LAMBTON, see John George, John George (1792-1840), of Lambton Hall, Chester-Le-Street, co. Dur.; Wimbledon, Surr. and 13 Cleveland Row, Mdx.

‘Radical Jack’ Lambton, a handsome, wealthy, talented, unhappy man, whose 17,000-acre estate in north-east County Durham contained a lucrative coalfield, was, with Lord John Russell*, the Whig standard bearer of parliamentary reform in this period. D. Spring, ‘Earls of Durham and Great Northern Coalfield’, Canadian Hist. Rev. xxxiii (1952), 237-42. As Lord Grey’s son-in-law, his authority in the party was potentially considerable, but arrogance, impetuosity and a vile temper made him unpopular. Princess Lieven thought him ‘clever, disagreeable, violent’; Tom Macaulay* referred to his ‘bitter, vindictive, pugnacious spirit’; Lord William Lennox* recalled him as ‘often ... bursting with passion when thwarted’, and Guizot perceived in his ‘haughty melancholy a strong imprint of egotism and vanity’. Lieven Letters, 276; Macaulay Letters, iii. 262; Lord W.P. Lennox, Celebrities I Have Known (ser. 2), i. 99; CP, iv. 559-60. Henry Brougham* acknowledged his ‘many good and some great qualities’, though they were ‘much obscured, and even perverted, by his temper’, for which his affliction with agonizing neuralgia was partly responsible. Brougham, Life and Times, iii. 500. Poor health in general undermined him, for he was haunted by the spectre of the consumption which had killed his father at the age of 33 and his first wife even younger, had laid its mark on himself and was a harrowing threat to the lives of his children. Cooper, 82-85.

His notice in December 1819 of a motion for extensive reform had alarmed the Whig hierarchy, notably Lord Holland, and earned him a rebuke, which he returned with interest, from Grey. HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 369; Reid, i. 128-33; Grey mss, Lambton to Grey [7], 10 Jan. 1820. At the general election of 1820 Lambton, who Grey thought was ‘goading his adversaries ... unnecessarily’, faced a concerted Tory bid to turn him out of his county seat. At the nomination he denounced the grants to the royal dukes, the imposition of heavy taxes ‘for the benefit of placemen and pensioners, and for extending the influence of corruption’, the Foreign Enlistment Act and the repressive legislation after Peterloo. He won after a six-day contest which cost him about £30,000 and ‘31 hours of incessant pain’ in the head, and was reckoned to have made himself secure ‘for the remainder of his life’. Reid, i. 136-8; New, 59-63; Grey mss, Grey to Wilson, 6 Feb., 13 Mar., Tierney to Grey, 22 Feb., 22 Mar., Ellice to same, 16 Mar.; Add. 38458, f. 294; The Times, 13, 17 Mar. 1820. On 28 Apr. he gave notice of his reform motion for 6 June, and on 12 May he endorsed the prayer of the Newcastle merchants’ reform petition. At the annual Westminster purity of election dinner, 23 May, the Members Burdett and Hobhouse toasted his health and ‘success’ to his reform motion. Add. 56541, f. 37; The Times, 24 May 1820. He condemned the aliens bill and was a minority teller against it, 1 June. He divided with Brougham against the ministerial amendment to restrict the scope of the inquiry into agricultural distress, 31 May. Brougham mss, Brougham to Grey [1 June 1820]. On 19 June Sir James Mackintosh*, who realised that Lambton’s ‘liver complaints [were] so dreadful that they abate my dislike of his temper’, recorded that the previous evening he had been overcome ‘by headache and giddiness’, having ‘seen flashes from both his eyes which seemed to run into a ball of fire’. Add. 52444, f. 160. He first postponed and then deferred to next session his reform motion in view of the impending affair of Queen Caroline; he voted against Wilberforce’s compromise resolution, 22 June 1820.

Lambton, who was kept abreast of the trial by his friend Sir Robert Wilson*, had planned to go to Paris that October, but in the event stayed in England. He was in the House when Parliament was summarily prorogued, 23 Nov. 1820. Grey mss, Grey to Lady Grey, 9, 18, 20, 23, 26 Oct.; Add. 51579, Morpeth to Lady Holland, 19 Oct. 1820; Creevey Pprs. i. 342; Reid, i. 139-41 Next day he persuaded Tierney, the Whig Commons leader, to write to Grey urging the importance of the party’s taking the lead in promoting county meetings in support of the queen. The initially overcautious Grey admired the ‘spirit, energy and zeal’ with which Lambton organized a Durham meeting, 13 Dec. 1820, when he declared that it was ‘a melancholy sign of the times and of the corruption of the [Liverpool] administration ... that every year the nation had to complain of some additional act of oppression’ and accused the government, which was ‘suspended, like Mahomet’s tomb, between the crown and the people’, of conniving in the Holy Alliance’s suppression of liberal movements on the continent. The conservative Whig William Lamb* thought his denunciation of the ‘confederate tyrants at Troppeau’ was ‘pretty language for the son-in-law of the future secretary of state for foreign affairs to hold in the presence of that expectant minister’. A. Mitchell, Whigs in Opposition, 151-2; Grey mss, Tierney to Grey, 24 Nov., 13 Dec.; Add. 30109, f. 140; Bessborough mss F138; The Times, 18 Dec. 1820; Speech of Lambton at Dur. County Meeting (1820); Herts. Archives, Panshanger mss D/Elb F78. The persecution of Caroline was one of the topics of Lambton’s speech at the Edinburgh Fox dinner, 12 Jan. 1821, when he called for reform. He and Grey paid their personal respects to the queen, 28 Jan. The Times, 17 Jan. 1821; Creevey Pprs. ii. 7. Presenting and endorsing the Stockton petition in her support, 24 Jan., he urged the House to ‘pay a degree of attention to the sentiments and prayers of the people’, most of whom were ‘in avowed and open hostility, not to the sovereign, but to his ministers’. He presented similar petitions from Durham, 31 Jan., Yarm, 1 Feb., Barnard Castle, 2 Feb., and Chester-le-Street, 6 Feb. The Times, 3, 7 Feb. 1821. He made a splash as seconder of the opposition censure motion, 5 Feb., when he said that its inevitable defeat would confirm the need to reform the Commons. The radical Whig Henry Grey Bennet* thought it ‘a remarkable good speech, moderate and rational’ and, though clearly ‘of great preparation ... well got up’; while his fellow ‘Mountaineer’ Thomas Creevey considered it ‘a very pretty, natural and ornamental speech, delivered with singular grace and discretion, and in a beautiful voice’. HLRO, Hist. Coll. 379, Grey Bennet diary, 12; Creevey Pprs. ii. 12. The Tory Henry Bankes* conceded that Lambton ‘acquitted himself extremely well, and without any of that arrogance and petulance which he has sometimes wanted taste or temper to conceal’. Dorset RO D/BKL, Bankes jnl. 123 (5 Feb. 1821). Grey was pleased with his success and hoped it would have ‘a beneficial effect on him, by making him exert himself more than he has yet done’. When commenting on Tierney’s inadequacies as leader a few days later he asserted that

