Edward Osler

Born in Falmouth, Cornwall, in 1798, Edward Osler trained for the medical profession at Guy’s Hospital after being apprenticed to a surgeon in his hometown. Early in his career he served as resident house-surgeon at the Swansea Infirmary, and he also worked as a naval surgeon, experiences that fed directly into his writing.

Osler did not stay confined to medicine. He published the long poem The Voyage in 1830, contributed scientific papers on marine life that were communicated to the Philosophical Transactions, and was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society. He later became closely involved with religious and political writing, helping to produce a hymn collection often known as the Mitre Hymn-book; his best-known hymn begins "O God unseen, yet ever near."

In time he moved more fully into literary and editorial work, including service with the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and, from 1841, the editorship of the Royal Cornwall Gazette in Truro. He is remembered as a versatile Victorian man of letters: a trained surgeon, biographer, journalist, hymn writer, and author of works such as The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth.