William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, (15 March 1779 – 24 November 1848) was a British Whig statesman who served as Home Secretary (1830–1834) and Prime Minister (1834 and 1835–1841). He is best known for his intense and successful mentoring of Queen Victoria in the ways of politics, when she was between the ages of 18 and 21. Historians have concluded that Melbourne does not rank highly as a Prime Minister, for there were no great foreign wars or domestic issues to handle, he lacked major achievements, and he enunciated no grand principles. "But he was
Lamb baronets 1st Viscount Wentworth and Judith Lamb, daughter of William Lamb. In 1821 he assumed by Royal licence the surname of Lamb in lieu of his patronymic. He was succeeded by his son by his second wife Anne Montolieu, Charles, the second Baronet. He was Knight Marshal of the Royal Household between 1824 and 1864. The title became extinct on the death of the fourth Baronet in 1948. The Burges family settled near Reading during the reign of Henry VIII; the surname is claimed to derive from Bruges in Flanders. Colonel Roger Burges held the town of Faringdon for the king