband of Madame Tallien, of French Revolution fame. Osborne soon became a frequenter of the prince's château, where he met many famous people, including Georges Sand, Fétis, Cherubini, and Auber, and benefited largely by studying the music in the prince's library. There, too, he often conducted performances of his own and other compositions by the prince's private band, besides masses by Cherubini and the great masters in the chapel.
Meanwhile Osborne's theological studies were pursued with lessening interest, and when twenty years old he finally decided to adopt music as his profession. In this step he was warmly supported by the Prince de Chimay, who procured for him the appointment of instructor to the eldest son of the Prince of Orange, afterwards king of Holland. In Brussels Osborne, as chapel-master to the Prince of Orange, gave many successful concerts, at one of which he met De Bériot. With him he wrote no less than thirty-three duets for violin and pianoforte, many of which enjoyed a great vogue for a time. From the Château de Chimay, where he used to spend the autumn, Osborne frequently rode and hunted with Malibran before she became De Bériot's wife.
During the Belgian revolution of 1830 Osborne figured as a volunteer on the royalist side, and it is related that an attempt to shoot him was frustrated only by a defect in his assailant's gun. He was, however, made a prisoner, but released at the intercession of the prince. In 1831 Osborne went to Paris, where he lived for years on terms of intimacy with Cherubini, Auber, Heller, Liszt, and Ernst. With Berlioz and Chopin he was particularly well acquainted, and he has embodied his reminiscences of them, as well as some autobiographical matter, in two interesting papers read before the Musical Association on
