[1] Lamb was educated in the United Kingdom, at Blundell's School in Tiverton and at St John's College at Cambridge.
Lamb arrived in Sabah, then part of the British Crown Colony of North Borneo, in 1962 and started work on developing agricultural settlement schemes around Tawau.
[2] In 1981, Lamb set up the Tenom Orchid Centre as a Sabah State Government conservation project.
Lamb authored several volumes relating to the native orchids of Kinabalu Park, in Sabah,[2] and Lamb described his life's work in an extensive 2004 interview, The Lost World of Sabah, in The Daily Telegraph.
[4] The New Zealand Native Group has recognized the work he has done over the years in 2016 for the Orchids of Borneo.