William Lamb, Second Viscount Melbourne

Prime minister of Great Britain (1834, 1835-1841)

• Born: March 15, 1779
• Birthplace: London, England
• Died: November 24, 1848
• Place of death: Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire, England

A man of wit, urbanity, and cynicism, Melbourne was an archetypal aristocratic Whig politician. As prime minister during the early nineteenth century, he helped set a pattern for future governmental reforms. He also was a crucial influence on the young Queen Victoria.

Early Life

William Lamb, the second Viscount Melbourne, was born in his family home, Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire. His father, Peniston Lamb, squandered the family fortune but secured a title of nobility by means of his loyalty to the ministry of Lord North and his friendship with the Prince of Wales (later George IV). His mother, née Elizabeth Milbanke, brought a fortune to the marriage and took a deep interest in her son’s education. After tutoring at home, Melbourne studied at Eton, at Trinity College, Cambridge, at Lincoln’s Inn (where he qualified as a lawyer), and as a private student of history, economics, and political science in Glasgow. An intelligent and well-read man, he had only begun his career in law when, at the death of his elder brother in 1805, he became heir to the family title. He gave up the law for politics, as was the duty of a man in his position.

Melbourne sat in the House of Commons from 1806 to 1812 and again from 1816 to 1829; he entered the House of Lords upon his father’s death in 1829. At first an advanced Whig who opposed the war against France, Melbourne moderated his opinions as he moved into the orbit of George Canning, the leader of the moderate Conservatives. Although Melbourne rarely spoke in debates, Canning and the Prince Regent liked him; when Canning became prime minister in 1827, Melbourne was appointed Irish secretary. At that time, the Conservative domination of British politics was beginning to break up under the pressures of the movements to abolish slavery, to give Roman Catholics political rights, and to reform the electoral system. Melbourne followed the liberal followers of Canning into opposition, and when Earl Grey formed a Whig ministry in 1830, Melbourne was named home secretary.

As home secretary (1830-1834), Melbourne was responsible for maintaining public order in England and Ireland. This was no small task, for the kingdom seemed on the verge of revolution. Daniel O’Connell’s Catholic Association held mass rallies to demand home rule for Ireland; factory workers marched to demand a ten-hour working day; agricultural laborers burned hayricks and tried to organize a union. Middle-class Nonconformists wanted to crush the power of the Church of England and the landed gentry. Philosophical Radicals advanced Prussian or French centralization as the model for Great Britain to follow in reforms. As home secretary, Melbourne sought to find a middle ground among these competing voices, mediating differences between factory owners and workers, members of the Church of England and Nonconformists, Whigs and Radicals.

As a minister of state, Melbourne was a reasonably efficient man of business who paid attention to the actions of his civil servants and was evenhanded within the limits of his political views. (Although he is remembered by left-wing historians as the man responsible for exiling to Australia the Tolpuddle Martyrs, who had tried to organize a farm workers’ union, Melbourne opposed both legislation to repress the free exercise of dissent and the use of police spies to infiltrate working-class movements.) Whiggish in his toleration for religious dissent, he exhibited a healthy skepticism for reformers who did not have to bear the responsibility for the practical consequences of their theoretical radicalism. His politics were as moderate as his demeanor was affable.

A handsome and sophisticated man, Melbourne was known for his cynical flippancy and religious skepticism. He was reputed to be lazy, both personally and politically, but that was a pose. He liked attractive women and was cited as a correspondent in several divorce actions, most notably that of Mrs. Caroline Norton. Melbourne’s marriage to Lady Caroline Lamb (née Ponsonby) was an unhappy one. Lady Caroline had many affairs, and her liaison with the poet Lord Byron was an open scandal. The couple separated in 1825; the fact that their only child, a son, was mentally impaired only added to Melbourne’s domestic unhappiness. Thus Melbourne’s cynicism, flippancy, and skepticism concealed inner pain.

Life’s Work

Melbourne was prime minister from July to November of 1834, and again from April, 1835, to August, 1841. (In the interval, the Conservative Sir Robert Peel held office.) Melbourne faced two great problems during his premiership: the pressure for reforms of institutions in church and state, and the accession to the throne of the eighteen-year-old Queen Victoria .

The coming to power of the Whigs in 1830 and the reform of Parliament in 1832 had opened the floodgates for reform. All sorts of political, economic, social, and religious groups, representing important divisions within British society, expected the reformed Parliament to be attentive to their desires. Taken together, their desires, had they been gained, would have resulted in a radical restructuring of British institutions. Religious Nonconformists objected to the Anglican established church’s right to collect local taxes (tithes) and its monopoly on higher education; some wanted to separate church and state. Industrialists and merchants wanted an end to protective tariffs and the abolition of all government restrictions on the way that they did business. Workers wanted the state to protect them from their powerful employers by limiting the length of the working day and by inspecting factories to uncover hazardous working conditions. Humanitarians wanted the state to help the West Indian slaves, the children, and the poor. The middle classes wanted to increase their political power at the expense of the landed gentry.

