William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (15 March 177924 November 1848), was a British Whig statesman who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, first in 1834 and again from 1835 to 1841. He also held senior cabinet roles including Home Secretary (1830–1834) and Chief Secretary for Ireland (1827–1828), and led the House of Lords and the Opposition during key transitions in the early Victorian era.
Melbourne's first premiership ended when he was dismissed by King William IV in November 1834—the last time a British monarch removed a sitting prime minister. He returned to office five months later and remained in power for six years, guiding Queen Victoria through her early reign and acting as a trusted advisor during her political initiation.
His tenure was marked by personal influence rather than legislative innovation. Though not associated with major reforms or foreign conflicts, Melbourne played a central role in the Bedchamber Crisis and other court-related controversies. His legacy remains closely tied to his mentorship of Victoria and the stabilisation of Whig leadership during a politically volatile period.
Early life William Lamb was born on 15 March 1779 in London, England, into an aristocratic Whig family. He was the son of Peniston Lamb and Elizabeth Lamb (née Milbanke). His paternity was questioned, being attributed to George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont, to whom it was considered he bore a considerable resemblance, and at whose residence, Petworth House in Petworth, West Sussex, he was a visitor till Egremont's death in 1837. Lamb was called to Egremont's bedside when Egremont was dying, but,Petworth- From 1660 to the present day, Peter Jerrome, The Window Press, 2006, pp. 62–63 nevertheless, stated that Egremont being his father was "all a lie".Lord Melbourne, 1779–1848, L. G. Mitchell, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 6–7
Lamb was educated at Eton College, then at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was admitted in 1796 and graduated a Master of Arts in 1799, and finally at the University of Glasgow (1799–1801), where he was a resident pupil of Professor John Millar alongside his younger brother Frederick Lamb.
Admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1797, Lamb was called to the bar in 1804. Against the background of the Napoleonic Wars, Lamb served at home as Captain (1803) and Major (1804) in the Hertfordshire Volunteer Infantry. History of Parliament article by R.G. Thorne.
Lamb succeeded his elder brother Peniston as heir to his father's title in 1805 (and as captain of the Midland Troop, Hertfordshire Yeomanry, when he resigned his commission in the Volunteer Infantry)Lt-Col J.D. Sainsbury, The Hertfordshire Yeomanry: An Illustrated History 1794–1920, Welwyn: Hart Books/Hertfordshire Yeomanry and Artillery Historical Trust, 1994; ISBN 0-948527-03-X, p. 35. and married Lady Caroline Ponsonby, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat. After two miscarriages and a stillborn child, she gave birth to George Augustus Frederick in 1807 and was devoted to him. George was epileptic and mentally handicapped, requiring significant medical care. He died in 1836.Profile of Viscount Melbourne, gov.uk. Accessed 28 December 2022. In 1809 they had a daughter. She was born prematurely and lived only one day.
Early political career: 1806–1830
In January 1806 Lamb was elected to the British House of Commons for the Whigs as the member of parliament (MP) for Leominster. For the election in 1806 he moved to the seat of Haddington Burghs, and for the 1807 election he successfully stood for Portarlington (a seat he held until 1812).Peter Mandler, "Lamb, William, second Viscount Melbourne (1779–1848)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, January 2008. Accessed 27 December 2009.
Lamb first came to general notice for reasons he would rather have avoided: his wife had a public affair with the poet Lord Byron – she coined the famous characterisation of Byron as "mad, bad and dangerous to know". The resulting scandal was the talk of Britain in 1812.
Lady Caroline published a Gothic novel, Glenarvon, in 1816; this portrayed both the marriage and her affair with Byron in a lurid fashion, which caused William even greater embarrassment, while the spiteful caricatures of leading society figures made them several influential enemies. Eventually the two were reconciled, and, though they separated in 1825, her death in 1828 affected him considerably.
In 1816 Lamb was returned for Peterborough by the Whig grandee Lord Fitzwilliam. He told Lord Holland that he was committed to the Whig principles of the Glorious Revolution but not to "a heap of modern additions, interpolations, facts and fictions". He, therefore, spoke against parliamentary reform, and voted for the suspension of habeas corpus in 1817 when sedition was rife.
Lamb's hallmark was finding the middle ground. Although a Whig, he accepted the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland in the moderate Tory governments of George Canning and Lord Goderich on 29 April 1827. Upon the death of his father in 1828 and his becoming the 2nd Viscount Melbourne, of Kilmore in the County of Cavan, he moved to the House of Lords. He had spent 22 years in the Commons, largely as a backbencher, and was not politically well known.Henry Dunckley, Lord Melbourne p. 135
Home Secretary: 1830–1834 Following the 1830 general election in November the Whigs came to power under Lord Grey. Melbourne was Home Secretary. During the disturbances of 1830–32 he "acted both vigorously and sensitively, and it was for this function that his reforming brethren thanked him heartily". In the aftermath of the Swing Riots of 1830–31, he countered the Tory magistrates' alarmism by refusing to resort to military force; instead, he advocated magistrates' usual powers be fully enforced, along with special constables and financial rewards for the arrest of rioters and rabble-rousers. He appointed a special commission to try approximately 1,000 of those arrested, and ensured that justice was strictly adhered to: one-third were acquitted and most of the one-fifth sentenced to death were instead transported.
