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William Pitt the Younger was a prime minister who consolidated the powers of his office. Though he was sometimes opposed by members of his Cabinet, he helped define the role of the Prime Minister as the supervisor and co-ordinator of the various government departments.
William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award.
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, PC, FRS (15 November 1708 – 11 May 1778) was a British Whig statesman who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1766 to 1768. Historians call him "Chatham" or "Pitt the Elder" to distinguish him from his son William Pitt the Younger, who also served as prime minister.
- Overview
- Early life
- Pitt’s first ministry, 1783–1801
William Pitt, the Younger (born May 28, 1759, Hayes, Kent, England—died January 23, 1806, London) British prime minister (1783–1801, 1804–06) during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. He had considerable influence in strengthening the office of the prime minister.
William Pitt was the second son of William Pitt, 1st earl of Chatham, a famous statesman of the mid-18th century, whose energy contributed much to Britain’s successful prosecution of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) with France. His mother was Lady Hester Grenville, sister of George Grenville (who headed the government from 1763 to 1765). Both because he was extremely delicate and because his father disliked public schools, he was educated at home. He was a precocious boy and went to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, at the age of 14. Because of persistent ill health, he made use in 1776 of the antiquated privilege that allowed noblemen’s sons to graduate without examination. Left, after his father’s death in 1778, with an income of less than £300 a year, he was called to the bar in 1780 and joined the western assize circuit. In September 1780, because of his youth, he failed to secure election to Parliament for Cambridge University but four months later was provided with a seat for Appleby in Westmorland, on condition that he should resign it should his views and those of his patron diverge. Pitt made a successful maiden speech and, in March 1782, when it was clear that a new ministry would soon be formed, announced with astonishing self-confidence that he had no intention of accepting a subordinate position.
Under Lord Shelburne, who succeeded as prime minister in July 1782, Pitt became chancellor of the Exchequer. With Shelburne’s consent, Pitt, in February 1783, sought a compact with Charles James Fox, who had gone into opposition, but Fox absolutely refused to serve under Shelburne. According to his contemporary biographer, his form tutor and friend George Tomline, Pitt then replied that he had not come there to betray Lord Shelburne. This interview marked the beginning of the long political duel between Pitt and Fox and also rapidly brought to an end Shelburne’s ministry, since Fox now surprisingly allied himself with Lord North, a politician who had always been willing to work in accordance with the King’s wishes, and defeated Shelburne. King George III, unwilling to accept the coalition that would give office to Fox, whom he hated, invited Pitt to form a government; but Pitt declined, knowing he would not have a majority in the House of Commons, and the King had to commission Fox and North. To embarrass the new government, which, under the nominal premiership of the Duke of Portland, consisted of an admixture of reformers and anti-reformers, Pitt brought forward the question of parliamentary reform, with which he had already once, a year earlier, concerned himself. He suggested no extension of the franchise but recommended measures to prevent bribery and to make the representation more realistic. Although his resolutions were defeated, reformers now looked to him, rather than to Fox, as their parliamentary leader.
In December 1783, after the defeat in the House of Lords of Fox’s East India Bill, George III at once took the opportunity to dismiss the coalition and asked Pitt to form a government. Pitt clearly did not take the premiership as the King’s tool, for his first step was to try, on his own terms, to include Fox and his friends in the new ministry. But Fox would not consent to join a government from which his ally Lord North would have been excluded.
When Parliament reassembled in January 1784, the government was at once defeated by 39 votes on a virtual motion of censure, but Pitt refused to resign, and George III was prepared to abdicate rather than again surrender to the Fox–North coalition. Pitt admitted that his situation was without precedent but denied that he was prime minister through backstairs influence. He hung on, and gradually the coalition’s majority in Parliament began to crumble; many members, fearing the loss of their seats at a general election, went over to Pitt’s side during February and March, doubtless in the hope that he would gain a majority in the existing house sufficient to make a dissolution unnecessary. By March 8 the majority against him was one vote, and on March 25 Parliament was dissolved.
No 18th-century government lost a general election, and Pitt’s success in 1784 was never in doubt. The “influence of the Crown” ensured that the new House of Commons was chosen by the Treasury. Patronage and corruption gave Pitt a majority, and secret service money paid election bills. Although public opinion aided Pitt in the open constituencies, it is nevertheless misleading to say that he was “the choice of the people”; he was the dispenser of royal patronage. Pitt himself was returned for the University of Cambridge; only once again (1790), at subsequent elections, did he have to stand a contest.
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When Pitt became prime minister, the national credit was impaired by the heavy cost of the American Revolution. The debt was about £250,000,000, a staggering amount for those days. Pitt imposed new taxes to wipe out the deficit, checked smuggling by reducing the high duties that encouraged it, and reduced frauds in the revenue by establishing an improved system of auditing. He also simplified customs and excise duties, bringing them into a single consolidated fund, out of which all public creditors were to be paid. In 1786 he introduced a sinking fund on a new principle: an annual surplus of £1,000,000 was to be appropriated to the purchase of stock and allowed to accumulate at compound interest for 28 years, by which time the income from it would amount to £4,000,000 a year. In 1792 another act provided that a sinking fund of 1 percent should be attached to every new loan, which would thereby be redeemed within 45 years. The system worked reasonably well in peacetime because there was an annual surplus of revenue, but, after the outbreak of war in 1793, the government redeemed debt bearing a low interest by fresh borrowing at a higher rate of interest.
Pitt the Younger was one of the most consequential Prime Ministers in British history. He commanded the government and directed policy to a far greater extent than any man before him. The sheer length of his tenure vastly increased the importance and powers of his office.
William Pitt the Younger was born on 28th May 1759 at Hayes Place in Kent and became Britain's youngest Prime Minister at age 24 in 1783. Like his father he was educated at Cambridge and became a Member of Parliament for Appleby in 1781 and was soon the youngest Chancellor of the Exchequer.
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Pitt's proposals for a moderate reform of Parliament were defeated; he was compelled to drop his scheme for free trade with Ireland; plans to improve the defences of Portsmouth and Plymouth had to be abandoned; the abolition of the slave trade had to remain an open question within the government.