The Whigs, especially Lord Melbourne, were moderate liberals. On the one hand, they believed in religious freedom, in the classical economics of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and in the paternalistic duty of those better able to help others. On the other hand, the Whigs also believed that democracy led to social disorder and tyranny, either of a dictator (as revolutionary France showed) or of a fickle and ignorant majority (as the republican United States showed). Moreover, they were practical politicians who wanted to gain power and, once having gained power, remain in power. The Whigs understood that they had to balance all competing demands, giving something to each, but not enough to all, if government was to proceed. They charted a careful and moderate path in such matters as the New Poor Law, the Municipal Corporations Act, state aid to education, the tithe question, Irish grievances, and the civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths.

As prime minister, Melbourne presided over a cabinet of Whig grandees, some of whom were able, and all of whom thought highly of themselves. Melbourne was able to keep the peace by acting as mediator and by restraining some of the more activist ministers, although in a genial way. When necessary, however, he could be firm, as in the case of Lord Brougham, the brilliant but erratic Lord Chancellor. Melbourne excluded Brougham from his second ministry, but did it in a way that minimized Brougham’s anger.

In his relationship with Queen Victoria, Melbourne did three important things. First, he taught her the ins and outs of politics, of the great questions of the day, and of the personalities of public figures. This tutoring was invaluable for a young, inexperienced monarch. Second, he helped Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha adjust to his role as prince consort and Victoria’s husband. This task was extremely delicate, for Albert as husband broke up the close personal relationship between queen and prime minister. Nevertheless, Melbourne not only made room for Albert, but also introduced him to the art of British politics. Third, Melbourne helped the queen understand the role of the monarch in a constitutional system. The queen tried to maintain contact with him after he went into opposition in 1841, but he resisted this unconstitutional relationship and helped Peel, the new prime minister, establish a good working relationship with the monarch.

Melbourne led the Whig opposition until he suffered a stroke in 1842. Thereafter he withdrew gradually from active politics and spent more and more time at Brocket Hall, his country estate in Hertfordshire, where he died on November 24, 1848.

Significance

A skeptic, rationalist, and epicure, very much in the mold of the eighteenth century, the second Viscount Melbourne served in and later presided over the Whig ministries of the 1830’s, a time that historians call “the decade of reform.” A believer in moderation, consensus, and reasonable reform, he charted for the Whigs a middle course, between the pressures of Nonconformists and middle-class philosophical radicals on the left and the reaction of Anglicans and Conservatives on the right. The moderate nature of his party’s programs allowed the liberal Conservatives, led by Peel, to pursue a policy rather more reformist than their right wing would otherwise have accepted. This circumstance promoted stability and evolutionary tendencies in British politics.

In his relationship with Queen Victoria, Melbourne contributed greatly to the Hanoverian monarchy’s adjustment to the more parliamentary and responsible constitutional system of the nineteenth century, a system in which the monarch was expected to support, or at least not to oppose actively, that politician whose party commanded a parliamentary majority gained through honest elections. Melbourne, then, contributed to the stability of the British monarchy and to its ability to survive into the twentieth century.

Bibliography

Arnstein, Walter L. Britain Yesterday and Today: 1830 to the Present. Vol. 4 in A History of England. 4th ed. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1983. A very readable survey of English history; useful for background.

Cecil, David. Melbourne. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1954. A beautifully written study by one of the masters of the art of biography.

Douglass, Paul. Lady Caroline Lamb: A Biography. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. This biography of Lamb’s mentally unstable wife provides details of their marriage and Lamb’s life before his political ascent.

Finlayson, Geoffrey B. A. M. England in the Eighteen Thirties: Decade of Reform. London: Edward Arnold, 1969. A brief but thoughtful, clear, and succinct analysis of the reform tendencies of the day.

Gash, Norman. Politics in the Age of Peel: A Study in the Technique of Parliamentary Representation, 1830-1850. London: Longmans, 1953. This and the following study are essential reading for anyone concerned with the politics of the 1830’s and 1840’s.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Reaction and Reconstruction in English Politics, 1832-1852. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1965. An overview of the forces that determined how politics functioned, written by the dean of the political historians who study the 1830’s and 1840’s.

Melbourne, W. L. Lord Melbourne’s Papers. Edited by Lloyd C. Sanders. London: Longmans, Green, 1889. Reprint. New York: Kraus Reprint, 1971. A reasonably accurate edition of Melbourne’s political correspondence, the originals of which are at the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle.

Mitchell, Austin. The Whigs in Opposition, 1815-1830. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1967. A scholarly study of how the Whigs conducted themselves in opposition and prepared for taking office in 1830.

Mitchell, L. G. Lord Melbourne, 1779-1848. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Biography recounting the personal and public lives of Melbourne. Describes his relationship with Queen Victoria, both as her advisor and her spurned lover.

Southgate, Donald. The Passing of the Whigs, 1832-1886. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1962. Seeks to show how the Whigs emerged from the late eighteenth century with a coherent party program, but ultimately failed to attract the mass electorate of the late nineteenth century.

Ziegler, Philip. Melbourne: A Biography of William Lamb, Second Viscount Melbourne. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. An excellent biography, well grounded in documentary sources, that convincingly links Melbourne’s personal life and political style.