Cyril Osborne
Sir Cyril Osborne (1898–1969) was a British Conservative politician and a Justice of the Peace for Leicestershire. He served as Member of Parliament for Louth in Lincolnshire from 1945 until his death in 1969.
He was born in Nottingham, the son of Thomas Osborne. He studied at University College, Nottingham, and served in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary during World War I. In 1935 he married Joyce Lawrence Feibusch; they had four children, including Hazel, who became Baroness Byford.
Osborne won election to Parliament on his first attempt in 1945 and joined the Conservative Monday Club. In the House of Commons, he was an early voice against immigration from the New Commonwealth countries. His views were controversial. In 1955 and again in 1963, articles and statements outlined his opposition to large-scale immigration.
In 1965, Conservative MPs supported a bill he sponsored to set periodic immigration limits, though the bill did not pass. He later urged the Labour government to ban all immigration except for temporary students and professionals who would return home.
From 1964 to 1967 he was Honorary Treasurer of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (British Group), and he also served as Chairman of the Anglo-Soviet Parliamentary Group. He opposed the decriminalisation of homosexuality after the Wolfenden Report, arguing that such acts should be punished.
Outside politics he worked as a stockbroker and company director. He was a former Master of the Company of Framework Knitters and a member of the Bakers’ Livery Company, the Pilgrims Society, and the English-Speaking Union.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 04:58 (CET).