The 2nd Earl of Chatham’s muddled finances

Posted on 03/12/2014 by Jacqueline Reiter | 3 Comments

Had John, 2nd Earl of Chatham been asked which year of his life was his (to coin a phrase) “Annus Horribilis”, he would very probably and with good reason have replied 1809. He might equally, however, have replied 1821, and with just as much reason.

It was not a good year. He was pushed into taking up his government at Gibraltar, a place he disliked and which very nearly killed him. His wife, who had spent most of the past two and a half years mentally ill, died suddenly in May, leaving John profoundly depressed. And a King’s Bench judgment opened a free-for-all on John’s finances, laying bare a woeful tale of debt, default, and neglect that stretched back at least forty years.

“Money? What’s that?”

John was not exceptional in this. Improvidence was a family tradition. Paying bills, to the Pitts, was something that happened to other people. Amazingly they seem to have had a very close relationship with their banker, Thomas Coutts, whom I would not have blamed for running away screaming every time he saw a Pitt family member approaching his front door. Presumably the effect of the publicity of having Lord Chatham and Mr Pitt on Coutts’ books outweighed the disadvantages incurred by their being constantly overdrawn.

Thomas Coutts, after Sir William Beechey (Wikimedia Commons)

John had long been notorious for his money problems. Wraxall spoke of “his total want of economy” in his memoirs, and there were rumours he had only been appointed commander-in-chief of the 1809 Walcheren expedition because of his straitened finances.[1] He definitely loved pomp and luxury, and his lifestyle as a peer of the realm was a costly one. Here’s a description of a new carriage he had made in January 1801:[2]

Swish, and no doubt expensive too.

“Debts contracted at play”?

Of course there’s a distinct possibility that John’s financial problems were not simply due to extravagance. Unlike his brother William, John may have been a keen gambler. To be honest I’ve not found any direct evidence of this, but it’s a possibility, and there are some hints. He definitely had an interest in horse racing, no doubt encouraged by his living at Cheveley Park near Newmarket for ten years. I’ve spotted him eyeing up a horse put up for sale by the Duke of Portland in 1780, and his wife definitely had a horse running at least one year for money:[3]

It wasn’t just horse racing, though. In 1793 John was rumoured “to sit up all night at a club”, and presumably this involved gambling.[4] In 1844 Cyrus Redding published “Recollections of the Author of Vathek“, that is to say William Beckford, who had spent his formative years with the Pitt children and informed his biographer that John had sold his father’s house of Burton Pynsent “to pay debts contracted at play”.[5] Interesting theory, although in fairness to John there were other demands on the estate forcing him to sell.

Most damning of all was the judgment of his step-nephew, James Stanhope. Stanhope visited Burton Pynsent, some years after John sold it, and was moved to write a bitter poem on the subject of his uncles’ comparative inheritances:

The immortal Chatham ee’r [sic] he died

These gifts he thus assigned

Take then my fortune John, he cried

Thou William hast my mind[.]

This son the Part improved with toil

That ’twas his Countrys weal;

The former Burton learnt to spoil

To shuffle, cut, and deal.”[6]

*cringe*

James Stanhope may have been a little unjust. Even if John was a gambling man, the “fortune” he inherited wasn’t much cop. Yes, Parliament settled a pension of £4000 on the Chatham earldom after Pitt the Elder’s death in 1778, and in 1803 John became the “third life” to hold the £3000 pension settled on his father for three lives in the 1760s, but the latter was hardly ever paid and the former barely offset the long-term effect of Pitt the Elder’s own spendthriftiness.

John’s inheritance

William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham by William Hoare (Wikimedia Commons) [b]

Pitt the Elder just didn’t give a damn. Not the slightest. He would quite happily borrow huge sums of money off family and friends– £10,000 in one go in 1777, for example– without the faintest intention of paying it back.[7] (His wife tried her best, but since she was never able to stop her husband spending it must have been like holding back the tide.) Both the properties John inherited, Hayes Place in Kent and Burton Pynsent, were heavily mortgaged: Burton for over £13,000, Hayes for £10,000. Burton supposedly brought in £3000 a year, but this was rarely realised and, in any case, barely paid for the upkeep of the estate itself. It did not help that all three of the younger Pitt children had been assigned various sums in their father’s will, to which they were entitled on the security of the mortgages taken out on the two properties.[8]

In short, when John inherited the estate, his “fortune” consisted almost entirely of debts. The £4000 pension attached to the earldom was the only thing standing between him and utter penury: it was a good sum, but without lands to back it up, did little but allow the Earl of Chatham to live according to his rank.

