Mrs Catherine Bernal Osborne
(1818-1880)

Volume 1, page 242, sitting number 1147.  

Catherine Isabella Osborne was born on 30 June 1818 at Newtown Anner House, near Clonmel in County Tipperary. She was the second child and only daughter of Sir Thomas Osborne, who died in 1821 leaving an infant son and daughter. The little baronet followed his father to the grave at the age of seven, and Catherine Isabella became the heiress of the estate of her father and brother, while the title passed to her uncle.

She married the British Liberal politician Ralph Bernal on 20 August 1844, the groom taking the bride's surname, becoming Ralph Bernal Osborne.

Mrs Bernal Osborne was a patron and hostess, noted for keeping an entertaining, lively and cultivated house. A talented artist in her own right, she producing a series of sketchbooks of Irish and English country houses. She also edited and published two volumes of her mother's letters and was the anonymous author of False Positions, published in 1863, a novel which was a thinly veiled attack on her own husband. 

Mrs Ralph Bernal Osborne died at Newtown Anner in County Tipperary on 20 June 1880.

'The Hon. Catherine Isabella Osborne, wife of Mr Ralph Bernal Osborne (some time member for Waterford City) and mother of the Duchess of St Albans, died at her residence, Newtownanner House, Clonmel, Ireland, this morning. The hon. lady was in her usual health yesterday but was taken ill during the night. She was the only daughter of the late Sir Thomas Osborne, Bart.' (The Globe, 21 June 1880).