Sir Richard Osbaldeston was an English barrister who became for Ireland.
Background
He was born in Lancashire, probably at Sefton. His father Edward Osbaldeston (died 1639), belonged to an ancient Lancashire family, the Osbaldestons of Osbaldeston. Edward"s father was the youngest son of a large family, but Edward himself made an advantageous marriage to Margaret Molyneux, of the family which later took the title Earl of Sefton.
Career
He was the great-grandfather of Richard Osbaldeston, Bishop of London. They were also related to the Earl of Derby, and profited from this connection. By the 1620s they were rich enough to buy the Manor of Hunmanby in Yorkshire, where they remained until the family died out in the 1830s.
Richard entered Gray"s Inn and was called to the Bar.
Wentworth did frequently consult him on legal points, but given the Lord Deputy"s overwhelming personality and his absolute control of Irish government, it is unlikely that any legal adviser had much influence over him. lieutenant was Wentworth who in 1638 instructed Osbaldeston to bring proceedings for quo warranto (ie a claim that a person or body is asserting a legal jurisdiction it does not possess) against those corporations in Munster which challenged the jurisdiction of the central Court of Admiralty.
This was apparently at the request of Doctor Alan Cooke, the Irish Admiralty judge. In 1639 the quo warranto campaign was extended into an attack on all local landowners who claimed the right to hold local Admiralty courts.
The campaign was not entirely successful: the Court of Exchequer (Ireland) ruled that that Richard Talbot of Malahide Castle (ancestor of Baron Talbot de Malahide) had the right to hold an admiralty court for the port of Malahide.
The campaign seems to have petered out after Osbaldeston"s death. Probably Osbaldeston"s most lasting memorial was the house he built adjacent to King"s Inn. He died in Dublin in June 1640 and was buried in the Church of Saint John the Evangelist, Dublin.
Doctor Cooke, the Admiralty judge, wrote to London with the terse message that "the old Attorney (General) is dead" and asking for a replacement to be sent quickly, to continue the quo warranto campaign.
Osbaldeston was replaced by Sir Thomas Tempest, but Strafford"s impeachment, followed by the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 soon made the conduct of any government business impossible. William was the grandfather of Richard Osbaldeston, Bishop of London.