The shock, therefore, is that Burton Pynsent remained so long in Pitt family hands, gambling debts or no. John sold Hayes in May 1785 to Sir James Bond (… no, not that one) for £8540, which didn’t even cover the mortgage. Even so, the funds were divided between members of the Pitt family (William, for example, received just under £4400).[9] His mother used Burton Pynsent as a dower-house until her death in April 1803, but even as early as February 1803 John was clearly getting itchy: he had the farms and lands valued, clearly with the intention of selling as soon as possible.[10] He finally managed to sell it in 1805, and became officially “landless”.

Fire your accountant, John

Small wonder, then, that John was so much in debt. He and his brother William started early, and often together. In December 1780 (around the same time, in fact, that John was eyeing up the Duke of Portland’s racing horse) they jointly paid a lump sum of £3500 to the Duke of Rutland in return for an annuity of £300 derived from three of Rutland’s Cambridgeshire estates. (John rather cavalierly countersigned the agreement from Newmarket, where he was hunting at the time.)[11] This lump sum was acquired partly through two separate loans for £1500, secured on two chamber sets at Lincoln’s Inn belonging jointly to William and John (the sets themselves were purchased with at least two separate loans).[12] Yes, you read that right: a loan secured on a loan, to pay for a loan.

In 1785 John was at it again, borrowing a total of £3150 from three separate moneylenders. In the 1790s John and William again jointly borrowed two separate sums of £6000 and £7000 from Coutts, the first through his bank and the second on a private basis. At least John seems to have paid most of the second loan back in 1804.[13]

And this is presumably only skimming the surface: like his father, John was quite happy to accept money from whoever was willing to give it, although I’d like to think he had a *leeeeetle* more of an intention of paying it back. His official cabinet salary, which he received 1788-1806 and 1807-10, did not make much difference to his borrowing habits. He borrowed money from his (himself heavily indebted) brother William, and entered into a number of bonds with his friend Lord Camden: one in October 1797 for £1500 at 5%, and one in 1806 for £4000, also at 5%. All these loans were secured on the same source (and anyway John had no property by 1806): the £4000 Chatham Earldom pension, itself already signed over a thousand times over to Thomas Coutts, the fashionable moneylenders the Goldsmid brothers, and others.[14]

Abraham Goldsmid, one of Lord Chatham’s many moneylenders (Wikimedia Commons)

Small wonder, then, that when John was out of office in 1806 he had to resort to selling off a selection of his father and brother’s books:[15]

At this point I must stop before I beat my head against the desk so often I lose consciousness, but it’s literally a flavour of what was going on, not a comprehensive list.

The King’s Bench Judgment

Astoundingly, nothing much seems to have come of all this borrowing and mortgaging and shifting until sometime in late 1820 when John finally found a creditor who put his foot down and demanded his money back. It must have come as a shock, particularly when the man dragged John to court– especially when John lost.

Court of King’s Bench in the 19th century (Wikimedia Commons)

I’m not clear on the details, as I haven’t managed to find the court case in question, but it seems John borrowed £8126 from Mr John Burke. I’m not clear on who Mr Burke was, but what he was was determined, and when he discovered John did not have the means to pay him back, he sued. The resulting King’s Bench judgment clearly required John to pay Burke appropriate damages, in default of which the bailiffs would be sent in to seize his property. As a cherry on the cake, John was also required to pay Burke’s legal costs.[16]

Needless to say, John did not have the ready money. He had not had a government salary since 1810, although he did have his emoluments as Governor of Jersey, High Steward of Colchester (till 1817), and Colonel of the 4th Regiment of Foot. Still, his wife had been constantly ill for two years: whatever ready cash he had, presumably, had mostly gone on her healthcare. In January 1820 John had been made Governor of Gibraltar, with a salary of £2800, and perhaps it was this circumstance that inspired Burke to try his luck.[17]

To avoid the embarrassment of the bailiffs, John had no choice but to negotiate. His agent, Joseph Ward, met with Burke’s agent, Francis Robertson, and hammered out a compromise. The result was a bond, signed 11 January 1821:

