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
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne residence, Petworth, Lamb was a visitor until the Earl's death; he was called to his bedside when he was dying. Lamb nevertheless stated that Egremont being his father was 'all a lie'. He was educated at Eton, Trinity College, Cambridge and the University of Glasgow. Against the background of the Napoleonic Wars, Lamb served at home as captain (1803) and major (1804) in the Hertfordshire Volunteer Infantry. He succeeded his elder brother as heir to his father's title in 1805, and married Lady Caroline Ponsonby, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat. The following year, he was elected to the British House of Commons