J. K. (Ken) Osborne was educated at Barraba and Singleton Public schools and at East Maitland Boys' High School and pursued a career in banking, managing several Bank of New South Wales branches: Bowral, Temora, Deniliquin, and Mosman from where he retired in 1966.
His daughter Julia Osborne describes how 'he yearned to live by the water and ... bought a house on Lake Macquarie at Toronto. However, a week after his retirement, coming down the coast on a fishing boat with friends, he fell from the deck at Coffs Harbour in the evening, and could not be found, although a helicopter searched the next morning. He had intended to spend some time on his own fishing boat, writing more short stories.'
Osborne was a writer of short fiction. His stories were published, largely in the 1940s and 1950s, in The Bulletin and Coast to Coast.
