Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne
British politician (1745-1828)
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 William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne.
Early life
Lamb was the son of Sir Matthew Lamb, 1st Baronet, and his wife Charlotte (née Coke). He was educated at Eton College from 1755 to 1762 and entered Lincoln's Inn in 1769. He succeeded in the baronetcy on his father's death on 6 November 1768 and inherited Melbourne Hall in Derbyshire. He married Elizabeth Milbanke (1751–1818), daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, 5th Baronet, on 13 April 1769. She was a young woman of great beauty, intelligence and strong character, who quickly came to dominate her husband completely, and steered them into the centre of polite society. In 1770 he began, as Melbourne House, what is now The Albany in London.
Political career
At the 1768 general election Lamb was returned unopposed as Member of Parliament for Ludgershall. In 1770 he was raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Melbourne, of Kilmore in the County of Cavan, but as it was an Irish peerage he was allowed to remain in the House of Commons.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne” is british politician (1745-1828). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Peniston, Lamb and Viscount, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7163015. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1745, 1828, 1768 and 1770.
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This entry incorporates text from “Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.