Frederick James Lamb, 3rd Viscount Melbourne by John Partridge

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.

Family and education

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, and the younger brother of Prime Minister

William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, (15 March 177924 November 1848), in some sources called Henry William Lamb, was a British Whig politician who served as Home Secretary (1830–1834) and Prime Minister (1834 and 1835–1841). His first prem ...

. 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 in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...

; the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

(1799–1801, studying with Professor John Millar alongside his older brother William); and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a 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 college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

(admitted 1801, graduated

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

1803). He married Alexandrina Julia Theresa Wilhelmina Sophia Gräfin von Maltzan, 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." 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 to 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, and ...

, whom they called "the little beast".

Career

He served as British Ambassador to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

ending in 1841. He was invested as a

Knight Grand Cross Grand Cross is the highest class in many orders, and manifested in its insignia. Exceptionally, the highest class may be referred to as Grand Cordon or equivalent. In other cases, there may exist a rank even higher than Grand Cross, e.g. Grand ...

of the

Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved Bathing#Medieval ...

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 monastery, or Charterhouse, founded in 1343 by N ...

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) was a British statesman who was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. Palmerston dominated British foreign policy during the period ...

, 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 the Ottoman province o ...

, 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.

Death

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 William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, British Prime Minister from 1835 to 1841. The house is now the seat of Lord and Lady Ralph Kerr and is open to th ...

passed to his sister Emily. His widow remarried in 1856 to

John Weld-Forester, 2nd Baron Forester John George Weld Weld-Forester, 2nd Baron Forester PC (9 August 1801 – 10 October 1874), was a British Tory politician. He served as Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms under Sir Robert Peel from 1841 to 1846. Background Fore ...

, was widowed again in 1873, and died in 1894. There is a memorial to him in St Paul's Cathedral."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 of the United Kingdom to Austria Ambassadors of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to Spain Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria