Charles Edward Osborne (1856-1935) must rank as the closest of the many Anglican sympathisers of George Tyrrell, the English Roman Catholic modernist par excellence. Older than Tyrrell, Osborne shared the latter's high regard for Robert Dolling whose biographer he became. Rector of Wallsend from the time of this correspondence, later Canon of Newcastle and lecturer at Durham in the last years of his life, Osborne shared the concerns of his Catholic counterparts concerning developments in biblical studies and their implications for the Church. On international questions he shared many of the views of Tyrrell's other close companion, Friedrich von Hgel, and later delivered the 1929 Holland lectures on the contribution of Christianity within the realm of political ideas. His death in 1935 before the outbreak of a second world conflagration perhaps spared this sensitive spiritual guide a bitter disappointment.
From the guide to the Papers of Canon Charles Edward Osborne, 1906-1910, (University of St Andrews)