Lambton might do it, if he had industry and ambition. But the last does not excite him beyond the effort of a speech. When he has obtained the applause of having done well he is satisfied, and relaxes into those habits of self-indulgence which by the faults of his education, and being too early his own master he has unfortunately contracted. Grey mss, Grey to wife, 6, 10 Feb. 1821.

There was talk among the Westminster activists of asking Lambton to chair the public meeting called to address Burdett on his imprisonment for seditious libel, from ‘a hope that the Whigs would subscribe’, but Hobhouse knocked this idea on the head. Add. 56542, f. 1. Lambton divided against the additional malt duty, 14 Feb., and the tax on husbandry horses, 5 Mar., and on 22 Feb. 1821 presented a County Durham petition complaining of agricultural distress, but said he ‘did not think that protecting duties would give any relief ... while the present weight of taxation’ remained. He presented petitions from Sunderland ship owners for revision of the timber duties and from Stockton corporation for reform of the criminal code, 26 Feb. The Times, 23, 27 Feb. 1821. He voted to deplore the Allies’ suppression of the liberal movement in Naples, 21 Feb., and for Catholic relief, 28 Feb. He spoke and voted for reception of Broadhurst’s petition complaining of his treatment in Lancaster gaol, 7 Mar., and on the 9th unsuccessfully moved the previous question against a Tory allegation of breach of privilege by the Whig Morning Chronicle. Lambton, who was believed by the backbencher Hudson Gurney to be on the ‘economical committee of five’ which took over direction of the opposition after Tierney’s resignation, Trinity Coll. Camb. Dawson Turner mss DT2/K2/3. was in Creevey’s minority for a reduction in the number of placemen in the Commons, 9 Mar., and joined in the obstructive resistance to the army estimates, 12 Mar., when his motion to prolong affairs at four in the morning was defeated by 146-38. He cast sporadic votes against the estimates, 14 Mar., 6, 16 Apr., 14, 21 May. At the London Tavern reform dinner, 4 Apr., he prefaced his Commons motion by explaining that he had taken the initiative as no other Whig had seemed willing to do so. He asserted that ‘every species of corruption ... was vindicated with astonishing effrontery’ in the unrepresentative House, called for unity among reformers, sketched the details of his scheme and rejoiced that on the continent liberalism was ‘breaking through the dark clouds of ignorance and tyranny’. The Times, 5 Apr. 1821. Presenting a petition from an inhabitant of Sligo alleging that most of its residents were excluded from the franchise, 11 Apr., he said that he ‘believed that many other Irish boroughs were similarly circumstanced, and that the burgesses in most of them might be inhabitants of Nova Zembla’. Ibid. 12 Apr. 1821. Next day he presented a petition from the resident freeholders of Lyme Regis complaining of Lord Westmorland’s electoral control and supported an unsuccessful bid to have it referred to the committee of privileges (of which he was a member). According to Hobhouse, ‘many efforts’ were made by the Whigs ‘to induce Lambton to postpone his [reform] motion [of 17 Apr.] owing to [an] adjourned debate in the Lords [on the Catholic relief bill and] Castlereagh and Burdett’s absence’, but he would not listen. After describing the ‘improved intelligence’ of the people and asserting that about 180 individuals returned some 350 Members, he proposed an extension of the franchise to householders in the equal single Member districts with which he wished to replace the existing English boroughs, and to copy and leaseholders in the counties, triennial parliaments and curbs on election expenses. Hobhouse thought he spoke ‘well, but detailed his plan too much, and spoke too much on foreign politics’; while George Agar Ellis* felt he ‘spoke remarkably well’. The debate was adjourned to the following day, when Canning took advantage of Lambton’s absence from the chamber for refreshment to divide a thin House by 55-43 against the motion. When Lambton returned to find the House engaged on other business he was greeted with mocking laughter from the government side, which enraged him and prompted him to accuse the ministers Huskisson and George Dawson of ridiculing him and to move an adjournment, but the Speaker slapped him down. Broughton, Recollections, ii. 146, 148-9; Northants. RO, Agar Ellis diary, 17, 18 Apr. [1821]; Heron, Notes, 127; Reid, i. 146-9. According to Grey Bennet, when he next appeared in the House to vote for Russell’s reform motion, 9 May

he would not sit amongst us, but sat with Burdett on the neutral bench ... His conduct on this subject drives me half wild. With great talents and acquirements, his temper makes them useless and unpredictable, and I foresee that he will ruin himself as a public man unless he changes his whole course and character. He is a spoiled child; unless he has his way he will do nothing; and with many virtues and splendid qualities, his habitual indulgence of passion and his determination to brook no check or control will make him quarrel with his friends, and be of no benefit to the cause he espouses. He openly accuses all of us who voted in the minority upon his ... [motion] of being in a conspiracy to ruin him ... and that he never more will act with ... us. It is in vain to tell him that he has nobody to blame but himself, and if he had not adjourned the debate and gone out to dinner, nothing of the nature that did happen would have occurred. Grey Bennet diary, 76-77.

