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Quick Facts

• William Pitt the Younger: Prime Minister No.16
  • Life: 28 May, 1759 – 23 January, 1806 (d. 46)
• Administration (I): 19 December, 1783 – 14 March, 1801
  • Age in office: 24-46 years old
  • Duration of administration: 17 years and 86 days
  • Political faction: Tory (he would have said an Independent Whig)
  • Predecessor: Duke of Portland (I)
  • Successor: Henry Addington (Nineteenth century)

Click to read: Why is the Prime Minister ‘on the Pan’?

The Bare Essentials: William Pitt the Younger

• Rapid rise to the top job: He became MP for Appleby in the north of England in January 1781 (aged 21), then he became Chancellor of the Exchequer in July 1782 (aged 23) and was made Prime Minister on 10 December 1783 (aged 24).
• How he became PM: The conditions were right. In many ways there was no-one else to lead a government. The King saw and took an opportunity to rid himself of Charles James Fox (he hated Fox), part of the Portland-led coalition government of Fox and Lord North – that came with Fox’s East India Bill. The king influenced a Lords rejection of the bill. He then dismissed the government and brought in Pitt. Pitt had been more than an able political performer and was liked by the Commons, the public and the King.
• How his premiership ended: Pitt resigned as Prime Minister in 1801. He clashed with the King over giving more freedoms to Catholics following union with Ireland in 1801 (George III would not have that), he was exhausted under his workload and alcohol intake, and he had been unable to defeat France.
• Interesting Fact List
  • The youngest Prime Minister ever anywhere – Britain and the world (he became PM aged 24)
  • Second longest term as PM (His first term was 17 years and 86 days. His second term was 1 year and 258 days. The combined duration was 18 years and 345 days. He was beaten only by Robert Walpole, 20 years and 315 days)
  • First Prime Minister of the United Kingdom: Pitt the Younger was the first PM of the new United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, created on 1 January 1801 with the union of the British and Irish parliaments. This premiership, Pitt’s first, ended on 14 March 1801 so he held this new title for just three and a half months.
  • Second son: Pitt the Younger was one of three ‘second sons’ who became an Eighteenth century PM:
    • Henry Pelham, 1743-1754 (older brother was the Duke of Newcastle who actually became PM directly after his younger brother Henry)
    • George Grenville, 1763-1765 (his older brother, 2nd Earl Temple, was a successful MP, as were his three younger brothers!)
    • William Pitt the Younger, 1783-1801 (his older brother John had a career in the army and was also an MP)
• A great orator: The golden age of oratory in the British Parliament spanned the late Eighteenth to the mid-Nineteenth century. Those who know, say Pitt was one of the greats, along with his father William Pitt the Elder, and his contemporaries Charles James Fox and Edmund Burke. Like many of the age, his speeches would have been long in duration easily more than 1 hour, extremely well prepared, full of the techniques of logic and drama and loaded with references from the Greek and Roman classics.
• Whig, Tory or Independent: Pitt wanted to be independent of the king and party, but he took his seat as MP for Appleby as a Whig. Prime Ministers were often viewed by the public as Tories because they governed alongside the King. History views Pitt’s administration as Tory.
• Achievements in office: Pitt’s first term was 17 years in duration, so a lot was done in that time. Hearnshaw (dear, Hearnshaw) tells us Pitt’s Premiership can be divided into two parts, Period of Peace, 1783-1793 and the Period of War, 1793-1801. Here are some interesting highlights:
  • 1785: He attempted limited parliamentary reform, but this failed
    1786: Pitt ordered the creation of the first penal colony in Australia, now that Britain could no longer send convicts to America
  • 1794: His government suspended habeus corpus (allowing the arrest and detention of radicals suspected of treason with the French government, for example). This is seen as a ‘black mark’ in Pitt’s jotter.
  • 1799: Pitt introduces Britain’s first ever income tax – to fund the war with France
  • 1800: Act of Union, unites parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland
  • 1801: He attempted what King George III was always going to deny – Catholic Emancipation. (See why his premiership ended, below)
• Abolition of slavery: On 12 May, 1787 Pitt challenged his close friend William Wilberforce, MP, to turn his personal abolitionist views into a parliamentary cause. The conversation took place at Pitt’s estate in Kent under a tree known as the ‘Wilberforce Oak’. Twenty years later, one year after Pitt’s death, Wilberforce’s Foreign Slave Trade Bill received Royal Assent.
• He fought a duel: In 1798 Pitt accused MP George Tierney of a lack of patriotism during a Commons debate. This resulted in a duel on Putney Heath, London, on 27 May, 1798. Both fired a single shot, both missed and the matter was settled. King George III was furious
• Second administration: Pitt left Government in 1801, but returned for a short 16 month term as Prime Minister from 10 May, 1804 – 23 January, 1806.

Sources for information about William Pitt the Younger

The Prime Ministers, Iain Dale (2020) (Pitt article by Mark Garnett)
William Pitt the Younger episode of Iain Dale’s Presidents, Prime Ministers, Monarchs and Dictators podcast
British Prime Ministers of the 18th Century, FJC Hearnshaw (1928)
Museum of the Prime Minister: William Pitt the Younger
UK Govt Past Prime Ministers: William Pitt the Younger
Wikipedia: William Pitt the Younger