Admin/biog history
Note: The following information has been gleaned from the records in the collection, and the reference numbers are given in brackets where appropriate. As much of the information comes from individual items in a file or bundle, however, it may be that the description of the documents in the list does not appear to relate to the subject under discussion in the notes. In such cases the reader is referred to the original document for confirmation of the facts.
Ronald Henry Hewett Osborne was born at Hove, Sussex, on 24 October 1901. His father, Henry Percy Osborne, was serving in the Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex) Regiment to which he was commissioned on 4 January 1899, and he attained the rank of Major on 8 October 1914. Henry Osborne won the Distinguished Service Order in 1915 and remained in the army after the first World War, but in 1933 he decided to enter the church. He studied at Wells Theological College, and in 1934 he was ordained Deacon at Truro, ordination to priest taking place in the following year. From being Assistant Chaplain in the Scilly Isles in 1934, he went on to become Vicar of Saint Sampson in Golant, Cornwall, from 1936 until 1950, when he retired to live at 2, Dolphin Houses, Trafalgar Square, Fowey, Cornwall.
With this background, it is hardly surprising that the young Ronald should look to the services for his career. He received his early education at Hove College preparatory school, and went on to
Brighton College where he had his first experience of military life in the Officers Training Corps. He attended an Officers Training Corps camp at Tidworth Park in July and August 1920 [147, 178], and in September of that year he entered the Royal Military College at Sandhurst as an Officer Cadet [24-32]. His last month at Sandhurst was marred by the death of his mother after a short illness on 1 June 1922 [1]. On leaving Sandhurst in July 1922, he joined the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment with which he was to serve for the rest of his active military career. The records deposited include the invoice of Flights Limited for his uniform, 1922 [2]. He was gazetted as Second Lieutenant on 31 August 1922, and promotion to the rank of Lieutenant followed exactly two years later. He became a Captain in 1933,and attained the rank of Major just before the outbreak of the Second World War on 31 August 1939. He was an acting Lieutenant Colonel during the War, and he was eventually promoted to that rank on 1 March 1946 [22, 23]. He retired from active service in 1952, and was employed at the War Office, Stanmore, for the rest of his career. As he did not take part in any major campaigns in the War he did not obtain any British decorations of note, but in 1945 he was awarded the Dutch decoration of Officer in the order of Oranje-Nassau, military division, for his work in training Dutch soldiers at Maryhill Barracks, Glasgow [23].
During his career, he served in many parts of the world, including India, Iraq, Palestine, Greece and Austria. On joining the regiment in 1922 he was sent to Kamptee, India, where he played an active part in the life of the Second Battalion. He was president of the Regimental Boxing Club and acted as judge at numerous boxing competitions and championships [114-5, 187-8]. He was also a performing member of the Regimental concert party, and the programmes and photographs of the “Wasps Regimental Pierrot troupe” and the “Blue Royals” reveal that his talents in this direction were well used [116-20, 183,189-191]. It seems that he also coached the football team which the Army fielded against the Royal Air -Force in Iraq on New Years Day, 1925[195]. In 1926 the Battalion returned home to England after 18 years of Foreign Service [153] and on the home journey the Battalion met up briefly with the First Battalion which was then stationed in Malta, the occasion being commemorated with a dinner [146].
On its return to England, the Battalion was stationed at Citadel Barracks, Dover, and it was in Dover that Lieutenant Osborne met the girl who was to become his wife. She was Constance Kerridge, and the progress of their early relationship is outlined in the diary of social and military events which Osborne conscientiously maintained from 1922 to 1930 [1]. They were married at Folkestone on 10 March 1934, and set up home in a rented house at “Dynevor”, Bromham Green, Bedford. [3]
The period after Osborne’s return from overseas in 1926 was one of training. He attended numerous courses and studied for promotion to the rank of Captain which he attained in 1933. These courses included one on gas warfare and another on chemical warfare at Porton, Witshire, in 1927 and 1932 respectively [37], and a course at the Army School of Signals, Catterick, in 1931 [38]. Promotion to Major required further study, and Osborne undertook correspondence courses organised by the Metropolitan Services College, St. Albans, on subjects including Imperial Military Geography, Tactics, map reading and field engineering and on the Campaign in Mesopotamia, 1915-1918 [39, 41, 60-61 etc.]. Initially he was unsuccessful in the promotion examinations of 1938 [23], but evidently he passed through successfully in the following year. He was stationed at Bordon Camp, near Aldershot, from 1929 – 1933, and then at the Regimental Depot, Kempston, near Bedford until 1935. He was stationed at Colchester from 1935 until he left for active service overseas in 1936 [4].
