William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne fall. The king and the Duke of Wellington urged him to stay on as prime minister. After Norton failed in court, Melbourne was vindicated, but he did stop seeing Norton. Nonetheless, as historian Boyd Hilton concludes, "it is irrefutable that Melbourne's personal life was problematic. Spanking sessions with aristocratic ladies were harmless, not so the whippings administered to orphan girls taken into his household as objects of charity." Melbourne was Prime Minister when Queen Victoria came to the throne (June 1837). Barely eighteen, she was only just breaking free from the domineering influence of her mother, the Duchess of Kent,
History of Melbourne plan for the town, completed on 25 March 1837, which came to be known as the Hoddle Grid. The surveys were intended to prepare for land sales by public auction. Bourke visited Port Phillip in March 1837, confirmed Lonsdale's choice of a site for the new town and named it Melbourne, after the then British prime minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, who resided in the village of Melbourne in Derbyshire. The General Post Office opened under that name on 13 April 1837. Before being officially named, the town had several interim names — including Batmania, Bearbrass, Bareport, Bareheep, Barehurp