William Melbourne Biography

Dromo's Den

MELBOURNE, William Lamb, second Viscount (1779-1848). An English statesman. He was born at Melbourne House, London, March 15, 1779; was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1796, and at Glasgow (1799), where he studied jurisprudence and politics under Millar. One year after his admission to the bar (1804) he entered the House of Commons for Leominster and joined the Whig opposition, under the leadership of Charles James Fox. He represented several other constituencies within the next 15 ycars and his whole career in the House of Commons was characterized chiefly by indolence. Drifting towards conservatism, he accepted the chief secretaryship of Ireland in Canning's government. In 1828 the death of his father transferred him to the House of Lords. In 1830 he accepted the seals of the Home Office in the government of Earl Grey, but his administration was by no means popular or successful. In July, 1834, Earl Grey retired and William IV sent for Melbourne. In November, however, on a slight pretext, the King, who had become entirely alienated from the Whigs and Melbourne, invited Sir Robert Peel to form a Conservative ministry. On Peel's arrival in England he dissolved Parliament and appealed to the country, but was defeated. The new Commons, resenting the interference of the King, made Peel's task an impossible one, so early in 1835 Melbourne again became First Lord of the Treasury and Premier. On the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 it became the duty of Melbourne to instruct the young sovereign in the various duties of her high station, and but few other functions did he perform so well. In 1841 his government was succeeded by that of Sir Robert Peel. Henceforward Melbourne took little part in public affairs. His administrations advocated reform of Church tithes in both England and Ireland, of municipal corporations, taxation, criminal law, postal rates and education, yet he himself cared little for reform. He married (1805) a daughter of the Earl of Bessborough, who, under the title of Lady Caroline Lamb, attained some celebrity as a novel writer and a correspondent of Lord Byron. Lord Melbourne died Nov. 24, 1848. Consult W. M. Torrens, Memoirs of Lord Melbourne (London, 1878), and Lloyd Sanders, Lord Melbourne's Papers (ib., 1889).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 365.