The son of Robert Lamont (forester to Earl Fife) and Elizabeth Ewan, his education began at the local school in Inverey, near Braemar.

In 1817 his father died and John was sent to be educated at St James' monastery (Scots Benedictine College) at Regensburg, Germany.

He performed magnetic surveys in Bavaria and northern Germany, France, Spain, and Denmark.

In 1867 he was awarded the Merit Order of the Bavarian Crown by the King of Bavaria, through which Lamont was ennobled and permitted to use the predicate "von".

The statue on his tomb in Munich has him with an open hand, into which the locals put small coins.