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Portrait of Pitt the Elder

Prime Ministers · 18th century

Pitt the Elder

1708–1778 · English

Whig

In office: 1766–1768

William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham, was the 'Great Commoner' whose direction of the Seven Years' War as Secretary of State (1756–61) won Canada, India and much of the Caribbean and West Africa for Britain. His own premiership (1766–68), after he took a peerage as Earl of Chatham, was crippled by illness. He was the father of Pitt the Younger.

How to spot them

  • ▸'The Great Commoner'; Earl of Chatham from 1766
  • ▸War strategist of the Seven Years' War; the 'Year of Victories' (1759)
  • ▸Collapsed in the House of Lords in 1778 (painted by Copley)
  • ▸Pittsburgh is named after him; father of Pitt the Younger

In office

'I know that I can save this country and that no one else can' (1756)

His boast on taking charge of the war effort

The 'Year of Victories': Minden, Quebec and Quiberon Bay (1759)

The climax of the war strategy he directed as Secretary of State

Fort Duquesne renamed after him, origin of Pittsburgh (1758)

Named by General John Forbes after capturing the French fort

The Townshend Duties imposed by his ministry (1767)

Chancellor Charles Townshend taxed colonial imports while the Prime Minister was incapacitated

Collapse in the House of Lords during a debate on America (1778)

Taken ill mid-speech on 7 April 1778; died a month later

Key ideas

  • Linked war aims to trade: colonial and naval conquest to benefit British merchants
  • Sympathetic to American grievances, opposing the Stamp Act while upholding imperial authority

Quick-fire facts

  • •Walpole called him 'that terrible cornet of horse' after he attacked the government while a junior cavalry officer
  • •First entered Parliament for the notorious rotten borough of Old Sarum
  • •His grandfather Thomas 'Diamond' Pitt, Governor of Madras, sold the Pitt Diamond to the French regent
  • •Took the title Earl of Chatham in 1766, costing him much popularity as 'the Great Commoner'
  • •John Singleton Copley painted The Death of the Earl of Chatham, showing his collapse in the Lords
  • •Gov.uk quotes him: 'Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it'

Drill it — 7 cards

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Sources