John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham

The Right Honourable The Earl of Durham GCB PC
Portrait of John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham
Lord Privy Seal
In office 22 November 1830 – March 1833
Monarch	William IV
Prime Minister	The Earl Grey
Preceded by	The Earl of Rosslyn
Succeeded by	The Earl of Ripon
Lieutenant-Governor of Lower Canada
In office 1838–1839
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Lord Melbourne
Preceded by	The Earl of Gosford
Succeeded by	The Lord Sydenham
Governor General of the Province of Canada
In office 1838–1839
Prime Minister	The Lord Melbourne
Preceded by	Sir John Colborne
Succeeded by	The Lord Sydenham
Personal details
Born	12 April 1792 London, England
Died	Cowes, Isle of Wight
Nationality	British
Political party	Whig
Spouse(s)	Lady Harriet Cholmondeley (d. 1815) Lady Louisa Grey (d. 1841)
Signature

John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, GCB, PC (12 April 1792 – 28 July 1840), also known as "Radical Jack" and commonly referred to in Canadian history texts simply as Lord Durham, was a British Whig statesman, colonial administrator, Governor General and high commissioner of British North America.

Background and education

Lambton was born 29 April 1792 in the house of his father William Henry Lambton at 14 Berkeley Square in London, England. His mother was Lady Anne Barbara Frances, daughter of George Villiers, 4th Earl of Jersey. Lambton was christened with the names of his grandfathers, John Lambton and George Villers. In the time of Lambton's birth, his father was taking active part in the formation and chairing of the Society of the Friends of the People.

After attending Eton he joined the army in 1809 as a cornet in the 10th Hussars, but resigned in 1811. Following his father's death in 1797, Durham had inherited an immense fortune, derived largely from mining on lands surrounding Lambton Castle, the ancestral family home in County Durham, which formed the basis of Lambton Collieries. Other properties in County Durham included Dinsdale Park and Low Dinsdale Manor.. In 1821, he earned the epithet 'Jog Along Jack', after being asked what was an adequate income for an English gentleman, and replying, "that a man might jog along comfortably enough on £40,000 a year" (equivalent to approximately £3,900,000 at 2014 values)

Political career

Durham was first elected to Parliament for County Durham in the general election of 1812, a seat he held until 1828, when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Durham, of the City of Durham and of Lambton Castle in the County Palatine of Durham. When his father-in-law Lord Grey (see below) became prime minister in 1830, Durham was sworn of the Privy Council and appointed Lord Privy Seal. In this capacity he helped draft the Reform Bill of 1832. Lord Durham resigned from cabinet in 1833. Later the same year he was further honoured when he was made Viscount Lambton and Earl of Durham.

Between 1835 and 1837, he served as Ambassador to Russia. While in Russia, he was invested as a Knight of the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky, of the Order of St. Andrew and of the Order of St. Anna. In 1837, he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.

Canada

Lord Durham first set foot on the soil of British North America in Lower Canada on 29 May 1838. One of his tasks as Governor-General was to investigate the circumstances surrounding the Lower Canada Rebellion of Louis-Joseph Papineau and the Upper Canada Rebellion of William Lyon Mackenzie, which had both occurred earlier that year. His decisions with regard to the Rebellion prisoners encountered stiff opposition at Westminster, and he lost the support of the Prime Minister, Melbourne, whereupon he published his repudiation and resignation 9 October 1838 and set sail for London on 1 November.

Durham's detailed and famous Report on the Affairs of British North America (London, January 1839) recommended a modified form of responsible government and a legislative union of Upper Canada, Lower Canada and the Maritime Provinces.

Lord Durham has been lauded in French Canadian history for his recommendation to introduce responsible government. However, the British government did not accept that recommendation and it took 10 more years before Parliamentary democracy was finally established in the colonies. Lord Durham is less well regarded for recommending the union of Upper and Lower Canada.