He was in Paris in late June 1821. Three months later Creevey, who disliked him, recorded one of his ‘sublimities’, to the effect that ‘he considered £40,000 a moderate income [and] such a one as a man might jog on with’; henceforward he was ‘King Jog’ in Creevey’s menagerie. Creevey Pprs. ii. 31-32. Incensed by the dismissal of Wilson from the army for his involvement in the disturbances at the queen’s funeral -‘it is a consolation’, he wrote, ‘to think that you have experienced the ministerial vengeance in the name of humanity’ - he contributed £500 to the relief subscription and advised Wilson during the autumn of 1821. Ibid. ii. 32; Add. 30109, ff. 225, 258, 331; 30111, f. 262. In mid-December he took his wife and Lady Ossulston ‘over to Calais on a stormy day in an open boat’, to the astonishment of Henry Fox*, who noted that ‘his insolence to everybody and his tyranny in his family are insufferable’ and ‘his temper and selfishness pass all credited or permitted bounds’. Grey evidently chastised him by letter for his ‘unjustifiable rashness’, but Lambton sent an indignant reply from Paris, 2 Jan. 1822, claiming that the trip had been Louisa’s idea and that the weather had been fine when they set off. He subsequently apologized for his abrasive tone. Fox Jnl. 90, 93; Grey mss, Ellice to Grey [23 Dec. 1821, 4 Feb.], Lambton to same, 2, 22 Jan. 1822.

He divided for the amendment to the address, 5 Feb. 1822, but reported to Grey next day that there had been ‘a very bad attendance’ and that ‘amongst the old stagers of what was our party in the House of Commons there seems the greatest apathy’, although ministers had ‘cut a subservient figure without Canning’. He divided steadily against the Irish insurrection bill, 8 Feb., but was disgusted ‘to hear so many of our friends praising Lord Wellesley’, the new pro-Catholic viceroy, and ‘offering to grant ... supreme powers [to] a man who proved himself in India to be the greatest despot that ever governed that country’. He begged Grey to come to London as it was ‘impossible to conceive anything more disunited than the opposition, many anxious to be in action, but not knowing what to do and having no one to point out to them the best mode’. Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 6, 11 Feb. 1822. He was one of the 21 Whigs shut out of the division on further tax reductions, 11 Feb., when he was hosting a dinner party; Creevey Pprs. ii. 34. but he was present to vote for a similar motion, 21 Feb. Although he disapproved of Wilson’s handling his own case, 13 Feb., he ‘supported him as well as I could, but under the disadvantage of one of my very worst headaches ... so that I was fitter for bed than the House’; he was a teller for the minority. He cast doubt on the success of the government’s plan to relieve agricultural distress, 15 Feb. Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 11, 14 Feb. 1822. He voted for inquiry into the Scottish burghs, 20 Feb., and fairly regularly for economy, retrenchment and reduced taxation until Easter. He presented petitions from Malton, 13 Mar., and Sunderland, 2 May, for mitigation of the criminal code. The Times, 14 Mar., 3 May 1822. He presented and endorsed one for Henry Hunt’s* release from gaol, but dissociated himself from his ‘principles and politics’, 22 Mar.; he was a teller for the minority of 22 and divided for remission of Hunt’s sentence, 24 Apr. He voted silently for Russell’s reform motion, 25 Apr. He presented a Durham tanners’ petition for repeal of the leather tax, 1 May, and two from the ship owners of Sunderland and North Shields against the navigation bill, 6 May, when he said that while he was not opposed to alteration of the laws, he would resist the measure, despite ‘his own sentiments in favour of free trade’, unless ministers convinced him that it would do no harm. He brought up a hostile South Shields petition, 20 May. Ibid. 2, 7, 21 May 1822. He was in the minority of 36 against the new corn duties, 9 May, and presented petitions in favour of the poor removal bill, 31 May 1822. Ibid. 1 June 1822. According to Hobhouse, who had heard that Lambton approved of Burdett’s recent conduct and was ‘eager’ to attend the Westminster anniversary dinner, Lord Tavistock* told him that he was one of the ‘many who would have nothing to do with a measure unless they originated it’ and was therefore unlikely to back Tavistock’s fanciful notion of installing Burdett as opposition leader in the Commons. Lady Grey’s illness prevented Lambton from attending the dinner. Add. 56545, ff. 5-7.

Later that summer he put on a show of ‘magnificence’ to entertain the duke of Sussex at Lambton. At Cantley for the St. Leger in September he ran into Creevey, who reported:

[He] brought with him nine race horses ... [and] is in the greatest possible feather, and does not in the least disguise from one that it is he and not the duke of Sussex who has received the universal adulation of the north ... He is evidently deeply affected at this probability of Canning staying at home [as foreign secretary], which he is pleased to consider as fatal ... Not that he ... wishes ... to see Lord Grey take office; quite the contrary, he believes it would be a very bad thing for him and his friends ... He predicts that Canning will carry all before him in the ... Commons, and that the unhappy Whigs are once more removed for ages from their favourite object ... What a victim of temper poor Lambton is! He has been complaining to me of his unhappiness. I observed ... that he had a good many of the articles men in general considered as tolerable ingredients for promoting happiness; to which he replied, ‘I don’t know that; but I do know that it’s damned hard that a man with £80,000 a year can’t sleep!’ He has not much merit but his looks, his property and his voice and power of public speaking. He has not the slightest power or turn for conversation, and would like to live exclusively on the flattery of toadies. The Times, 3, 6, 10 Sept. 1822; Creevey’s Life and Times, 158-60, 162; Creevey Pprs. ii. 49-50.