Whereas the said John Earl of Chatham hath contracted and agreed with the said John Burke for the absolute sale to him the said John Burke of One Annuity or clear yearly Sum of Six hundred and ninety one pounds two shillings and six pence to be paid to the said John Burke his Executors Administrators and Assigns during the natural life of the said John Earl of Chatham…

The money was due to be raised from the poor £4000 pension attached to the Chatham earldom, already mortgaged in all directions beyond its ability to bear. This time, however, John was caught coming and going: if he defaulted on his quarterly payments by 28 days, in went the bailiffs, out came his pretty furniture.[18]

At some point after this date, however, Burke remembered that there were further damages to consider, because the money Chatham had borrowed had been raised from selling the £10,000 worth of stock Burke’s wife, Louisa Angelo Tremamondo, had brought as her dowry. The £600 annuity was therefore raised to £1196, and the money claimed in damages to £13,075.[19] Possibly this was due to interest, but it does not appear to be a separate agreement.

I cannot imagine the face John made when he put his pen to that bond, but sign it he did.

…. And it just keeps getting worse

So what did John do to finance his brand spanking new debt? You guessed it. He took out three life insurance policies, with three insurance companies: one with the Fire and Life Insurance Company for a total of £5000, one with the Provident Institution for £1800, and one with the Union Life Office for £400. A total of £7200 to be paid on his death to Joseph Ward, who would presumably then turn the proceeds over to Burke and clear the debt.[20]

Unluckily for Burke, he did not live long enough to benefit from the arrangement and died in December 1824. John, however, didn’t benefit either: he was bound to continue his quarterly payments to Burke’s “Executors Administrators and Assigns” during the term of his “natural life”, which meant continuing payments to Burke’s widow Louisa. Mrs Burke, therefore, received nearly eleven years’ worth of payments of £1196– about £13,000 in all. She received her last payment of £336 in October 1835 from John’s executors.[21]

Open season!

At around this time– probably not coincidentally– the husband of John’s niece, Harriot Hester, suddenly remembered something VERY important.

Sir William Henry Pringle (from http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/galleries/collections/the-staffordshire-regiment-museum-1327)

Sir William Pringle had married Harriot Hester Eliot, only daughter of John’s sister Harriot, in May 1806. Harriot Hester had lived for two and a half years with her aunt and uncle in London and remained close to the Chathams. Although there had been issues with her marriage to Pringle– John seems to have considered the man, who was fifteen years older than Harriot Hester, to be a fortune hunter– the couple were always welcome at John’s house, and Sir William and John frequently went hunting together.[22]

In February 1821, though, Sir William Pringle wrote to George Pretyman-Tomline to express concern about the terms of his wife’s fifteen-year-old marriage contract. By the terms of her marriage contract, Harriot Hester was due £3795 plus interest, which was to have been her mother’s “portion” or dowry, a sum that had not become fully available until Burton Pynsent was sold in 1805.[23] By 1821 this sum had not yet been paid, and Sir William wrote to ask Tomline to press Lord Chatham on the matter as Pringle’s solicitor had advised him to open a case of “culpable neglect”.[24]

I find it very hard to believe that Sir William Pringle had spent fifteen years not noticing that his wife (who was, incidentally, worth a vast amount of money, both in terms of property and ready cash– well over £10,000 in fact) was owed a whisker under £4000. I strongly suspect he chose February 1821 to press the point, because his solicitor reminded him there was now a precedent of Lord Chatham being taken to the legal cleaners and scrubbed till it damn well hurt.

Again, Chatham had no money; again, he had no choice. His solution was wearingly familiar, as Pringle informed Tomline: Chatham had proposed to secure

the reversion of the produce of the Burton Pynsent Estate to Lady Pringle & her Children, by assigning to trustees two policies of insurance on his life made at the Equitable Insurance Office, which are valued at £11,000, & by vesting the remainder of the money [from Burton Pynsent] in trustees, so that at his death the sum of about £16,000 would be forth coming to those entitled to it.

This arrangement tho’ certainly not so satisfactory as if the whole money had been vested, Lady Pringle & I have as far as we are concer’d, acceded to, from having been advised so to do, by our Solicitors & from being informed, & having every reason to believe, it was the best & indeed the only security Lord Chatham had to give.[25]

I imagine hunting visits at Lord Chatham’s house were rather more strained after this.

