Family and Education

b. 1693 at Fort St. George, in India, o.s. of John Pitt of Tarrant Preston, Dorset, consul at Masulipatam, by his 2nd w. Sarah Charlton, wid. of Thomas Wavell, second of council at Fort St. George. educ. St. Paul’s. m. 8 Sept. 1743, Sophia, da. of Charles Bugden, sec. of the E. I. Co. at Fort St. George, wid. of George Drake, councillor and merchant at Fort St. George. suc. fa. 1703.

Offices Held

Registrar of excise office Jan.-Aug. 1724; second of council at Madras 1724-30; dep. gov. Fort St. David 1725-30; gov. Fort St. George 1730-35.

Biography

Pitt’s father, who was for many years in the service of the East India Company, was first cousin to George Pitt of Strathfieldsaye. After an English education he became a merchant at Fort St. George. Brought in by his kinsman, Governor Thomas Pitt, at Old Sarum in 1722, he vacated his seat early in 1724 by accepting a minor office. A few months later he went back to Madras, where he held important and lucrative positions under the East India Company for eleven years.1 Resigning as governor in 1735 with a considerable fortune, he bought an estate at Twickenham and looked for a seat in Parliament. This he secured in January 1740 by buying up, for £9,600, the whole of Sir William Lowther’s interest at Pontefract, consisting of 86 burgages and several freeholds in the borough.2 He and his ally, Lord Galway, who had a similar interest, with 22 additional burgages, jointly held, were thus able to exercise complete control of Pontefract, for which Pitt was twice returned unopposed, voting with the Administration in all recorded divisions. He did not stand in 1754, giving his seat to his friend Sambrooke Freeman, and died 9 Feb. 1756. Under his will the Pontefract burgages passed to his daughter, Harriet, afterwards wife of Lord Brownlow Bertie, M.P., with remainder to his kinsman John Pitt of Encombe, who sold them in 1766.3

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: R. S. Lea

Notes

• 1. Diary of Wm. Hedges, ed. Henry Yule (Hakluyt Soc. lxxviii), iii. Pitt ped. facing pp. xxix, lxxxix-xci, clix, clxi-clxii.
• 2. Joshua Wilson to Visct. Galway, 30 Jan. 1740, and ‘An account of Mr. Pitt’s and Lord Galway’s estates at Pontefract’, 1743, Galway Pprs. cited by Colin Bradley, ‘Parl. Rep. Pontefract, Newark and East Retford, 1754-68’ (Manchester Univ. M.A. thesis).
• 3. PCC 47 Glazier.