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William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (15 March 1779 – 24 November 1848) was a Whig politician who served as the Home Secretary and twice as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Some sources indicate that his full name was Henry William Lamb. His first premiership ended when he was dismissed by William IV in 1834, the last British prime minister to be dismissed by a monarch. Five months later, he was re-appointed and served for six more years, into the reign of Queen Victoria. He is best known for coaching the Queen in the ways of politics, acting almost as her private secretary, and the political scandals that resulted from it. His legacy as prime minister was not favourable, as he had no great foreign wars or domestic issues to handle, and he was involved in several political scandals in the early years of Victoria's reign. Early life In 1779, William Lamb was born in London to an aristocratic Whig family, and was the son of Peniston and Elizabeth Lamb (1751–1818). However, 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 he was a visitor until the Earl's death. Lamb was called to Egremont's bedside when Egremont was dying but, nevertheless, stated that Egremont being his father was "all a lie".He was educated at Eton, 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. Admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1797, he 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. He 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) and married Lady Caroline Ponsonby, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat. After two miscarriages and a stillbirth 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. In 1809, they had a daughter. She was born prematurely and lived only one day. The following year, Lamb was elected to the British House of Commons as the Whig 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). Lamb first came to general notice for reasons he would rather have avoided: his wife had a public affair with 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. Early politics Member of Parliament In 1816, Lamb was returned for Peterborough by 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. Though 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 25 years in the Commons, largely as a backbencher, and was not politically well known. Home Secretary In November 1830, 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 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 [sic]." "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. Melbourne was also a strong supporter of slavery. 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 wou.... Discover the Victoria Lamb popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Victoria Lamb books.