Fox witnessed more displays of temper at the annual gathering for Lambton races in October. Fox Jnl. 146-7. Yet when Lambton travelled with Creevey to Lord Sefton’s* home at Croxteth the following month he was ‘very amiable ... barring one volcanic eruption against the post boys for losing their way’. He shunned a proposed ‘committee of foreigners in distress’ because it involved ‘four Saints’, who he said would ‘appropriate part of the money to the use of the blacks at Demerara’. He argued to Creevey (who now called him ‘the angry Boy’) that ‘if ... the Whigs could but arrange our matters between ourselves, the sovereign would be happy to send for us’. After his departure Creevey and Sefton laughed immoderately at his assertion ‘in the strictest confidence that it is of vital importance’ to get Brougham’s consent to James Scarlett’s* becoming lord chancellor and himself attorney-general in a Whig administration. Creevey Pprs. ii. 56-57; Add. 36459, f. 320. With Grey’s blessing, he sounded Lord Darlington, the lord lieutenant, on the possibility of convening a Durham county meeting to declare ‘the necessity of reform’, but the idea was given up for lack of time and because, as Lambton admitted, he had ‘not been pressed by a single individual in the county to agitate the subject’. Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 7, 15 Dec. 1822.

From London in February 1823 he told Grey that in the ‘kind of armistice’ which prevailed pending the outcome of the Franco-Spanish contretemps, ‘nothing is doing in the House worth your hearing’. He took a keen interest in the struggles of the Spanish liberals and with James Macdonald* helped to organize a City dinner in their support. Ibid. Lambton to Grey, 13 Feb. 1823. According to Brougham, he was ‘ailing’ at the beginning of March, when he informed Grey that he did not

like the way in which we are acting with regard to ministers. I think it will be found that they have taken advantage of the confidence granted to them to strengthen the Spanish cause, in order to intrigue ... to induce the Spaniards to alter their constitution. We have thrown our confidence at their heads without them asking for it and I fear we shall pay the penalty of our folly. I do not like to do anything without your advice and therefore I have not said anything in the House, which I otherwise felt inclined to do. Bessborough mss F53, Brougham to Duncannon [2 Mar.]; Grey mss, Lambton to Grey [5 Mar. 1823].

He remained silent on this subject, but was a regular in the opposition division lobby that month. He presented petitions from Sunderland, 4 Mar., and Darlington, 10 Mar., for repeal of the Insolvent Debtors Act, and one from Sunderland, 27 Mar., for repeal of the coastal coal duties, on which topic he had earlier submitted to Liverpool a memorial from local colliery and ship owners. The Times, 5, 11, 28 Mar. 1823; Add. 38293, f. 150. On 24 Mar. he spoke and voted for the production of papers relevant to the prosecution of the Dublin Orange rioters, arguing that a ‘prima facie’ case of ‘injustice and unconstitutional conduct had been made out’ against the renegade Whig William Plunket*, the Irish attorney-general. He was in the opposition majority for a parliamentary inquiry, 22 Apr. In mid-March he and Lord Duncannon* were said to have written to Brougham ‘about some plan of a republican form of government for the opposition’. Add. 76369, Althorp to Brougham, 17 Mar. 1823. He put up his brother Henry, who was abroad, to oppose the re-election of the ministerialist Hardinge for Durham in early April, but he was trounced. Lambton divided for repeal of the Foreign Enlistment Act, 16 Apr., and Russell’s reform motion, 24 Apr. He presented petitions from the ship owners of South Shields and Newcastle against the warehousing bill, 21 Apr., and one from the former against the imposition of additional duties on account of the rebuilding of London Bridge. 16 May. The Times, 22 Apr., 17 May 1823. He went to the Westminster dinner, 23 May, sat at the head of the table next to the chairman Hobhouse and spoke in support of the Spanish and Greek liberals. Hobhouse recorded that he

had a little sparring with Hume, to which Colonel Torrens* ... drew the attention of the company. Lambton was mightily out of sorts and said a fatality attended him and he would give up public life. I told him no notice would be taken by the press, and so it turned out. Add. 56548, ff. 2-3; The Times, 24 May 1823.

He continued to work for the Spaniards, chairing a meeting of the subcommittee appointed to organize a public meeting, 27 May 1823, and proposing a subscription to finance the sending of arms to Vigo, to which he gave £1,000. Reid, i. 159-60; Add. 30110, f. 184; 36460, f. 86; 51832, Wilks to Holland, 28 May 1823.