And yet…

The events of 1821 seem to have been a caution to John. He did take out at least one more life insurance policy on behalf of his other heir, William Stanhope Taylor, grandson of John’s sister Hester, and on John’s death at least one of the life insurance policies remained unpaid because John had (unsurprisingly) failed to keep up his annual payments, but all in all he seems to have behaved himself.[26]

He lived much more simply than he had done, renting a house in Brighton and mortgaging a (comparatively modest-sized) house in Charles Street. When he expired in that house on 24 September 1835, his heirs sold everything they could– even the servants’ bedlinen– but they balanced the books within a month.[27]

In the end, the “improvident Lord Chatham” was virtually the only member of his family to die solvent.

References

[1] Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, Posthumous Memoirs of my Own Time, III (London, 1836), 130; H.B. Robinson, Memoirs of Sir Thomas Picton, I (London, 1836), 231

[2] Morning Post, 20 Jan 1801

[3] Edward Thoroton Gould to the Duke of Portland, 27 Nov 1780, Nottingham University Archive Portland MSS PwF 4.284; Times, 26 March 1788

[4] Sir Gilbert Elliot’s diary, 11 September 1793, quoted in Paul Kelly, “Strategy and Counter-Revolution: the Journal of Sir Gilbert Elliot, 1-22 September 1793”, EHR 98 (387) April 1974 328-348, 342

[5] Cyrus Redding, “Recollections of the Author of Vathek“, printed in The New Monthly Magazine 71 (2) 1844, 302

[6] Dacre Adams MSS, British Library Add MSS 89036/2/4 f 101

[7] Stanley Ayling, The Elder Pitt, Earl of Chatham (London, 1976), p 406

[8] John Ehrman (Ehrman I), The Younger Pitt: The Years of Acclaim (London, 1969), p. 19

[9] Ehrman I, 19

[10] National Archives Chatham MSS PRO 30/8/371 f 158

[11] Ehrman I, 20; the bond is dated 1 December 1780 and is at Ipswich RO, Pretyman MSS, HA 119/4/4/9/3/2

[12] Ehrman I, 20

[13] Tresham Lever, The House of Pitt (London, 1947), p. 359; Ehrman I, 601-2, 602 n 1

[14] Bond between Chatham and Camden, 3 October 1797, Kent RO Camden MSS CKS-U840/E20; bond between Chatham and Camden, 24 June 1806, Kent RO Camden MSS CKS-U840/E21; and National Archives Chatham MSS PRO 30/8/371 for the deeds mortgaging the Chatham pension

[15] Morning Post, 25 December 1806

[16] Bond between the Earl of Chatham, John Burke and Joseph Ward, 11 January 1821, National Archives Chatham MSS PRO 30/8/370 f 183

[17] Report from the select committee on the colonial military expenditure… (London, 1834) VI, 7

[18] Bond between the Earl of Chatham, John Burke and Joseph Ward, 11 January 1821, National Archives Chatham MSS PRO 30/8/370 f 183

[19] Bond between Francis Robertson and Louisa Angelo Burke, 17 June 1828, National Archives Chatham MSS PRO 30/8/370 f 238

[20] Bond between Francis Robertson and Louisa Angelo Burke, 17 June 1828, National Archives Chatham MSS PRO 30/8/370 f 238

[21] National Archives Chatham MSS PRO 30/8/370 f 152

[22] Chatham to George Pretyman-Tomline, 22 September 1819; Chatham to George Pretyman-Tomline, 19 January 1820, Ipswich RO Pretyman MSS HA 119/562/688

[23] Marriage settlement of Harriot Hester Eliot and William Pringle, 16 May 1806, Cornwall RO EL/647. I am grateful to Stephenie Woolterton for putting this document my way

[24] Sir William Pringle to George Pretyman-Tomline, 12 February 1821; William Eliot to George Pretyman-Tomline, 5 March 1821, Ipswich RO Pretyman MSS HA/119/562/688

[25] Sir William Pringle to George Pretyman-Tomline, 27 April 1821, Ipswich RO Pretyman MSS HA 119/562/688

