Whig statesman Lord Melbourne served as prime minister briefly in 1834 and then from 1835 to 1841. He helped smooth the path of monarchy for the young Queen Victoria and served as her chief mentor until her marriage in 1840.
Born nominally the second son of Sir Peniston Lamb, later first viscount Melbourne, he is believed by some authorities to have been the son of the third earl of Egremont. In addition to Lord Egremont, his mother, Elizabeth Milbanke, had as an admirer the Prince of Wales (later George IV) and as a confidante the poet, Lord Byron. Lamb was educated at Eton, Trinity College (Cambridge) and Glasgow University. In 1805, he abandoned a law career when the death of his elder brother made him heir to his father's peerages. In the same year he married Lady Caroline Ponsonby, better known under her married name as Lady Caroline Lamb. Their storm-tossed marriage was marked by the birth in 1807 of their retarded child, Augustus; by her affair with Byron (1812-1813); and by their separation in 1825 and her death in 1828. Melbourne was subsequently twice named in divorce cases.
Elected to the House of Commons in 1805 Lamb served until he succeeded to the peer age and the House of Lords in 1828, with a hiatus in 1812-1816, when he lost his seat due to his support of Catholic emancipation. He first held office as chief secretary for Ireland (1827-1828) and achieved cabinet office as home secretary in November 1830. As home secretary, Melbourne placed the full weight of his authority behind the work of forcibly suppressing the agrarian disorders of the early 1830s and the conviction and sentence of the "Tolpuddle Martyrs" for union activity. A firm believer in a hierarchical society, he gave unenthusiastic support to the Reform Act of 1832 only because he recognized that it had become politically necessary.
Commissioned by William IV to form a ministry, Melbourne became prime minister in July 1834. The monarch, however, preferred Wellington and Peel and in November 1834 exercised for the last time the royal prerogative of dismissing a prime minister who still had the confidence of the House of Commons.. Becoming prime minister again after Robert Peel's resignation in 1835, Melbourne's position was not strong. His ministry was supported by a minority in the House of Lords and by an unstable majority in the Commons, and its legislative accomplishments were limited, though it did adopt the act uniting Upper and Lower Canada (1840), and instituted the penny post (1840) Melbourne's enjoyment of office was enhanced by the accession of the eighteen-year old Queen Victoria in 1837. Combining political self-interest with fatherly affection, he became her constant companion and men to His initiation undoubtedly contributed to turning the young queen into a Whig partisan. In the "bedchamber crisis" the queen maneuvered Peel into declining to form a ministry after Melbourne resigned in May 1839. She misrepresented Peel's request that some of her Whig ladies of the bedchamber be replaced by Tories to Melbourne's cabinet as a demand to replace them all; the cabinet rallied to her support and the queen was able to retain the Melbourne ministry in office for another two years.
The weakened and increasingly unpopular Melbourne government was brought down in 1841. Melbourne had consistently supported the Corn Laws, which protected landed interests and inflated the price of food. In May 1841 the government was defeated (by one vote) on a vote of confidence. Instead of resigning, Melbourne chose to hold a general election, which was decisively won by supporters of Robert Peel. In the following year Melbourne suffered a stroke which effectively removed him from the center of political activity.
Robert S. Fraser, from Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia, ed. Sally Mitchell