On 7 Jan. 1824 Lambton, who had been ‘bilious and nervous’ lately, got into a furious row with one Thomas Pemberton, a ‘blackguard’ under prosecution for excise fraud, at a meeting of the River Wear commissioners. His friends talked him out of the folly of fighting a duel with such a reprobate. He managed to keep the episode from his wife and was convinced by the warmth of his reception at a Newcastle Masonic dinner, 27 Jan., that he had acted honourably. Not anticipating any pressing business in the Commons early in the session, he went to stay with Grey in Devonport and did not reach London until the first week in March, to join a deputation of northern colliery owners who urged Robinson, the chancellor of the exchequer, not to alter the coal duties to their disadvantage. His wife’s uncle Edward Ellice* had warned Grey that Lambton would be ‘very angry with his political friends’ should they attack the ‘northern confederacy’. Grey mss, Ellice to Grey [25 Nov. 1823], Lambton to same [29 Jan.], 23 Mar.; Northumb. RO, Ridley mss ZRI 25/45, Grey to Ridley, 4 Mar. 1824. In the House, 1 Apr., he denied that the owners were trying to establish a monopoly. Grey had authorized him to start his eldest son Lord Howick* for Northumberland if the unstable Tory Member Beaumont vacated his seat, as seemed likely. Lambton was keen to finance a campaign to prevent the seat falling to the duke of Northumberland’s candidate, but in the event Beaumont remained in place. Ridley mss 25/45, Grey to Ridley, 21 Mar.; Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 16-18 Mar. [1824]. Lambton presented petitions from the worsted spinners and woollen manufacturers of Darlington against the export of long wool and one from Barnard Castle for the abolition of slavery, 15 Mar., and ten from Durham to the same effect, 16 Mar. He brought up the petition of Sunderland ship owners for an end to drawback on cordage for their Canadian competitors, 25 Mar. He presented petitions from South Shields, Gateshead and Barnard Castle against the hides and skins bill, 29, 31 Mar. The Times, 15, 16, 26, 30 Mar., 1 Apr. 1824. He ‘could not help but laugh’ at Canning’s mockery of fat Lord Nugent’s* Spanish military exploits, 18 Mar. Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 30 Mar. [1824]. He persuaded Hobhouse to divide the House on his amendment to the motion to bring in the aliens bill, 23 Mar. Add. 56548, f. 62. On 2 Apr. he ‘had some good fun with that vulgar beast Hume’ over the grant for the expenses of Sir William Congreve* as inspector-general of gas light companies: when Hume accused him of being an interested party he retorted that ‘if he did not absolutely supply the gas companies with the material from which their smoke was produced, they might go to ...[Hume] for the pipes which conveyed it’. Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 3 Apr. [1824]. He presented petitions against the combination laws from Sunderland boot makers, 5 Apr., and Darlington artisans, 9 Apr., and a Darlington petition for the county courts bill, 8 Apr. The Times, 6, 9, 10 Apr. 1824. On 5 Apr. he told Grey that having been ‘so plagued with headache since the first week of my arrival at Devonport’ and finding no relief from calomel treatment, he had consulted another doctor, who had subjected him, beneficially, to the ‘disagreeable operation’ of cupping. At Easter he went to try the waters at Cheltenham, but suffered ‘extreme languor, with considerable headache, in addition to a cold in the head’. Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 5, 19, 24, 28 Apr. 1824. He voted for repeal of the assessed taxes, 10 May, and inquiry into the state of Ireland, 11 May. At the Westminster dinner, 24 May, as Hobhouse noted, he (like Burdett) ‘expatiated on the inutility of attending Parliament’, where ‘a system of humbug’ prevailed, to the silent annoyance of Hume. He added that on reform he wanted ‘a free and extended suffrage’ of householders at least, and attacked the government’s ‘arbitrary principles’ and ‘temporizing measures’ which had inflicted ‘misery’ on Ireland. Add. 56548; The Times, 25 May 1824. Next day he presented and endorsed Silk Buckingham’s petition alleging infringement of press freedom in India; Hobhouse thought he performed ‘very well’, as a ‘very neat, and indeed finished parliamentary speaker’. Broughton, iii. 44. He presented a Barnard Castle petition deploring the prosecution in Demerara of the Methodist missionary John Smith, 26 May, and voted thus, 11 June. On 14 June 1824 he presented and endorsed the petition of the artist Benjamin Haydon for the encouragement of historical painting. According to Creevey, the ‘ill-fated, ill-conditioned’ Lambton got into ‘another fighting scrape’ in September by calling ‘Dandy’ Mills a liar, but was persuaded by his friends to apologize. He won £2,300 at Doncaster races that month, but Creevey, who paid his first visit to Lambton Hall in October 1824, thought he was ‘infernally damaged in public opinion’ because he won ‘a great deal too much’ at his own races: he was, despite his current civility, ‘a stingy, swindling, tyrannical kip’, who allegedly beat his manservant with a stick for failing to respond immediately to his summons. Creevey’s Life and Times, 201, 203; Creevey Pprs. ii. 80-82; Broughton, iii. 80; Add. 47226, f. 74. He was ‘delighted’ by Plunket’s ‘disgrace’ at the hands of the Orange grand jury. Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 6 Jan. 1825.

He went to London for the Fox dinner in late January 1825. A few days later he sent Francis Place a donation of £50 for the London Mechanics’ Institute. Ibid. Lambton to Grey, 21 Jan. 1825; Add. 27823, ff. 360, 361. He anticipated ‘warmth and violence’ in the Commons over the government’s bill to suppress the Catholic Association, which he steadily but silently opposed in February. He found Burdett inclined to treat reform as ‘a secondary consideration’ to Catholic relief in any negotiations for a coalition ministry and strongly urged Grey to come to London to avoid creating an impression that he disapproved of the conduct of the Catholics. Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 9 [12], 16 [20] Feb. [1825]. He voted for Catholic claims, 1 Mar., and the second reading of the relief bill, 21 Apr., and presented a Cove petition in support of the Association, 16 Mar. The Times, 17 Mar. 1825. He was one of the score of Whigs and radicals who divided against the bill to disfranchise Irish 40s. freeholders, 26 Apr., when he criticized Burdett for accepting it. On 9 May he again spoke and voted against the measure and exchanged angry words with Brougham and Hobhouse over his declared intention of not voting for the third reading of the relief bill next day, when he, Sefton, Creevey and a small ‘squad’ ostentatiously abstained. Buckingham, Mems. Geo. IV, ii. 242, 247. At the Westminster anniversary dinner, 23 May, he was accused by one Fearon of ‘running riot in Parliament respecting Burdett’s bill, and of entertaining the duke of York’. Hobhouse recorded that Lambton ‘gave him a very temperate and good answer and was well received’. Add. 56549, f. 124; The Times, 24 May 1825. He presented Sunderland petitions for repeal of the coastal coal duties, 23 Feb., and opposed and was a minority teller against the Tees railway bill, 4 Mar. The Times, 24 Feb., 5 Mar. 1825. He brought up petitions for repeal of the assessed taxes from Bishop Auckland, 9 Mar., and Stockton, 24 Mar. He welcomed the government’s concession of a select committee on the Combination Acts, to which he was named, 29 Mar., having observed that Hume’s 1824 legislation had failed. He wanted to see Peel, the home secretary, to press him to intervene against rioting north-east seamen, but was ‘completely’ satisfied with his explanation of his ‘prompt and judicious ... arrangements’. Add. 40375, ff. 301, 303. He condemned the disturbances in the House, 15 Apr. As one of the promoters of the New Zealand Company, he sent to Huskisson, president of the board of trade, a memorial applauding the ministry’s ‘enlightened system of commercial policy’ and asking for a grant of 31 years exclusive trading rights. Add. 38761, f. 175. He presented County Durham petitions against interference with the corn laws, 25 Apr., and one from Swallwell artisans for their revision, 29 Apr. 1825, when he urged government to ‘take some steps in order to allay the ... agitation and uncertainty which prevailed upon this subject’. The Times, 26, 30 Apr. 1825.