[26] Life insurance policy dated 17 August 1833, National Archives Chatham MSS PRO 30/8/370 f 89

[27] Times, 10 Nov 1835

Mary, Countess of Chatham’s “Rheumatick complaint”

Posted on 21/11/2014 by Jacqueline Reiter | 5 Comments

[Mary] has not I think been quite well lately. Some how or other she has got a Lameness in her Hip. It is better now and perhaps nothing of any Consequence but I think it makes her look Languid and pale.”[1]

So wrote Lady Harriot Pitt to her mother of Mary Elizabeth Townshend, soon to be engaged to Harriot’s brother Lord Chatham. Mary’s lameness passed, and no further mention is made of it in Harriot’s correspondence. Three weeks later John Chatham proposed to Mary Townshend; within two months they were married. Nobody anticipated that Mary would spend nearly the whole of the first three years of married life an invalid.

The “lameness” Harriot noticed in May 1783 may have been due to a number of things. It may have been a congenital issue, such as hip displasia, that was not picked up until later in life. It may have been early onset arthritis; it may have been some sort of deeper-seated metabolic illness like fibromyalgia. It may have been something entirely different. Whatever the cause, and whatever brought on the attack (a miscarriage perhaps?), by April 1784 Mary had taken to her bed.

The first record I have seen of her illness is Frederick Robinson writing to his brother, Lord Grantham, on 1 April 1784. “Ly. Chatham suffers cruelly when she moves but is rather better,” he wrote, suggesting Mary had already been ill for some time.[2] Three weeks later there was little improvement. On 20 April 1784, in the midst of a general election, William Pitt the Younger wrote to his mother that “Lady Chatham mends a little”. On the same day Mary’s sister Georgiana, devotedly nursing her younger sister, also wrote to Mary’s mother-in-law:

My Sister had a very good night last night, and I hope is better to day. Dr Warren has put off her getting up till tomorrow, on account of her being still a little fatigued with the Physic she took yesterday. Indeed I flatter myself that she is certainly gaining ground, & I hope when the weather is quite fine, that her amendment will be much quicker. It is really quite horrid to think how much she has suffered. … Getting up has hitherto always thrown her back, owing to the fatigue from the great pain she has always suffered, which naturally gives her a great dread of it. … She feels [the pain] more in her knee & leg than she did. What would I give to see her walk again.”[3]

But Mary did not walk again for a very long time. In November 1784, Anne Robinson (Lord Grantham’s sister) reported that “Lady Chatham … now talks of Standing which she has not done for above eight months”.[4] Two months later Mary was still ill, although by this time she seems to have been improving. Lord Grantham noted he had heard she was now able to use a “Merlin’s Chair”, a sort of wheelchair invented by John Joseph Merlin, a Swiss inventor.

A “Merlin chair” from Kenwood House (photo Ashley Wilde)

The chair enabled Mary at last to navigate around her house and her spirits rose accordingly: her “health is now very good”, Lord Grantham reported. “She has Strength sufficient to get in and out of her Chair.” By the middle of January she was finally walking across her room for the first time since at least the previous March.[5]

A Merlin chair from 1811 (Wellcome Library)

A year after taking to her bed Mary was finally getting out and about, although mostly in search of further medical assistance. “I have been taking a long airing with Mary today,” Georgiana reported to the Dowager Lady Chatham on 3 March 1785. “… Going out certainly does her a great deal of good … She has been twice at Mr Partingdons [sic] … & finds great benefit from being Electrified with his large Machine.”[6]

Various medical electrical machines, ca 1770

“Mr Partingdon” was in fact Miles Partington, a fashionable surgeon whose speciality was to use the power of static electricity to treat rheumatic and nervous complaints in his patients. Mary would have come to his house on Great Russell Street, and would have sat in a comfortable chair propped up on glass blocks while a servant turned the handle of Partington’s machine. A large wheel rubbed against a cushion stuffed with horsehair, while metal rods channelled the resulting static electricity into a Leyden jar. Once fully charged, Partington would have put on a pair of gloves, taken hold of two metal rods insulated with glass handles, and channelled the electricity onto specific points on Mary’s leg and hip. I can’t believe it worked very well, but Mary by this time must have been desperate to believe in anything.

