William Godwin's Diary

Lamb, Lady Caroline (née Ponsonby)

  • Name: Lamb, Lady Caroline (née Ponsonby)
  • Gender: Female
  • Birth Date: 13  November  1785
  • Death Date: 26  January  1828
  • Occupation: novelist

References include a 'L C L' in 1824. Godwin knew her in the last ten years of her life, after her affair with Byron. Although she was to a considerable extent estranged from her husband (William Lamb, subsequently Lord Melbourne), and formally separated from him after 1825, they both helped support Godwin financially, and Godwin used his connections with Melbourne to secure and preserve his sinecure at the end of his life. Godwin visited Brocket Hall (Melbourne's seat) in 1822 and stayed three days.

The DNB suggests that Lady Caroline Lamb 'spent lonely drunken last years at Brocket Hall.' Howeever, while the Diary has no entries for the last twenty months of her life, prior to that there seems to have been reasonably consistent contact with Godwin in London. Godwin records her death -she died on the 26th January and Godwin enters it for the 25th.

  • DNB

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.

Name Number of Meetings
Bury, Lady Charlotte Susan Maria (née Campbell) 2
Lytton, Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer (first Baron Lytton) 2
Lamb, William (second Viscount Melbourne) 2
Benger, Elizabeth Ogilvy 1
White, 1