A character in Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" shares his name with which British politician?

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) was one of the most successful 19th century British novelists, and his most famous work is probably "Vanity Fair", which was first published in serial form from 1847 to 1848.

A sprawling and somewhat experimental work (it is told within the framework of a puppet theatre), using the device of an unreliable narrator. It's fair to say that its two main female characters, the feisty and somewhat amoral Becky Sharp, and her more conventional friend, Amelia Sedley, tend to claim the centre stage, but the book also has a variety of interesting male characters.

One of these is called George Osborne. Of course, there is no way Thackeray could have known it, but he shares a name with an eminent British Conservative politician, George Osborne (born 1971), who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Finance Minister, in the David Cameron government from 2010-2016. He resigned after the Brexit referendum, and subsequently worked as a journalist at the London Evening Standard until 2020. He now holds a prominent position at the British museum.

As for his namesake in the novel, for most of it he is not an especially admirable character, being something of a philanderer and wastrel, but Thackeray at least gives him a noble end, at the Battle of Waterloo.