John Lambert (civil servant)

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Sir John Lambert KCB PC (4 February 1815 – 27 January 1892) was a British solicitor and civil servant from Salisbury. He studied at Downside School and worked as a solicitor in Salisbury. In the 1840s he helped build St Osmund’s, the first Catholic church in Salisbury since the Reformation. He became Mayor of Salisbury in 1854, the first Roman Catholic mayor of a cathedral city since the Reformation.

In 1857 he was appointed inspector for the Poor Law Board. In 1863 he was asked to design relief measures for the Lancashire Cotton Famine, which led to the Union Relief Aid Acts and the Public Works (Manufacturing Districts) Act 1864. He helped draft Reform Bills for the governments of Lord John Russell and then for Benjamin Disraeli, and worked on the Irish Church Act 1869 and the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870 for Gladstone. He also produced the Metropolitan Poor Act 1867 and served on many government commissions.

In 1871 he became Permanent Secretary to the Local Government Board, retiring in 1882. He was made a Companion of the Bath (CB) on Gladstone’s recommendation and a Knight Commander of the Bath (KCB) in 1879 on Disraeli’s. He joined the Privy Council in 1885. An authority on church music, he helped revive plainchant and received a gold medal from Pope Pius IX. He and publisher James Burns started the Catholic publishing house Burns & Lambert (later Burns & Oates). He died on 27 January 1892 and was buried behind St Osmund’s Church, Salisbury.