An electrical machine of the sort Miles Partington might have used on Mary

At this time Lord Chatham’s childhood tutor, Edward Wilson, “had the pleasure” of reporting to the Dowager Countess of Chatham that her daughter-in-law was “actually in a state of recovery which I had considered as a hopeless event.”[7] But Mary’s improvement was much slower than anticipated, and she possibly suffered another relapse shortly afterwards. At any rate, Lord Chatham cancelled plans to travel to Ireland to visit his friend, Lord Lieutenant the Duke of Rutland, and took Mary to the fashionable spa of Buxton instead.[8] The Peak District waters did not do their job: “Lady Chatham has not received so much benefit from Buxton as she expected, but is told it will appear when she has left the place a little time,” Anne Robinson wrote to her brother Frederick.[9] By December, however, she was well enough to go on a hunting trip with her husband near Grantham.[10]

It must have been a temporary rally, however, for in 1786 Mary’s health was still uncertain. By the summer John was happy enough to leave her with Georgiana at Weymouth and at last make his long-delayed trip to Dublin, but it is clear from her father’s letters to her eldest brother John Townshend that she was not as well as her family would have liked. “Lady Chatham is better,” Lord Sydney wrote in August 1786, “but, I am sorry to say, has left Weymouth for Burton [Pynsent, in Somerset, to visit her mother-in-law]. I hope in God, that she will return [to Weymouth], & not trifle with so serious a business. Her recovery may depend entirely upon her use of the warm bathing this year.”[11]

By the end of the year, though, Mary’s health was much better established, so much so that she became pregnant (possibly for the second time). “We have been seasonably chear’d with a piece of news that was communicated to me last Sunday, from the very highest Authority [probably Lord Chatham himself], respecting Lady Chatham on which we most cordially congratulate your Ladyship,” Reverend Wilson wrote to the Dowager Countess of Chatham on 5 November 1786. “Besides the welcome prospect of increase we hope it will be a means of restoring her Ladyships health”.[12] Alas Mary’s pregnancy ended in a miscarriage before the end of the year, but she does not seem to have been especially unwell during 1787. By 1788 was at last able to engage in some political work, canvassing for Lord Hood during the 1788 Westminster by-election and, in 1789, acting as a patroness for the White’s Ball in honour of the King’s recovery from insanity.

It was not, however, the last word, and her “rheumatism” left her permanently lame on one side. In 1795 she seems again to have had a serious rheumatic attack. “Lady Chatham has got the Rheumatism in a very disagreeable Way”, the Dowager Countess wrote to Pitt, “… but … she is otherwise well and grows Fat”.[13] In February 1796, however, she was still ill:

Lady Chatham is I am afraid going to have some return of her old Rheumatick complaint. She has been for some time much more lame than usual: and I called a few days ago when she could not well move out of her Chair. This she attributed to having been electrified too much; but I am afraid she does not get better.[14]

All Lord Chatham’s friends would have remembered, all too well, what long-term effects Lady Chatham’s “rheumatick complaint” might have. On this occasion nothing seems to have come of it, but its spectre must always have hung over their marriage. Unfortunately for the Chathams, Mary’s health was not destined ever to be robust, and in later life she succumbed to mental instability on at least two prolonged occasions. Whether that mental instability was a progression of her earlier rheumatic problems I cannot say, but one thing is for sure: Mary Chatham was never an especially healthy woman.

References

[1] Lady Harriot Pitt to the Countess of Chatham, 19 May 1783, John Rylands Library Manchester University Eng MS 1272 f 38

[2] Frederick Robinson to Lord Grantham, 1 April 1784, Bedford Archives Wrest Park (Lucas) Mss L30/15/54/205

[3] Georgiana Townshend to the Dowager Countess of Chatham, 20 April 1784, National Archives PRO 30/8/64 f 167

[4] Anne Robinson to Lord Grantham, 5 November 1784, Bedford Archives Wrest Park (Lucas) Mss L30/15/50/56

[5] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 3 January 1785, Bedford Archives Wrest Park (Lucas) Mss L30/15/54/238; Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 14 January 1785, Bedford Archives Wrest Park (Lucas) Mss L30/15/54/246; Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 17 January 1785, Bedford Archives Wrest Park (Lucas) Mss L30/15/54/249

[6] Georgiana Townshend to Lady Chatham, PRO 30/8/64 f 170

[7] Edward Wilson to the Dowager Countess of Chatham, 12 March 1785, PRO 30/8/67 f 103

