Juliana Osborne, Duchess of Leeds


Juliana Hele was an English noblewoman. She was the third wife of Peregrine Osborne, 3rd Duke of Leeds, and later the wife of Charles Colyear, 2nd Earl of Portmore, and mother of the 3rd Earl.
Juliana was the daughter and heiress of Roger Hele, of Newton Ferrers in Devonshire, and his wife, the former Juliana Prestwood.
On 9 April 1725 she married the future duke at St Anne's Church, Soho. Osborne's second wife, the former Lady Anne Seymour, had died in 1722. There were no children from her marriage to the duke, who already had a son and heir from his first marriage, to Lady Elizabeth Harley. He inherited the dukedom from his father in 1729.
The duchess was one of the signatories to Thomas Coram's petition to establish the Foundling Hospital, which she signed on 24 June 1730.
On the duke's early death in 1731, he was succeeded by Juliana's stepson, Thomas. Juliana married Charles Colyear, 2nd Earl of Portmore, on 7 October 1732. The earl had been a sporting associate of her first husband. After her second marriage, Juliana continued to call herself Duchess of Leeds.
Their children were:
  1. Caroline Colyear, who married Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Baron Scarsdale, and had children
  2. Juliana Colyear, who married Henry Dawkins in 1759, and had children
  3. David Colyear, Viscount Milsington, who died unmarried while serving in the Coldstream Guards
  4. William Charles Colyear, 3rd Earl of Portmore, who married Lady Mary Leslie and had children
She died on 20 November 1794 at the age of 88 at Stratford Place, Marylebone.