As soon as 1844, Lord Durham's intended policy of assimilation faced setbacks, as Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine's party in the House managed to force de facto re-establishment of French as a language of Parliament. Once responsible government was achieved (1848), French Canadians in Canada East succeeded by voting as a bloc in ensuring that they were powerfully represented in any cabinet, especially as the politics of Canada West was highly factional. The resulting deadlock between Canada East and West led to a movement for federal rather than unitary government, which resulted in the creation of confederation, a federal state of Canada, incorporating New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in 1867.

Family

Master Lambton: Lambton's eldest son (until his death, aged 13) Charles William, painted by Thomas Lawrence and later known as The Red Boy.

Lord Durham was twice married. He fell in love with Harriet, the illegitimate daughter of the Earl of Cholmondeley, but then aged under 21 and refused the required permission by his guardians to marry her, they married at Gretna Green on 1 January 1812, then in an Anglican ceremony at her father's estate of Malpas, Cheshire, on 28 January that year. They had three daughters, who all predeceased him:

• Lady Frances Charlotte (16 October 1812 – 18 December 1835), married the Hon. John Ponsonby (later 5th Earl of Bessborough), but died a few months later of consumption.
• The Hon. Georgiana Sarah Elizabeth (2 March 1814 – 3 January 1833)
• The Hon. Harriet Caroline (30 May 1815 – 12 June 1832)

After Harriet's death in July 1815, he married secondly Lady Louisa Grey, daughter of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, on 9 December 1816 at Lord Grey's estate, Howick, Northumberland. They had two sons and three daughters:

• The Hon. Charles William (16 January 1818 – 24 September 1831) — see The Red Boy
• Lady Mary Louisa (8 May 1819 – 9 March 1898), married James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin
• Lady Emily Augusta (17 May 1823 – 2 November 1886), married Henry Cavendish, son of the Hon. Henry Cavendish
• The Hon. George Frederick D'Arcy (5 September 1828 – 27 November 1879), later 2nd Earl of Durham
• Lady Alice Anne Caroline (16 April 1831 – 15 January 1907), married Sholto Douglas, Lord Aberdour (later 18th Earl of Morton)

Lord Durham died at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in July 1840, aged 48, and was buried at St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street. He was succeeded by his eldest and only surviving son, George. The Countess of Durham only survived her husband by a year and died aged 44 on 26 November 1841 at Genoa from a serious cold.

Legacy

Names given in honour of the Earl include Lambton County, Ontario, Lambton, Toronto (including Lambton Mills, Lambton Mills Cemetery and Lambton House), Lambton Avenue in Toronto, Lord Durham Public School (Ajax, Ontario, closed), Lambton, Québec, Lambton Quay, Lambton Ward and Lambton Harbour in Wellington in New Zealand, and Durham Heights and Cape Lambton (both in the southern tip of Banks Island in the Northwest Territories). The Penshaw Monument in County Durham, on a hill west of Sunderland, was built in his honour.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Durham
• Watch the 1961 short drama Lord Durham at the National Film Board of Canada

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Sir Henry Vane-Tempest, Bt Viscount Barnard	Member of Parliament for County Durham 1812–1828 With: Viscount Barnard 1812–1815 Hon. William Powlett 1815–1828	Succeeded by Hon. William Powlett William Russell
Political offices
Preceded by The Earl of Rosslyn	Lord Privy Seal 1830–1833	Succeeded by The Earl of Ripon
Civic offices
Preceded by The Earl Fitzwilliam	High Steward of Hull 1833–1840	Succeeded by The Marquess of Normanby
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Hon. John Duncan Bligh (ad interim)	British Ambassador to Russia 1833–1837	Succeeded by John Ralph Milbanke (ad interim)
Government offices
Preceded by The Earl of Gosford	Lieutenant-Governor of Lower Canada 1838–1839	Succeeded by The Lord Sydenham
Preceded by Sir John Colborne	Governor General of the Province of Canada 1838–1839
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Earl of Durham 1833–1840	Succeeded by George Lambton
	Baron Durham 1828–1840