George Lambert, 2nd Viscount Lambert


George Lambert, 2nd Viscount Lambert, TD was a British politician.

Early life

Lambert was the eldest son of long-serving Devon Member of Parliament, the Rt. Hon. George Lambert. He was educated at Harrow and New College, Oxford. During World War II, he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers, but transferred to the Royal Artillery in 1940. He became a Lieutenant-Colonel and a War Office liaison officer, visiting the Mediterranean, India and South-East Asia Commands.

Political career

In Parliament, Lambert spoke on agriculture matters. After almost fifty years in Parliament, George Lambert senior stepped down at the 1945 general election and was created Viscount Lambert. Lambert younger stood successfully as a National Liberal candidate in his father's seat, South Molton. In 1950 the constituency was abolished and replaced by Torrington, which Lambert continued to serve until his father's death in 1958, at which point he joined the House of Lords. This prompted the 1958 Torrington by-election and the Liberal Party's first by-election gain in almost thirty years.

Personal life

He married Patricia Quinn in 1939. Quinn who was Anglo-Irish, came over from her family home Greylands in Dalkey to be educated in England where she was educated at the Sacred Heart Convent in Roehampton where she shared a room with Vivien Leigh and they became lifelong friends; she was a bridesmaid at her first wedding.
Lambert and his wife had a son, George, who died in 1970 in a car accident and a daughter Louise, who married Sir Peter Gibbings, Chairman of the Guardian Newspaper 1973-1988 and the Radio Authority. Lady Gibbings works in the voluntary sector supporting mentoring and prison visiting programmes. She is a trustee of the Forward Trust.
Lambert sold the family estate in Devon in the 1970s and moved to Switzerland where he died in 1989. Patsy, Viscountess Lambert, died in 1991.
His brother Michael who lived near Siena inherited the title but he died without issue in 1999 and the title became extinct.

Arms