Pitt, William, the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham

Pitt, William, the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708-1778), British statesman, Prime Minister of Great Britain (1766-1768), who also led the country to victory over France in the Seven Years’ War.

Pitt was born on November 15, 1708, in Westminster. The importance of the Pitt family had been established by Thomas Pitt, his grandfather, who made a fortune in India. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Oxford. In 1731 his uncle, Lord Cobham, provided him with a commission in the King’s Own Regiment of Horse. He entered Parliament in 1735, representing the rotten borough of Old Sarum that was controlled by his family. He was an intense, forceful orator and became a prominent spokesman for the opposition to Robert Walpole. In 1739 the “boy patriots” pushed Walpole into war with Spain, and when Walpole failed to provide aggressive leadership, Pitt contributed to the political pressure that forced his resignation in 1742. Consequently, George II refused to give Pitt important political office, but in 1746 he was made paymaster of the army in the Cabinet of Henry Pelham.

Pitt’s principal goal was the expansion of Britain’s imperial power in order to increase national trade. His opportunity came when war broke out with France in America in 1754 (see French and Indian War); in 1756 this became a global conflict with the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War. Britain did badly at first, but in 1757 Pitt and the Duke of Newcastle together formed a coalition ministry that combined Newcastle’s long political experience with Pitt’s dynamic energy. Though not prime minister, Pitt was the dominant force in the coalition ministry, and gained a great reputation as a vigorous patriot. He attacked the French Empire boldly, giving commands to able and ambitious young officers. In a series of remarkable victories the British conquered Canada, the area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, the French West Indies, and the French trading posts in West Africa. The British East India Company, strengthened by the brilliant generalship of Robert Clive, destroyed French power in India in the third and last of the Carnatic Wars. In the meantime Pitt used British gold to support Frederick II of Prussia, who was able to hold out against France, Austria, and Russia until an exhausted France was ready for peace.

The death of George II in 1760 changed the political situation, for his successor, the young George III, distrusted both Newcastle and Pitt and was determined to assert himself. Pitt resigned in 1761 when his advice to attack Spain was rejected by the king and the Cabinet. The following year Spain declared war, and the mighty forces that Pitt had assembled captured Florida, Havana, and Manila. Although the Treaty of Paris (1763) made Great Britain the dominant imperial power, Pitt criticized the treaty severely.

The rest of Pitt’s life was marked by political frustration and ill health. He condemned the action taken by the ministry of his brother-in-law, George Grenville, against John Wilkes, and denounced the government’s treatment of the colonies, defending American resistance to the Stamp Act. The following year George III made him Earl of Chatham and turned to him to form a non-partisan government that would end dissent at home and unrest in the colonies. However, illness prevented him from directing policy, and his chancellor, Charles Townshend, introduced the Townshend Acts that further fuelled colonial discontent. The ministry was a failure; it fell apart in 1768, and Pitt’s influence after that was negligible. In 1778 he collapsed in the House of Lords while delivering a speech opposing American independence. He died a month later at Hayes in Kent on May 11, 1778.

Pitt was at his best leading the nation in war. His appeals to national pride and public opinion as “the great Commoner” have led some historians to see him as a prototype of later democratic leaders, such as David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. His failure as prime minister was a result of his increasing arrogance and inability to form a coherent political coalition in Parliament.