[8] Edward Wilson to the Dowager Countess of Chatham, 7 October 1785, PRO 30/8/67 f 113

[9] Anne Robinson to Frederick Robinson, 28 August 1785, Bedford Archives Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/50/65

[10] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 19 December 1785, Bedford Archives Wrest Park (Lucas) Mss L30/15/54/296

[11] Lord Sydney to John Thomas Townshend, August 1786, Nottingham University Archives Hildyard MSS THF/X/3/5 f 2

[12] Edward Wilson to the Dowager Countess of Chatham, 5 November 1786, PRO 30/8/67 f 134

[13] The Dowager Countess of Chatham to William Pitt, 14 October 1795, PRO 30/8/10 f 31

[14] Lord Bathurst to Lord Camden, 27 February 1796, Kent RO CKS-U840/C95/2

“Likely to get frampy”: In which the 2nd Lord Chatham has trouble getting his act together

Posted on 11/11/2014 by Jacqueline Reiter | Leave a comment

One of the things I love most about John, 2nd Lord Chatham is how endearingly pathetic he could be sometimes. I know that must sound odd, but I often find myself grinning while reading about him. The Pitt family can, in general, be seen as a little frigid, rather stuffy and full of themselves, and without a normal bone in their overachieving bodies. It’s a false impression that can be easily corrected by reading their private correspondence, but one of the reasons I fastened so happily on John as a research subject is that he is so refreshingly human.

I call them my “oh dear John” moments, mainly because that’s what I say out loud when I stumble across them. You know, the moments were “the late Lord Chatham” just lives up so much to his reputation that I have to suppress the urge to thud my head repeatedly against the desk. John turning up three hours late to the King’s birthday review? Oh dear, John. John never making an appointment to meet with anyone before two o’clock in the afternoon? Oh dear, John. John countersigning contracts for enormous loans during a brief luncheon break while hunting at Newmarket? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear John… you get the picture.

But sometimes John surpasses even himself. Like in his courtship of Mary Townshend, in which the twenty-six year old John seems to have displayed all the maturity and backbone of a teenager mustering the courage to ask a girl on a first date.

I think it’s fair to say John was not a reluctant suitor. As I discovered recently, John and Mary’s names had been paired up as early as May 1779, and probably earlier. The Pitt and Townshend families had been close since at least the 1760s: it’s fair to say that John knew Mary well, and vice versa. At some point, probably prior to John’s going off to Gibraltar in May 1778, friendship blossomed into young lurve.

Mary, Countess of Chatham

Nothing serious was initially expected to come of the pairing, at least while John was away so frequently on military service. By the summer of 1782, however, he had transferred from the 86th regiment serving in the Leeward Islands to the 3rd Foot Guards, a prestigious royal regiment with flashy gold braid serving in London. As early as 27 June 1782 John’s brother William wrote to their mother, “My brother, I believe, has not informed you of a match of which the world here is certain, but of which he assures me he knows nothing, between himself and the beauty in Albemarle Street” — that is to say Mary Townshend, whose father’s town house was just round the corner from John’s Grafton Street residence.[1]

William wasn’t the only family member gossiping about John’s attachment. Lady Harriot Pitt, John’s younger sister, also told her mother about a conversation she had had with a friend, in which “my Brother Chatham’s intended marriage … [was] brought upon ye Tapis.” By this time John seems to have been thoroughly sick of all the speculation, since Harriot reported him referring sarcastically to such rumours as “Stock Jobbing Reports,” possibly the closest I’ve ever seen John come to an outright joke.[2]

Whatever the truth, the next proper references to the courtship come in April and May 1783, at which point Harriot was confidently expecting her brother to propose at any moment. She wrote to her mother on 1 May 1783 of a jaunt with John to the family property at Hayes: “Hayes is just now in glory, and I think my Brother enjoyed very much ye contemplating his Pretty Place and thinking of ye Pretty Lady he means to give it”.[3]