There remains controversy regarding the hanging of Dic Penderyn, a protester in the Merthyr Rising who was then, and is now, widely judged to have been innocent. He appears to have been executed solely on the word of Melbourne, who sought a victim in order to "set an example". The disturbances over reform in 1831–32 were countered with the enforcement of the usual laws; again, Melbourne refused to pass emergency legislation against sedition.
Melbourne supported the 1834 prosecution and transportation of the Tolpuddle Martyrs to Australia for their attempts to protest against the cutting of agricultural wages.
Prime Minister: 1834–1841 Government
After Lord Grey resigned as prime minister in July 1834, William IV was forced to appoint another Whig to replace him, as the Tories were not strong enough to support a government. Melbourne, who was the man most likely to be both acceptable to the King and to hold the Whig Party together, hesitated after receiving from Grey a letter from the King requesting Melbourne to visit him to discuss the formation of a government. Melbourne feared he would not enjoy the extra work that accompanied the office of Premier, but he did not want to let his friends and party down. According to Charles Greville, Melbourne said to his secretary, Tom Young: "I think it's a damned bore. I am in many minds as to what to do". Young replied: "Why, damn it all, such a position was never held by any Greek or Roman: and if it only lasts three months, it will be worthwhile to have been Prime Minister of England." "By God, that's true", Melbourne said, "I'll go!"
Compromise was the key to many of Melbourne's actions. He was personally opposed to the Reform Act 1832 proposed by the Whigs and later opposed the repeal of the Corn Laws, but he reluctantly agreed to both.Cecil, David, Melbourne, (Indianapolis, 1954), p. 422
Melbourne was also a strong supporter of slavery.Lord Melbourne, 1779–1848, L. G. Mitchell, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 198–199 He called Britain's abolition of slavery in 1833 a "great folly" and said that if he had had his own way (as opposed to what many Whigs wanted), he would "have done nothing at all!"Lord Melbourne, 1779–1848, L. G. Mitchell, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 198 He had told his sister-in-law that "slavery was a matter of necessity", was hesitant to pressure foreign governments about slavery, and saw slavery as "no bar to the recognition of Texan independence."
He was in many similar ways uninterested in egalitarianism. Disgusted a British gentleman had been sent to prison for committing a crime, Melbourne wrote that "there ought to be a law for the rich and another for the poor" and concluded "equality is very bad."Somerset, 19
William IV's opposition to the Whigs' reforming ways led him to dismiss Melbourne in November. He then gave the Tories under Sir Robert Peel an opportunity to form a government. Peel's failure to win a House of Commons majority in the resulting general election (January 1835) made it impossible for him to govern, and the Whigs returned to power under Melbourne that April. This was the last time a British monarch attempted to appoint a government to suit his own preferences.
Blackmail
The next year, Melbourne was once again involved in a sex scandal. This time, he was the victim of attempted blackmail from George Chapple Norton, the husband of the society beauty and author Caroline Norton. George Norton demanded £1,400, and when he was turned down, he accused Melbourne of having an affair with his wife. At that time, such a scandal would have been enough to derail a major politician and so it is a measure of the respect that contemporaries had for his integrity that Melbourne's government did not fall. The King and the Duke of Wellington urged him to stay on as prime minister. After Norton failed in court, Melbourne was vindicated, but he stopped seeing Caroline Norton.David Cecil, Melbourne (1954) ch 11
Further scandal As the historian Boyd Hilton concludes, "it is irrefutable that Melbourne's personal life was problematic. Spanking sessions with aristocratic ladies were harmless, not so the whippings administered to orphan girls taken into his household as objects of charity".Boyd Hilton, A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? England 1783–1846 (2006), p. 500.
Queen Victoria Melbourne was prime minister when Queen Victoria acceded to the throne on 20 June 1837. Barely eighteen, she was only just breaking free from the domineering influence of her mother, the Duchess of Kent, and her mother's adviser, Sir John Conroy. Over the next four years, Melbourne trained her in the art of politics, and the two became friends: Victoria was quoted describing him as a father figure (her own had died when she was eight months old), and Melbourne's son had died at a young age. Melbourne was given a private apartment at Windsor Castle, and unfounded rumours circulated for a time that Victoria would marry Melbourne, 40 years her senior. Tutoring Victoria was the climax of Melbourne's career: the prime minister spent four to five hours a day visiting and writing to her, and she responded with enthusiasm.Cecil, Melbourne ch 14