Melbourne Hall second Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria's Prime Minister, was separated from his wife, Lady Caroline Lamb, in 1825, when her liaison with Lord Byron had become notorious. The house passed into the hands of the Cowper family when Emily Lamb, sister of the childless third and last Viscount Melbourne, married the 5th Earl Cowper. (She later married another Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston.) It remained in the Cowper family until Lady Amabel Cowper married Admiral of the Fleet Lord Walter Kerr who made Melbourne the family home in 1906. The current owner Lord Ralph Kerr also owns Ferniehirst Castle in Scotland. He
Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne and inherited Melbourne Hall in Derbyshire. He married Elizabeth Milbanke (1751–1818), daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, 5th Baronet, on the 13th 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. 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 Lord Melbourne, Baron of Kilmore, in the County