Researching John Osborne

In a productive life of more than 40 years, Osborne explored many themes and genres, writing for stage, film and TV. His personal life was extravagant and iconoclastic. He was notorious for the ornate violence of his language, not only on behalf of the political causes he supported but also against his own family, including his wives and children.

Osborne was one of the first writers to address Britain's purpose in the post-imperial age. During his peak (1956–1966), he helped make contempt an acceptable onstage emotion.

He first came to that position in November 1978, as a member of the People's Liberation Movement, and continued until losing legislative council elections on 10 October 1991. By 2001 he had switched parties, joining the New People's Liberation Movement. Under his leadership, the NPLM won 7 of 9 seats in legislative council elections on 2 April 2001, and he served as chief minister from 5 April 2001 until 3 June 2006 when he resigned after elections in which his party was defeated. A major issue for his government has been the continuing recovery of the island of Montserrat after a volcanic eruption which devastated the southern part of the island, burying the capital city of Plymouth in ash and forcing its population to flee, in many cases off the island due to lack of housing. The eruption, which began in July 1995, continues today on a vastly reduced scale, the damage being confined to Plymouth and the surrounding areas. , a new airport and docking facilities have opened and Montserratians and tourists alike are beginning to return.

In July 2008, Gerald's Airport in Montserrat was renamed John A. Osborne Airport in his honour. His daughter Shirley Osborne is the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Montserrat.

He made his Rovers debut at Milltown under his old teammate Johnny Giles on 10 September 1978. He played 3 games in the 1978–79 European Cup Winners' Cup keeping 2 clean sheets giving him a total of 4 appearances for the Hoops.

In 2004, he was named as one of West Bromwich Albion's 16 greatest players, in a poll organised as part of the club's 125th anniversary celebrations.

Osborne was the commercial manager of Worcestershire County Cricket Club from 1986 to 1995, and played a significant part in the county's signing of long-time major sponsor MEB.

He created the sell out Edinburgh show John Peel's Shed and has written and performed six half hours storytelling shows for Radio 4.

He is the author of three non-fiction books. His first, Radio Head: Up and Down the Dial of British Radio, was published by Simon & Schuster in May 2009 and was selected as Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. It was reviewed in The Daily Telegraph, and Scotland on Sunday. His second book, The Newsagent's Window: Adventures in a World of Second-Hand Cars and Lost Cats, was published in April 2010 and was awarded best memoir at the East Anglian Book of the Year awards.

His third book, Don't Need the Sunshine, was published by AA Publishing in May 2013 and was adapted for broadcast on BBC Radio 4. He is currently working on his fourth non-fiction book, Radio Legs, a book about the history of local radio.

He was born in Deniliquin to mining engineer Alfred John Osborne and schoolteacher Jane McCoy. He left school at fourteen to work at a mine smelters at Captains Flat, before moving to Sydney in 1902 to work as a shop assistant. He was a founding member of the Shop Assistants' Union, serving as secretary from 1902 to 1907 and later as president. In 1906, he married Julia Rosenfeld, with whom he had three children. In 1910 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as the member for Paddington, serving until the government of William Holman appointed him to the Meat Board in 1919. The board was responsible for the control and maintenance of abattoirs, cattle sale yards, meat markets, and slaughterhouses in the greater Sydney region. H. V. Evatt described the appointment as intended to deprive Labor of one of its better political organisers ahead of the 1920 election.

Osborne died at Roseville on .

He was born at Wollongong to builder Robert Osborne and Rebecca Musgrave. He became a solicitor's clerk before joining the Wesleyan ministry. On 9 April 1867 he married Elizabeth Wastell, and they soon both departed to Samoa as missionaries. He was sent to Fiji in 1869 and Rotuma in 1870, before his wife's health forced him to return to New South Wales. He was a minister at Adelong, Yass, Newtown and Newcastle before his appointment to York Street, the colony's leading Methodist church, in 1883.

Osborne's liberal approach to religion and lack of sectarianism achieved the desired effect of increasing church attendance, but it also alienated conservatives. He was charged with heresy after praising Roger Vaughan, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney; acquitted of the charge, he was nevertheless urged to restrain his preachings. Osborne did not follow this directive, and instead attended the Requiem Mass for Vaughan and supported George Higinbotham and the Australian Church radical Charles Strong. He pre-empted his removal by resigning from the ministry and the church in January 1884.

Osborne then became a journalist, working for the Daily Telegraph and also running the non-sectarian Christian Platform, which ran until 1885. By 1886 he was a declared secularist, and had also abandoned his original support for free trade in favour of protectionism. He contested a by-election for the Legislative Assembly seat of Argyle in 1885 as a supporter of Alexander Stuart, and was only narrowly defeated by Sir Henry Parkes. He ran for office twice more, for Northumberland in 1887 and for Goulburn in 1889, without success. He joined the staff of the Sydney Morning Herald in 1886 but by 1889 was working for the protectionist Australian Star, becoming its editor the following year. In 1899 he became secretary of the Public Service Association of New South Wales. Osborne died after a heart attack at Double Bay in 1908.