Melbourne as "Melburnians". The city was founded on 30 August 1835, in what was the British colony of New South Wales, by free settlers from the colony of Van Diemen’s Land. It was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837 and named in honour of the British Prime Minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. It was declared a city by Queen Victoria in 1847, after which it became the capital of the new colony of Victoria in 1851. In the wake of the 1850s Victorian gold rush, the city entered the "Marvellous Melbourne" boom period, transforming into one of the most
Frederick Lamb, 3rd Viscount Melbourne 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 remained close all their lives, although Frederick and Emily disliked William's wife Lady Caroline Lamb, whom they called "the little beast". He served as British Ambassador to Vienna ending in 1841. He was invested as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath and admitted to the Privy Council in 1822. In 1839 he was raised to the peerage as