Melbourne, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount

Melbourne, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount (1779–1848). Prime minister. In some respects Melbourne was an essentially 18th‐cent. figure: his idea of government was static, if not negative—the maintenance of law and order, conduct of foreign relations, and the implementation of those changes that could neither be postponed nor avoided.

To appearances he was an archetypal old‐fashioned Whig—lounging, aristocratic, amiable, amateurish. But appearances were deceptive. Though Melbourne's attitude of ironic unconcern was not a pose, he was capable of hard and sustained application. At the age of 26 he was unlucky enough to marry Lady Caroline Ponsonby, whose indiscretions, scenes, and tantrums reinforced Melbourne's horror of unpleasantness and confrontation, which she adored. Their only child was retarded.

He grew up in a large, high‐spirited cliquish family, went to Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, and spent a year at Glasgow under Professor John Millar. His fortunes changed abruptly in 1805 when the death of his elder brother left him as heir to the peerage. He abandoned the legal career upon which he had started and began a political one. He joined the Whig opposition but was on the right of the party, and had much in common with Peel, Huskisson, and the liberal Tories. He was 48 before, in 1827, he held office in Canning's ministry as chief secretary for Ireland, and within a year he was out again, resigning with the Huskissons.

This limited service was of consequence since the Whigs, when they took office in 1830, were short of experience and Melbourne became home secretary in Grey's government. He showed unexpected firmness in dealing with the Swing riots in 1831 and the Tolpuddle martyrs in 1834. He was the obvious choice to succeed Grey in 1834. William IV mistrusted the government, and after six months, the king turned out the ministry, bringing in the Tories. Peel dissolved, failed to win a majority, and Melbourne returned, taking the opportunity to drop Brougham, one of the more impossible ministers.

It cannot be said that Melbourne's second administration made much of a mark. It was dependent upon Irish and radical votes and the Tory House of Lords killed off several of its measures. Melbourne soldiered on, swearing, jesting, despairing. But the succession of Victoria in 1837 changed everything. He experienced an Indian summer in which he basked in royal favour, the young queen hanging on every word, enjoying every joke. She and Melbourne were hissed at the races and ‘Mrs Melbourne’ was a vulgar taunt. The Bedchamber crisis of 1839, when Peel failed to form a ministry in the face of the queen's evident hostility, gave Melbourne's government two more years. But in 1841 he went to the country and was defeated. The following year he suffered a stroke and well before his death in 1848 he was a figure from the past. ‘Not a good or firm minister,’ was Victoria's cool judgement on a man she had once adored.