Creevey reported that Lambton took with surprising ‘philosophy’ the defeat in the St. Leger of the hitherto unbeaten Cedric, which he had recently bought for 2,500 guineas, but that he was reassuringly abrasive and rude at Lambton races in October 1825. Creevey’s Life and Times, 217-18; Creevey Pprs. ii. 91. In late November he became ‘very unwell’, and he remained so for about six weeks; his death was falsely reported in the press on 9 Jan. 1826. He stayed in London under medical supervision, but was too poorly to attend the House. Ellice confided to Grey his belief that ‘beyond all these complaints’ Lambton had been ‘suffering from great anxiety’ about his financial affairs, which were becoming problematic. In early March Tierney found him looking ‘much worse’ and planning to go abroad in May: ‘unless climate does wonders for him [he] goes I fear on a very forlorn hope. I am really sorry for him, for with all his faults he has many good qualities, and to me personally he has always been very kind’. Lambton was ‘very much better’ by early May, and the dissolution delayed his departure to southern Italy. Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 26 Dec. [1825], 30 Jan., Ellice to same [21 Jan.]; The Times, 9 Jan.; Add. 36461, f. 398; 40386, f. 105; 51580, Carlisle to Lady Holland, 27 Mar; 51584, Tierney to Holland, 12 Mar., 10 Apr.; 51586, same to Lady Holland, 3 Mar.; 51668, Bedford to Lady Holland [12 May]; Creevey mss, Creevey to Miss Ord, 23 Feb. 1826. At his unopposed return for his county he applauded the ‘very different system’ of government from the repressive regime of 1820, praised Canning, who ‘had not the support of the Tory aristocracy’ but ‘had to depend upon ... the co-operation and aid of the people’, and called for a continuation of liberal policies, ‘a great and important extension of the elective franchise’ and Catholic emancipation. He refused to support prohibitive restrictions on corn imports, but acknowledged the need to give domestic producers ‘an adequate protection under the artificial state in which they now existed’. The Times, 30 May, 19, 26 June; Newcastle Chron. 17 June 1826; Reid, i. 172; New, 91. Despite still ‘suffering in ... head and cheek’, he threw himself energetically - ‘No more sleep! No more Whig gentryism’, he wrote to Grey - into the organization of the Whig campaign in Northumberland. His reception at the county meeting, where he nominated Matthew Bell*, was cool, and some local Whigs felt that as an outsider he was doing Howick ‘more harm than good’. His bitter personal attacks eventually goaded Beaumont into accusing him of prompting Howick on the hustings, 30 June 1826, and their ensuing exchange of insults led to their fighting a bloodless duel on Bamburgh sands the following day. Reid, i. 170-2; Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 29, 31 May, 1, 3 [6], 25 June, 13 [22] July, Ellice to same, 29 May; Newcastle Chron. 17 June; The Times, 6 June, 3, 4 July 1826; Brougham, iii. 505-7; Add. 30111, f. 231.

Lambton went with his family to Paris, 23 July, and from there to Naples in late September 1826, when Russell reported that he was ‘in good health, but feels the changes of weather, and is bent on his three winters in Italy’. From Naples Lambton wrote to Grey in late January 1827 that Canning’s speech of 12 Dec. 1826 announcing British intervention to defend Portugal against Spanish aggression had ‘produced a wonderful effect on the continent and raised England about one thousand per cent’. Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 22 July 1826, 29 Jan. 1827; Add. 51679, Russell to Lady Holland, 24 Sept. [1826]. His debts were mounting, the coal trade was depressed and he needed to save money. He had already sold his stud, but in February 1827 Grey, who heard that he was ‘quite well and very gay’, thought he was still spending too much. Creevey Pprs. ii. 120; Grey mss, Ellice to Grey [20 Nov. 1826]; NLS, Ellice mss, Grey to Ellice, 7 Feb. 1827. When he learned of the formation of Canning’s ministry in April Lambton, who was rightly believed by Holland and Ellice to covet a peerage, in which ambition he was encouraged by Brougham and Wilson, hurried back to England to affirm his support. He made the journey ‘in ten days, resting five times’ and eating ‘nothing on the road but tea and biscuits and occasionally fruit and eggs’. His ‘adhesion’ was strongly rumoured before he arrived, and Grey, who detested the Lansdowne Whigs’ coalition with Canning, admitted that it was ‘not at all improbable’, though he could not believe that ‘he should have announced his determination without communicating it to me’. Mackintosh was surprised to hear of his supposed ‘love of coalition’, as ‘political placability was not ... a virtue of his’, and suspected that ‘what he really rejoices in is ... the destruction of the Whigs as a party’. He could not see how Lambton could ‘expect to mollify Grey’ and predicted that he would ‘get a quarrel and a peerage for his pains’. Lambton called on Grey in London, 1 June, and his father-in-law reported:

He looks well ... The state of politics brought him home. His opinions are decidedly in favour of the junction with Canning ... Nothing can be more kind than all his expressions and feelings towards me, and he offers to go out of Parliament if the appearance of a difference between us should be painful to me. This of course is out of the question.

