Frederick James Lamb, 3rd Viscount Melbourne, (17 April 1782 – 29 January 1853), known as The Lord Beauvale from 1839 to 1848, was a British diplomat.
Early life
Lamb was a younger son of
Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne
Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne (29 January 1745 – 22 July 1828), known as Sir Peniston Lamb, 2nd Baronet, from 1768 to 1770, was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1768 to 1793. He was the father of Prime Minister ...
, and his wife
Elizabeth Milbanke
Elizabeth Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne (née Milbanke; 1751 – 1818) was one of the most influential of the political hostesses of the extended Regency period, and the wife of Whig politician Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne. She was the ...
, and the younger brother of Prime Minister
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
Henry William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (15 March 177924 November 1848) was a British Whig (political faction), Whig politician who served as the Home Secretary and twice as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
His first premiership end ...
. Since his mother had numerous lovers, his real paternity is a matter of conjecture.
Lamb was educated at
Eton College
Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...
; the
University of Glasgow
The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...
(1799–1801, studying with Professor
John Millar alongside his older brother William); and
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...
(admitted 1801, graduated
M.A. 1803).
William, Frederick and their sister
Emily Lamb, Countess Cowper
Emily Temple, Viscountess Palmerston (née Lamb, later Clavering-Cowper; 1787–1869), styled The Honourable Emily Lamb from 1787 to 1805 and Countess Cowper from 1805 to 1839, was a leading figure of the Almack's social set, sister of Prime M ...
remained close all their lives, although Frederick and Emily disliked William's wife
Lady Caroline Lamb
Lady Caroline Lamb (née Ponsonby; 13 November 1785 – 25 January 1828) was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat and novelist, best known for '' Glenarvon'', a Gothic novel. In 1812, she had an affair with Lord Byron, whom she described as "mad, bad, a ...
, whom they called "the little beast".
Career
He served as
British Ambassador to
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
ending in 1841. He was invested as a
Knight Grand Cross
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity.
The concept of a knighthood ...
of the
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by King George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. Recipients of the Order are usually senior British Armed Forces, military officers or senior Civil Service ...
and admitted to the
Privy Council in 1822. In 1839 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Beauvale, of
Beauvale
Beauvale, or Beauvale Newthorpe, is a village in Nottinghamshire, England. It is located 1 mile to the east of Eastwood. It is in Greasley parish. Beauvale Priory is the remains of a Carthusian
The Carthusians, also known as the Order o ...
in the County of Nottingham. In 1848 he succeeded his elder brother as third
Viscount Melbourne
Viscount Melbourne, of Kilmore in the County of Cavan, was a title in the Peerage of Ireland held by the Lamb family.
This family descended from Matthew Lamb, who represented Stockbridge and Peterborough in the House of Commons. In 1755 h ...
.
Despite a certain personal distance between them,
Lord Palmerston
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865), known as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman and politician who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1855 to 1858 and from 1859 to 1865. A m ...
, as
Foreign Secretary placed great confidence in Lamb, wrote to him in a courteous style very different from his usual brusque manner, and left the running of the Vienna Embassy almost entirely in his hands. The coolness was due to Palmerston's decades-long affair with Lamb's sister Emily, Lady Cowper; Lamb disapproved of the affair and disapproved equally of their eventual marriage, although this proved to be very happy. Palmerston's biographer notes that the marriage coincided with the early stages of the
Oriental Crisis of 1840
The Oriental Crisis of 1840 was an episode in the Egyptian–Ottoman War in the eastern Mediterranean, triggered by the self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan Muhammad Ali Pasha's aims to establish a personal empire in Ottoman Egypt.
Backgr ...
, and that the two men, although they were then personally barely on speaking terms, co-operated in an entirely professional way to resolve it. Palmerston, in addition to his real respect for Lamb, was anxious not to quarrel with him for Emily's sake: as
Charles Greville remarked: "the Chief (Palmerston) is devoted to the sister and the sister to the brother". Relations between the two men became friendlier in later years, partly because both Palmerston and Emily were fond of Frederick's wife Alexandrina.
Personal life

In 1841, Lord Beauvale married Alexandrina Julia Theresa Wilhelmina Sophia Gräfin von Maltzan (1818–1894), daughter of
Joachim Charles Leslie Mortimer, Graf von Maltzan. It was generally considered to be a love marriage: even though Alexandrina was more than thirty years her husband's junior, he was described as being "as handsome and debonair at sixty as he had been at twenty-five."
Lord Melbourne died childless in January 1853, aged 70, and all his titles became extinct. The family seat of
Melbourne Hall
Melbourne Hall is a Georgian style country house in Melbourne, Derbyshire, previously owned by the 2nd Viscount Melbourne, British Prime Minister from 1835 to 1841. The house is now owned by the 14th Marquess of Lothian and is open to the pu ...
passed to his sister
Emily. His widow remarried in 1856 to
John Weld-Forester, 2nd Baron Forester, was widowed again in 1873, and died in 1894.
There is a memorial to him in
St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...
.
["Memorials of St Paul's Cathedral" Sinclair, W. p. 462: London; Chapman & Hall, Ltd; 1909.]
References
External links
Portrait (1846)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Melbourne, Frederick Lamb, 3rd Viscount
1782 births
1853 deaths
People educated at Eton College
Alumni of the University of Glasgow
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Viscounts Melbourne
Younger sons of viscounts
Diplomatic peers
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Portugal
Ambassadors to the Austrian Empire
Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Spain
Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria