Kean Brown Osborn

Kean Brown Osborn (sometimes given as Osborne) MD, resident in Antigua in the early 1830s but in Britain by the 1840s (dying in Marylebone in 1852), awarded the compensation for the enslaved people on two estates on Antigua.

1. In 1845, Kean B. Osborn Esq. MD Westbourne, Paddington was a member of provisional committee of the Antigua Railway Co. In 1851 Kean B Osborn aged 81 MD retired was living at 14 Abbey Road. Death of Kean Brown Osborn Marylebone Q3 1852. Kean Brown Osborn MD of Antigua House Abbey Road was buried at All Souls Kensal Green 2/10/1852 age 83.

2. Will of Kean Brown Osborn late of the Island of Antigua in the West Indies but now of Antigua House Abbey Road St Johns Wood Middlesex Doctor of Medicine was proved 03/11/1852. In the will he identified his six [sic] freehold estates in Antigua commonly called Paynters, Orange Valley, Bodkins, Blackmans or Mt Lucy and Rooms. The missing estate appears later in the will and appears to be Carlisle: it was linked with Paynters in the will. He left the estates in trust with separate beneficiaries, mostly family, for each.

3. The Kean Brown Osborne bachelor who married Mary Ann Griffin at All Saints Poplar 14/9/1841 (his father is shown as John Osborn planter and hers as a labourer) was a different man. The marriage register of Sarah Osborn to Thomas Mayo at Stepney in 1860 shows her father as Kean Browne Osborn seaman, implying at least that he was still alive. This might have been an illegitimate child of John Osborn the planter: a Kean Brown Osborn is identified as the godson of Kean Brown Osborn of Abbey Road in the latter's will.

4. Antigua House was sold in 1852 with an adjoining lot of building land after Osborn's death for £3600.

5. '1792, 31 May Osborn, Kean Brown. ex Insula Antiguensi, May 31, 1792, aet. 22. Med. M.D. Leyden, June 20, 1792, "Theses Medicae Inaugurales." Theses at Leyden. On the title he is described as an Edinburgh student and member of several societies. Memb. R.M.S. Edin., 1791.'

T71/877 Antigua nos. 1 and 356.

1. Times 8/10/1845 p. 15 [supplement]; 1851 census online; Ancestry.com, England & Wales, Free BMD Death Index: 1837-1915 [database online]; Ancestry.com, London, England, Deaths and Burials, 1813-1980 [database online].

2. PROB 11/2162/21.

3. Ancestry.com, London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921 [database online] (the Banns for the 1841 marriage show Kean Brown Osborn, the marriage register shows only Kean Osborn).

4. London Daily News, December 18, 1852 p. 8.

5. R.W. Innes Smith English-speaking students of medicine at the University of Leyden (Edinburgh/London : Oliver and Boyd, 1932), p. 174.

We are grateful for the help of Stanley Robert Criens in compiling this entry.