His first posting overseas was with the Second Battalion in Palestine. From there he went to India where he took part in internal security exercises, returning to Palestine in 1938 [21]. He later wrote an amusing account of Christmas Day on patrol in Palestine, 1938 [22]. He returned to England on leave just before the war, and during the war he served as second in command of the Fifth Battalion until 1941. From 1941 to 1944 he was responsible for raising the Eighth Battalion [145(47)] which was later converted from an infantry unit into the Fourteenth Battalion Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Medium Regiment Royal Artillery in 1943 [146]. Numerous exercises were carried out in Cornwall, Ireland, Suffolk and Northumberland as part of the training of soldiers for which Osborne was responsible, and his notes reveal something of the scale of the operation [53-55, 145]. In 1945 he took charge of Number 9 Primary Training Centre, Maryhill Barracks, Glasgow, where he remained until, in 1946, he became Commander of the First Battalion and was posted to India. In Glasgow, his efforts in training Dutch soldiers earned him the friendship of his pupils [5] and the decoration of Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau, military Division [23]. The papers relating to his Christmas address [126] and to his farewell parade on 14 April 1946 [161] show that the period spent there must have been one of the most rewarding of his career.
Lieutenant Colonel Osborne assumed command of the First Battalion of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment at Hill Station, Chakrata/Kailana, India, on 18 June 1946. This was in the last days of British rule in India, and during the Delhi riots the Battalion ran refugee camps [145(47)]. In 1947 the Battalion left India and moved to Azizia Barracks, Tripoli. There are photographs of the officers and men of the Battalion at Meerut, India, taken in August 1947 [198] and of a visit of the Commander in chief of the M.E.L.F. to the Battalion at Tripoli on 7 April 1948 [199]. From Tripoli, the Battalion moved to Salonika, Greece, and this period saw the amalgamation of the First and Second Battalions on 18 October 1948 [121, 205/6]. Osborne left Salonika to take up what was to be his last command in 1949, and a farewell parade was held in his honour on 20 April 1949[23]. At the request of Lieutenant Colonel A.C. Young, Osborne later wrote an account of the history of the Battalion under his command [145], and his desk diary for 1948 also reveals the nature of his work at the time when he was in command [128].
For his last three years of active service, Lieutenant Colonel Osborne was commander of a garrison of the British Troops in Austria, stationed at Klagenfurt. As an efficient administrator with a particular flair for accountancy, he carried out his command to the satisfaction of his superiors. His time at Klagenfurt in those post war years must have been a pleasant contrast to the less happy times spent in Great Britain during the war. That he and his wife, Connie, entered fully into the social and sporting life of the garrison is well demonstrated by the various mementoes of their time there which they kept [131-141, 166, 210-216], and a dance and farewell party was held in the Serjeant’s Mess in December 1951.
On retirement, Osborne hoped to obtain an administrative job overseas, but eventually he accepted the post of Staff Captain in MS4 at the War Office, Stanmore [23], and in 1960 he became Secretary of the War Office Special Selection Board. He maintained an active interest in his regiment, attended functions organised by the Regimental Association and Dinner Club and by the Comrades Association, and was also involved in the administration of the
Regimental Charities [142-144].
Nicknamed “Bonzo” – and even his father wrote to him by that name -, he seems to have been well liked by his fellow officers, and he was described as “excellent socially” in most of his confidential reports [19, 23]. As already stated, he was a performing member of the Regimental concert party, and he was a keen sportsman. In 1934-5 he acted as umpire at Wimbledon in the tennis championships [7-9]. The reference which he wrote for his bearer, Dora Swamy, in 1924 [1], and the letters written to him by men whom he had helped [5] reveal something of the respect in which he was held by his fellow officers and by those who served under him.