Talk:William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne

Quote

I have removed the quote "But he was kind, honest, and not self-seeking" from the initial paragraph. It is not quantifiable and does not warrant inclusion. Citing an opinion on the kindness or honesty of a historical figure is irrelevant, NPOV and is not standard practice in articles regarding political figures. In any case this can be disputed, and as such does not warrant inclusion. His treatment of his servants (Documented in this article), his salubrious private life and his refusal to commute the death penalty of Dic Penderyn, despite the protestations of the trial judge "But he was kind, honest, and not self-seeking", the Church and an 11,00 name petition could all go against this. Also, it would be very hard to find a career politician who was not self-seeking. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Gareththejack (talk) 08:56, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

wikipedia does not argue with the RS--iut's job is to summarize what they actually say. The quote is a deliberate summary by a leading authority who did research on Lamb for years. "quantifiable" is a poor sort of criteria in biography. Yes, we do report what the scholars have concluded is the basic persona of a major public figure. The personal opinions of editors is where POV comes in and needs to be avoided. Rjensen (talk) 09:19, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Urging Cabinet unity during the Corn Law crisis, he is supposed to have said “ It does not matter a damn what we say, as long as we all say the same thing”. Is there a reliable source as to exactly what was said? 86.176.144.200 (talk) 22:21, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Dates?

Haddington is listed as Chancellor in the Handbook of British Chronology, but it lists him as coming in in December 1830, with Holland only as Chancellor for a month. john 03:10, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

That's odd enough. I thought Holland was chancellor throughout Grey's administration. Most of what we have here shows Holland as chancellor for that period. I was unable to find info showing Haddington as Chancellor. Moreover, he's in Tory administrations in the 1840's, I think. Mackensen 03:15, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

1911 says it was Holland, not sure how to resolve this. I'm honestly not sure at this point. Mackensen 03:29, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, Handbook is known to have typos and errors, so I'll believe it's wrong here. Haddington does seem to have been a Tory at this point - he was appointed Lord Lieutenant by Peel in January 1835. I wonder, then, if the 20 December 1830 in the Handbook is supposed to be 20 December (or November?) 1834, meaning he held the position for a brief period under Peel before he was appointed Lord Lieutenant and it was given to Williams Wynn. I'll check Haydn's tomorrow if I have a chance, to make sure. john 04:01, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Succession

Wellington succeeded Melbourne as PM in 1834 while Peel was on holiday in ItalyAlci12 13:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Courtesy Title

The article stated that in 1805 he was "now known as Lord Melbourne." I removed this text for the following reasons:

• heirs of viscounts have no courtesty titles, just "The Hon."
• even assuming, for the sake of argument, that they did, he still could not be "Lord Melbourne" until his father died in 1829. Courtesy titles are always different from the peer's title.

The article is inconsistent, sometimes referring to him as Lamb and sometimes as Melbourne without regard to the 1829 accession date. Laura1822 22:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Lord Melbourne was not a courtesy title. He inherited that title in 1805 on the death of his elder brother There were two different titles, English and Irish, see Viscount Melbourne The original article was better, including use of The Right Hon. (see below)Jacksoncowes (talk) 16:12, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

References

The Right Honourable

I saw the title The Right Honourable has been removed, but according to The Right Honourable article, it is applied to members of the Privy Council, which Lamb was. — Diverman 10:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

"Liberal"?

Care should be taken in presenting Lord Melbourne as a "liberal", which much of the article seems to be doing. A confusion of the terms "Whig" and "Liberal" can sometimes be made, which is wrong during this period. Although the Liberals developed out of the old Whig party or faction, Whigs were not necessarily liberals. Whiggery was based more on protestant religious allegiances than what we would call liberalism. In this period Whigs were often more reactionary in terms of dealing with urban and rural unrest and the problems of poverty than the Tories. Melbourne's main activities in this respect were very heavy-handed and reactionary. Xandar 12:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The loose coalition of Whigs, radicals and Irish MPs was sometimes referred to as "Liberal" in the 1830s, especially after the Lichfield House Compact. The important issues were reform of the constitution (Great Reform Act of 1832) and of the Irish constitution (Lord John Russell "upsetting the coach" by making the first moves towards cutting the Anglican Church of Ireland down to size), and Whigs taking the lead against slavery. Economics was not the main political dividing line.Paulturtle (talk) 21:39, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Lord Melbourne

{{help me}} There is an abreviated version of this entry called Lord Melbourne. Should there just be a re-direct to this more substantail article? Spoonkymonkey (talk) 17:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

nope, and please use this on user talk pages (yours). §hep • ¡Talk to me! 00:31, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

"Mad, Bad" Quote

This is universally attributed to Caroline Lamb, not to her husband; barring some confirming reference to the contrary, I've changed the attribution (which also matches up with her Wikipedia article. Also I've added an intriguing quote from Boyd Hilton, quoting directly since I'm not 100% sure whether the aristocratic ladies were the spankers or the spankees -- any emendation on this important (or interesting) issue would be appreciated. --Andersonblog (talk) 03:43, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Victorian Times

I deleted the reference to Victorian Times in the discussion of the 1812 and 1836 scandals (both pre-Victorian of course!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.96.221 (talk) 02:20, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Henry?

I see that a source was found indicating that Lamb had two given names, the first of which was "Henry." I have never heard such a thing before. The most reliable reference source, the ODNB, calls him just "William Lamb." The source that calls him Henry doesn't look bad, but it is kind of puzzling. Could anybody with access to, say, a biography of Melbourne look into this? john k (talk) 16:52, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

So The Companion to British History and Melbourne’s own university both say he did have a supplementary forename, and the ODNB doesn’t say he didn’t. But we’re still humming and ha-ing. The Old Font (talk) 12:48, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

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Intellectual Interests

According to David Cecil, The Young Melbourne and Lord Melbourne (1939) Lady John Russell observed a passing interest of his in Patristics, especially John Chrysostom. Is there any evidence for him pursuing this more actively? (A remark attributed to him in The Young Victoria(2009) prompts this query?).12 Nov 2019 Clive sweeting (talk) 13:16, 12 November 2019 (UTC)Clive sweeting