Mackintosh, who described him as ‘a red hot Canningite’, encouraged him to inform the House of the boost given to ‘the English character’ by ‘the landing of troops in Portugal’. He did not do so, but, in his last known act in the Commons he voted with government on the grant for Canadian water communications, 12 June, when he told his wife that despite their political differences he was striving to ‘keep well in private with all’ his friends, especially her parents. Canning’s Ministry, 247, 334; Grey mss, Ellice to Grey [28 May]; Ellice mss, Grey to Ellice, 31 May, 1 June; Add. 51655, Mackintosh to Lady Holland, 27 May, 1 June 1827; Add. 52447, f. 70; Creevey Pprs. ii. 120. He apparently rejected an approach from the ousted Tory ministers to become ‘the head of the opposition in the House of Commons’, pursuing ‘measures ... as liberal as those of Canning’. On 9 July Canning sounded him ‘as to his inclination to accept a peerage’, partly to ‘counteract Lord Grey in the House of Lords’; and a few day later he informed Grey that ‘his peerage is settled’, though the timing was still uncertain. Ellice suspected that he had ‘taken gracious expressions for promises and qualified assurances of a desire to promote his views for arrangements’. Canning’s Ministry, 331; Brougton, iii. 208, 209; Ellice mss, Grey to Ellice, 13 July; Grey mss, Ellice to Grey, 19 July 1827. He was in Paris when Canning died, 8 Aug. 1827, but dashed to London. He gleaned something of Lord Goderich’s attempt to form a coalition ministry, of which he approved, attended the funeral and returned to Paris and thence to Italy on the 17th. He told Ellice that day that ‘his great object in returning’ had been to seize any chance of ‘contributing to a better understanding and co-operation’ between the ministers and Grey, and that he believed that ‘in the choice of evils before them, the king and the government were determined ... to convince foreign powers that there would be no change in ... Canning’s policy respecting Greece and Portugal’. ‘All this is mighty well’, remarked Ellice, ‘but [it] does not make the ultimate formation of a good and strong government an atom less difficult’. Grey mss, Ellice to Grey [4], 17 Aug., Lambton to same, 11, 13, 15, 16 Aug.; Wellington Despatches, iv. 91; Lambton mss, Wilson to Lambton, 12 Aug. 1827; Add. 40394, f. 189. Lambton evidently got Lord Lansdowne, home secretary under Canning and engaged in negotiations to remain in office under Goderich, to ensure that his claim to a peerage, to which he felt he had ‘a perfect right’, was not overlooked. Grey, who heard in September that ‘the state of Lambton’s affairs is the talk of Italy, where they say he is ruined and can never again live at Lambton’, commented sourly that he might well ‘get his peerage as a sop to Lansdowne’ from his Tory colleagues. From Rome, 18 Oct., Lambton complained to Wilson that since leaving England he had ‘not had one line ... from any friend in that country’. Still panting for news of his peerage, he made his way to Paris by late November, when Tierney, a member of the government, was ‘sorry but not surprised’ to hear that he was ‘out of humour’. In Florence he had met Fox, who found him ‘in good humour’ and seemingly ‘satisfied with his English prospects’: ‘He talked very bigly about the extreme importance of his return to London, as if upon that depended the stability of the present government’. Fox noted that Lady Louisa was ‘very much annoyed at the state of her husband’s health, and fears it will be necessary to return to Naples, much as she wishes and as he thinks it important that he should be in England. He thinks completely upon politics’. Creevey Pprs. ii. 126; Ellice mss, Grey to Ellice, 8 Sept., 22 Oct.; Add. 30111, f. 308; 51586, Tierney to Lady Holland, 8 Nov. [1827]; Fox Jnl. 234-6. On 19 Nov. Goderich finally overcame the king’s reluctance to confer the peerages promised by Canning, and Lansdowne sent the news confidentially to Lambton, who replied by arguing that ‘he ought to take a move beyond others and be a viscount at once’, on the strength of the antiquity of his family, his wealth and his political influence. Lansdowne feared that this would be ‘impracticable’. Lambton made no mention of the peerage when writing to Grey a few days later of his improved health and qualified approval of the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Navarino; but he did acknowledge Holland’s congratulations, and wrote of his great anxiety to prevent ‘any violent or decided public difference of opinion’ with Grey when the ministry met Parliament in the new year. Grey was sorry that he would be gazetted with ‘five rank Tories’. Geo. IV Letters, iii. 1423; Landsdowne mss, Lambton to Lansdowne, 24 Nov.; Add. 51687, Lansdowne to Holland, 26 Nov., 1 Dec.; 51833, Lambton to same, 3 Dec.; Grey mss, Lambton to Grey, 29 Nov.; Ellice mss, Grey to Ellice, 7 Dec. 1827. Lambton asked Brougham to promote his claim to an earldom, asserting that anything lower would be a degradation, as ‘the situation of first commoner is more marked and honourable than that of the last baron’, and that his grandfather had declined Pitt’s offer of a peerage in 1793. Brougham would not help him, and when sending his letter to Sefton mocked him ‘with every species of ridicule for his pretensions’. Sefton and Creevey reckoned both men to be ‘perfectly incredible’ in their egotism. Brougham, iii. 50-4; Creevey Pprs. ii. 141-2. When Goderich told him in London at the end of December that an earldom was out of the question Lambton gave way. To Grey, of whose disapproval he was painfully aware, he explained lamely that the peerage was ‘never considered by me as a "favour received from the administration"’, but ‘as a matter of right which had been long withheld from my family and which my consenting to receive was more a favour conferred on them than one granted to myself’. He expressed his wish to see Grey installed ‘at the head of a strong and liberal administration’ and argued that in supporting Goderich’s and Canning’s he had been trying to advance that object, as well as ‘to keep out the old Tories’. Grey mss, Lambton to Grey [27 Dec. 1827]. A difficulty over his title (his first preference of D’Arcy was objected to by the duke of Leeds) protracted the business beyond Goderich’s resignation. Meanwhile he tried to convince Grey that the bulk of the Whig party remained loyal to him. The Wellington ministry, prompted by Goderich, agreed to implement the peerages; but several more days elapsed before it was settled that Lambton should become Baron Lambton of the City of Durham. He told Grey that ‘my great consolation in a Tory government is that I shall find myself by your side’ in the Lords in opposition to it. He felt obliged to let it be known that the peerage had not been conferred by the new administration. The duke of Bedford snobbishly commented to Lady Holland, 28 Jan. 1828:

So Mr. Lambton the great commoner and coal man has fallen into the ranks of the mushroom peers ... He certainly has not changed for the better, and was far more respectable as Mr. Lambton of Lambton Castle than as my Lord anything ... though as the prince in a principality he may consider himself as a sort of make-believe prince ... and having been King Coal, he is now Prince Durham. Lambton has always appeared to me more like a rich parvenu than an English gentleman, as his father and grandfather unquestionably were. Geo. IV Letters, iii. 1448, 1453; Grey mss, Lambton to Grey [8, 12, 17], 18 Jan. 1828; Wellington Despatches, iv. 185-6, 188-90, 196-7; Broughton, iii. 236; Add. 51669.

