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Posts Tagged ‘Peniston Lamb 1st Viscount Melbourne’

Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.

George Lamb (politician and Writer)
11 July 1784 – 2 January 1834

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George Lamb

George Lamb was the youngest son of Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne, and his wife Elizabeth, and the brother of William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (The Prime Minister), Frederick Lamb, 3rd Viscount Melbourne, and Emily Lamb, Countess Cowper, he was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated MA in 1805.

On 17 May 1809, he married Caroline Rosalie Adelaide St. Jules, the illegitimate daughter of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, by his mistress (and eventual second wife) Lady Elizabeth Foster. The Lambs had no children and it was speculated that the marriage was never consummated.

He became a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn, and was Member of Parliament for Westminster from March 1819 to March 1820, and for Dungarvan from 1822 until his death. He served in Earl Grey’s (Charles Grey, had a child with the Duchess of Devonshire, the wife of Lamb’s wife’s father) administration as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from 1830 until his death.

His comic opera Whistle for it was produced in 1807, and his adaptations of Timon of Athens in 1816. His most important work, a translation of the poems of Catullus, was published in 1821.

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Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.

Peniston Lamb 1st Viscount Melbourne
29 January 1745 – 22 July 1828

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Peniston Lamb

Peniston Lamb 1st Viscount Melbourne was the son of Sir Matthew Lamb, 1st Baronet, and his wife Charlotte (née Coke), and succeeded in the baronetcy on his father’s death in 1768. The same year he was returned to Parliament for Ludgershall, a seat he held until 1784, and then represented Malmesbury from 1784 to 1790 and Newport, Isle of Wight from 1790 to 1793. In 1770 he was raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Lord Melbourne, Baron of Kilmore, in the County of Cavan, and in 1781 he was created Viscount Melbourne, of Kilmore in the County of Cavan, also in the Peerage of Ireland. In 1815 he was even further honoured when he was made Baron Melbourne, of Melbourne in the County of Derby, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, which gave him an automatic seat in the House of Lords.

He inherited Melbourne Hall in Derbyshire.

Lord Melbourne married Elizabeth Milbanke, daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, 5th Baronet, in 1769. She was a young woman of great beauty, intelligence and strong character, who quickly came to dominate her husband completely, and steered them into the centre of polite society. The couple had six children, (though only the first-born son can be definitively attributed to Lord Melbourne due to his wife’s many affairs}George is reputed to be the son of George IV; with William and Emily allegedly fathered by Lord Egremont.

Whether Melbourne was made unhappy by his wife’s affairs is unclear: he was a mild, easygoing and rather stupid man who avoided trouble, and generally deferred to his wife, who was by far the stronger and more intelligent partner in the marriage. Their one serious quarrel was caused by the death of their eldest son Pen (who was undoubtedly Melbourne’s child ); he angrily refused to make the same allowance to William (who was almost certainly not Melbourne’s child), suggesting that he felt some degree of resentment of his wife’s conduct. Lady Melbourne, on her side, tolerated his affair with the courtesan Sophia Baddeley.

His children regarded him with what has been described as “kindly contempt”; his daughter Emily said that he was always going wrong and they were always having to put him right; and that although not a heavy drinker, he always seemed drunk

  • Hon. Peniston (3 May 1770 – 24 January 1805)
  • William (15 March 1779 – 24 November 1848), 2nd Viscount Melbourne
  • Frederick (17 April 1782 – 29 January 1853), 3rd Viscount Melbourne
  • Hon. George (11 July 1784 – 2 January 1834)
  • Emily Lamb, Countess Cowper(1787–1869)
  • Harriet Lamb (1789-1803)

Melbourne died in July 1828, aged 83. He was succeeded in his titles by his son William.

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