46 Facts About Lord Chatham

Historians call him Lord Chatham or William Pitt the Elder to distinguish him from his son, William Pitt the Younger, who was a prime minister.

Lord Chatham again led the ministry, holding the official title of Lord Privy Seal, between 1766 and 1768.

Lord Chatham was out of power for most of his career and became well known for his attacks on the government, such as those on Walpole's corruption in the 1730s, Hanoverian subsidies in the 1740s, peace with France in the 1760s, and the uncompromising policy towards the American colonies in the 1770s.

Lord Chatham is known for his popular appeal, his opposition to corruption in government, his support for the American position in the run-up to the American Revolutionary War, his advocacy of British greatness, expansionism and empire, and his antagonism towards Britain's chief enemies and rivals for colonial power, Spain and France.

Lord Chatham displayed a commanding manner, brilliant rhetoric, and sharp debating skills that cleverly utilised broad literary and historical knowledge.

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Lord Chatham made further land purchases and became one of the dominant political figures in the West Country, controlling seats such as the rotten borough of Old Sarum.

Lord Chatham's mother was Harriet Villiers, the daughter of Edward Villiers-FitzGerald and the Irish heiress Katherine FitzGerald.

Lord Chatham's older brother Thomas Pitt had been born in 1704.

Lord Chatham then chose to travel abroad, from 1728 attending Utrecht University in the Dutch Republic, gaining a knowledge of Hugo Grotius and other writers on international law and diplomacy.

Lord Chatham had recovered from the attack of gout, but the disease proved intractable, and he continued to be subject to attacks of growing intensity at frequent intervals until his death.

Lord Chatham had at one point been considered likely to join the Church, but instead opted for a military career.

Lord Chatham was stationed for much of his service in Northampton, in peacetime duties.

Lord Chatham briefly visited Paris but spent most of his time in the French provinces, spending the winter in Luneville in the Duchy of Lorraine.

Lord Chatham became one of a large number of serving army officers in the House of Commons.

The group commonly met at Stowe House, the country estate of Lord Chatham Cobham, who was a leader of the group.

Lord Chatham used the occasion to pay compliments, and there was nothing striking in the speech as reported, but it helped to gain him the attention of the House when he later took part on debates on more partisan subjects.

Lord Chatham became such a troublesome critic of the government that Walpole moved to punish him by arranging his dismissal from the army in 1736, along with several of his friends and political allies.

Lord Chatham appointed Pitt one of his Grooms of the Bedchamber as a reward.

Lord Chatham spoke in favour of the motion in 1742 for an inquiry into the last ten years of Walpole's administration.

Lord Chatham was therefore unable to make any personal gain from the downfall of Walpole, to which he had personally contributed a great deal.

Lord Chatham shared with Newcastle a belief that Britain should continue to fight until it could receive generous peace terms, in contrast to some such as Henry Pelham who favoured an immediate peace.

Lord Chatham had made it a condition of his joining any administration that Newcastle should be excluded from it, which proved fatal to the lengthened existence of his government.

Lord Chatham was succeeded by the Duke of Devonshire who formed the 1757 Caretaker Ministry.

Lord Chatham conspired with a number of figures to persuade the Hanoverians to revoke the Klosterzevern Convention and re-enter the war on Britain's side, which they did in late 1757.

Lord Chatham put into practice a scheme of Naval Descents that would make amphibious landings on the French coast.

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Lord Chatham drew up plans to attack French islands in the Caribbean the following year at the suggestion of a Jamaican sugar planter William Beckford.

Lord Chatham thus endorsed the contention of the colonists on the ground of principle, while the majority of those who acted with him contented themselves with resisting the disastrous taxation scheme on the ground of expediency.

Lord Chatham inspired trust in his chosen commanders by his indifference to rules of seniority—several of "Pitt's boys", like Keppel, captor of Goree, were in their thirties—and by his clear orders.

Lord Chatham had personally less to do with the successes in India than with the other great enterprises that shed an undying lustre on his administration; but his generous praise in parliament encouraged Robert Clive, and the forces that acted at the close of the struggle were animated by his indomitable spirit.

Lord Chatham was the directing mind in the expansion of his country, and with him the beginning of empire is rightly associated.

The measure was strongly opposed, and Lord Chatham delivered his first speech in the House of Lords in support of it.

Lord Chatham's attention had been directed to the growing importance of the affairs of India, and there is evidence in his correspondence that he was meditating a comprehensive scheme for transferring much of the power of the East India Company to the crown.

Lord Chatham rarely saw any of his colleagues though they repeatedly and urgently pressed for interviews with him, and even an offer from the King to visit him in person was respectfully declined.

The government of Lord Chatham North was pushed into taking a firmer line because of this, mobilising the navy, and forcing Spain to back down.

Lord Chatham sought to find a compromise on the escalating conflict with the American colonies.

Lord Chatham's position changed from an obsession in 1774 with the question of the authority of Parliament to a search for a formula for conciliation in 1775.

Lord Chatham proposed the "Provisional Act" that would both maintain the ultimate authority of Parliamentary sovereignty, while meeting the colonial demands.

Lord Chatham was moved to his home at Hayes, where his middle son William read to him Homer's passage about the death of Hector.

Lord Chatham had a family of three sons and two daughters, of whom the second son, William, was destined to add fresh lustre to a name that many regarded as one of the greatest in the history of England.

Lord Chatham was the first minister whose main strength lay in the support of the nation at large as distinct from its representatives in the Commons, where his personal following was always small.

Lord Chatham was the first to discern that public opinion, though generally slow to form and slow to act, is in the end the paramount power in the state; and he was the first to use it not in an emergency merely, but throughout a whole political career.

Lord Chatham marked the commencement of that vast change in the movement of English politics by which it came about that the sentiment of the great mass of the people then told effectively on the action of the government from day to day—almost from hour to hour.

Lord Chatham was well fitted to secure the sympathy and admiration of his countrymen, for his virtues and his failings were alike English.

Lord Chatham was often inconsistent, he was generally intractable and overbearing, and he was always pompous and affected to a degree which, as Macaulay remarked, seemed scarcely compatible with true greatness.

Lord Chatham himself confessed his unfitness for dealing with questions of finance.

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Lord Chatham is immortalised in St Stephen's Hall, where he and other notable Parliamentarians look on at visitors to Parliament.