He was appointed lord privy seal in his father-in-law’s 1830 administration: he would have preferred ‘the occupation of an office’, but had placed himself entirely at Grey’s disposal. He assured Lord Londonderry that he would

find the new government as much attached to conservative principles as you could wish. But ... that conservation is to be effected not by a blind and obstinate resistance to the just demands of the intelligence of the age, but by a judicious and yet sufficient concession. Make the middle and lower orders interested in the maintenance of a constitution which guarantees your high principles and at the same time ensures them the possession of their just rights. We shall then have one common interest. Dur. RO, Londonderry mss D/Lo/C86/16.

Durham chaired the committee of four which devised the ministerial reform proposals. His preferences for the secret ballot and triennial parliaments were eventually discarded, but he later tried to claim most of the credit for the scheme, to the detriment of Russell. M. Brock, Great Reform Act, 136, 140-1; J. Cannon, Parliamentary Reform, 204-11. His experience of office was brief and unhappy. As early as 20 July 1831 Holland wrote in his diary of his

childish ill humour with most of his [cabinet] colleagues and with Grey in particular (to whom he owes his office and seat and such importance and consideration as he enjoys) ... When any individual in our councils differs with him in opinion or criticizes the minutest article of the [reform] bill ... he answers him shortly and petulantly by imputing his opposition to some mean and interested motive or by resenting the observation as a personal reflection upon himself. This, in spite of some very good qualities and yet greater talents, is intolerable and renders him both useless and offensive in council. I am afraid his forward temper will ere long furnish more matter for my diary of ministerial transactions than will be pleasant to witness or record. Holland House Diaries, 8.

So it proved. Durham ‘hurt’ Grey ‘with an unreasonable and unseasonable request’ for an earldom in early September 1831. The death from consumption three weeks later of his beloved elder son Charles William, at the age of 13, almost unhinged him. Grief contributed to his ‘unprovoked and ungovernable tirade’ against Grey, 30 Nov. 1831, over modifications to the reform bill adopted in his absence on a mission to Belgium; the rest of the cabinet were horrified and disgusted by it. Ibid. 44, 88-89; Three Diaries, 134; Greville Mems. ii. 228-9; Le Marchant, Althorp, 374-4; Reid, i. 261-96. He remained a disruptive element in 1832 (when two of the daughters of his first marriage died), until he was sent on a futile special mission to Russia, Prussia and Austria. Problems continued on his return, and in March 1833, in wretched health and unhappy with the government’s church policy, he resigned from the cabinet, ‘gratified’, as Holland noted, ‘with an earldom for which, in spite of all his understanding, and his half republican principles, he had long panted with childish vanity’. Creevey’s Life and Times, 346; Three Diaries, 217; Lieven Letters, 328, 329, 337; Greville Mems. ii. 331-2; Reid, i. 297-321; New, 200-43; Holland House Diaries, 207. He quarrelled irrevocably with Brougham in 1834, manoeuvred unsuccessfully as self-styled leader of the advanced Whigs for the succession to Grey, was deliberately excluded from his cabinet by Lord Melbourne in April 1835 and in July was got out of the way as ambassador to Russia. A third daughter died in December. Reid, ii. 1-135; New, 244-300; Holland House Diaries, 294; Broughton, v. 161-2; I. Newbould, Whiggery and Reform, 177-8. Early in 1838 he was sent as governor-general to Canada, but his regime was disastrous and he resigned precipitately and unjustifiably after nine months. The Report with which his name is associated, a blueprint for subsequent colonial policy, has now been largely discredited. Reid, ii. 136-305; New, 301-474; G. Martin, The Durham Report and British Policy, p. vii. Consumption overtook him and he died at Cowes, Isle of Wight in July 1840. By his will, dated 29 Apr. 1837, he left all his property to his wife, who followed him to the grave sixteen months later. His personalty was sworn under £250,000 in the province of York and under £12,000 in that of Canterbury, but he left mortgage debts of about £635,000. He was succeeded in his estates and the peerage by his only surviving son George Frederick D’Arcy (1828-79), under whom coal profits increased and debts were reduced by over £500,000. Gent. Mag. (1840), ii. 316-20; The Times, 22, 29, 30 July, 12, 18 Aug., 5 Oct. 1840; PROB 8/233 (3 Oct. 1840); PROB 11/1934/692; Reid, ii. 343-76; Spring, 250-3. Hobhouse wrote that he was

in the main, a kind and friendly man. Whatever defects he had were on the surface, and he took no pains to conceal them ... He had cultivated his understanding with more assiduity than is usually bestowed upon intellectual qualities by young men of his position. He was a good and fluent speaker ... [and] had an abundance of political courage, sometimes, perhaps, a little approaching to rashness; but, in his intercourse with his friends, he was by no means overbearing, nor excepting in public controversy, arrogant ... He did not attach so much value to his character, or opinions, as to give himself a sufficient amount of self-confidence in matters of importance. With all his manifest defects, he was much beloved in his own country. Broughton, v. 291-2.

Despite their rift, Brougham judged him generously:

He was in the best sense of the word high-spirited. He was generous, open, and incapable of falsehood or meanness ... His abilities were great ... When he spoke in Parliament ... he distinguished himself very much, and ... at public meetings more than almost anybody. He was very modest respecting his own merits ... He really was chiefly fond of exalting his wealth and family ... He ... overrated greatly his parliamentary weight in Durham ... [He was] very active in political matters ... and very much misunderstood ... Always a strong party man, he had violent personal prejudices, and strong dislikes and dislikings. Brougham, iii. 500, 504-5.

Sydney Smith, who had a soft spot for him, observed to Lady Grey that ‘in spite of his defects, which were apparent, there was a great deal of excellence in him’; but Benjamin Disraeli* commented that his ‘death makes no sensation. He was found out before his last illness - a dull charlatan’. Smith Letters, ii. 704; Disraeli Letters, iii. 1082.