William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne — Mentor to a Young Monarch

Abstract

Of Britain’s 52 Premiers, two were undoubtedly born illegitimately. One — Ramsay MacDonald — was brought up in extreme poverty by his mother and grandmother, and had a fierce struggle to establish himself in life. The other — William Lamb — grew up in great luxury in an aristocratic home, was educated at Eton and Cambridge and inherited a peerage from a man who was certainly not his father. Yet he appeared to have suffered some psychological damage, and though gifted and highly intelligent he grew up chronically indecisive and directionless, which, among other things, led him into a disastrous marriage. Born on 15 March 1779, he was the second of six surviving children born to Elizabeth Lamb (nee Milbanke), Lady Melbourne. Only the eldest of these — Peniston — appears to have been fathered by her husband Peniston Lamb, the First Viscount Melbourne (originally in the Irish peerage). A complaisant husband, he allowed all six to be brought up in the family home and did not openly question their parentage. The first Lord Melbourne was a pleasant nonentity, without ambition, speaking only once during his 40 years in Parliament. The only official post he ever held was as a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales. Lady Melbourne, the daughter of a wealthy Yorkshire baronet, was of sterner stuff. Intelligent, vivacious and beautiful, she established herself as a leading Whig hostess (third only to the Duchess of Devonshire and Lady Holland), and held regular soirees in Melbourne House, in Piccadilly (now the site of the Albany), which she had taken over from the Holland family, when they had moved to Holland Park.