Author: Lamb, Caroline
Biography:
LAMB, Caroline, formerly PONSONBY (1785-1828: ODNB)
She was the daughter of an Irish peer, Frederick Ponsonby (1758-1844), 3rd Earl of Bessborough from 1793, and his wife Henrietta Frances Spencer (1761-1821), daughter of the first Earl Spencer and younger sister of the celebrated Whig hostess Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Born in London on 13 Nov. 1785, the only girl in the family, she proved a lively but impulsive and difficult child; her education was irregular. From the age of six, she accompanied her mother when she travelled to Switzerland and Italy for her health; there she was tutored in art (at which she showed talent) and languages. On 3 June 1805 at St. Marylebone, London, she married the Hon. William Lamb (1779-1848), later Viscount Melbourne, who would serve as Prime Minister 1835-41. They had three children but two died early in infancy and the third, George (1807-36), was epileptic and mentally handicapped, and required constant care. After the death of her mother in 1821, they adopted a child who had been her ward, Susan Churchill. The marriage was stormy but passionate; William Lamb overlooked his wife’s occasional infidelities and reckless behaviour. Her scandalous affair with Byron (q.v.) in 1812—and off and on until his marriage in 1814—strained the Lambs’ relationship but they did not formally separate until 1825 and he returned from official duties in Ireland to be with her when she died in 1828. A Gothic novel, Glenarvon (1816), published anonymously but known to be hers and generally understood to be a portrait of Byron, was the first of several acts of literary revenge. Besides the poems listed here and some contributions to annuals, she wrote two more novels, Graham Hamilton (1822) and Ada Reis (1823). After the separation in 1825, she lived mainly at Lamb’s country house, Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire, but spent her last days at Melbourne House on Whitehall, London, where she died of dropsy on 26 Jan. 1828. She was buried on 4 Feb. at St. Etheldreda, Hatfield, Hertfordshire. (ODNB 1 Dec. 2023; Orlando 1 Dec. 2023; ancestry.com 1 Dec. 2023; findmypast.com 1 Dec. 2023)
Other Names:
- Lady Caroline Lamb