Lady Harriot Pitt, ca 1779

Certainly John and Mary seemed very snug together at this time. “They were so amicable at ye Dutchess’s [of Buccleugh’s, where there had been a ball the night before] that I really was disappointed when I found ye matter was not settled there,” Harriot reported on 3 May.[4] But two days later Harriot reported in frustration that, despite “opportunities” during a trip to Mary’s father’s country estate at Frognal, John “had only very near done it once”.[5] (…. “Very near”? What on earth did that mean? “Mary?” “Yes?” “I wanted to ask you something…” “Yes?” “Something very important…” “Yeeeeeeeeeees?” “………… Could you please pass the salt?”) On the 6th Harriot described Mary as “not a little fidgetty [sic]”, and William, too, was getting fed up: “The scene in Albemarle Street has been carried on from day to day, till it is full time it should end. I rather hope it will be happily completed very soon, though it has lasted so long already that it may still last longer than seems likely.”[6]

Frognal House, Lord Sydney’s country home, where John totally failed to propose to Mary in May 1782

William, apparently, knew John too well. On 19 May Harriot had had enough, and told John to pull himself together: he was mucking Mary Townshend about too much, and she might just kick him in the shins if he ever did manage to screw up the courage. “My Brother and I have been beating over ye same Ground again,” Harriot reported to her mother. “He is very much dissatisfied with their [Lord and Lady Sydney] precluding, as he says, all opportunities by not allowing of Tete a Tetes, and I wish him ye more to take some other sort of opportunity as I think in this sort of way all sides may be likely to get Frampy.“[7]

Whatever “Frampy” meant (… no, don’t Google it … well, don’t tell me I didn’t warn you), John managed to uhmm and aah and blush and shrug for another two weeks before finally diving in and proposing on the 5th of June. The reaction of both families involved can only be summarised as “OMG FINALLY!” As Harriot put it, the declaration “was received as you will imagine by every part of ye family with ye greatest Delight”.[8]

Lord Sydney wrote to John’s mother in sheer relief, apparently the minute John had walked out of his study:

Lord Chatham has today done me the honor to express his desire of proposing himself to my Daughter Mary … It would be an absurd piece of Affectation in me to attempt to conceal my feelings of Satisfaction & Pride in placing a Part of my Family, which deserves & possesses my warmest & most tender Affection, under the Protection of those, whose Alliance, I can truly say, I prefer to that of any Family in England.[9]

The marriage was celebrated on 10 July 1783, and seems (by and large) to have been happy for a very long time. Which was just as well, after John’s long hesitation.

Emotions of a schoolboy, eh?

References

[1] Lord Stanhope, Life of Pitt I, 81 (Pitt to Lady Chatham, 27 June 1782)

[2] Lady Harriot Pitt to Lady Chatham, undated, Manchester University Archives GB 133 Eng MS 1272 f 45

[3] Lady Harriot Pitt to Lady Chatham, [1 May 1783], Manchester University Archives GB 133 Eng MS 1272 f 32

[4] Lady Harriot Pitt to Lady Chatham, [3 May 1783], Manchester University Archives GB 133 Eng MS 1272 f 33

[5] Lady Harriot Pitt to Lady Chatham, [5 May 1783], Manchester University Archives GB 133 Eng MS 1272 f 34

[6] Lady Harriot Pitt to Lady Chatham, [6 May 1783], Manchester University Archives GB 133 Eng MS 1272 f 35; Pitt to Lady Chatham, 15 May 1783, Stanhope I, 121-2

[7] Lady Harriot Pitt to Lady Chatham, [19 May 1783], Manchester University Archives GB 133 Eng MS 1272 f 38

[8] Lady Harriot Pitt to Lady Chatham, [23 June 1783], Manchester University Archives GB 133 Eng MS 1272 f 43

[9] Lord Sydney to Lady Chatham, 5 June 1783, National Archives PRO 30/8/60 f 205

Lord Sydney’s children

Posted on 11/11/2014 by Jacqueline Reiter | 1 Comment

Another quick post this, put up simply as a result of a serendipitous finding on the net. I always knew Thomas Townshend, 1st Lord Sydney’s family was a large one: 6 sons and 6 daughters, according to his History of Parliament page. Until now I’ve not been able to track down more than seven of them.

Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney (Wikimedia Commons)

Andrew Tink’s recent biography of Sydney notes only:

Three years Sydney’s junior, Elizabeth [Powys, Sydney’s wife] bore him six sons and six daughters. But only seven, Georgiana, Mary, John, Frances, Harriet, William and Horatio, are known to have survived infancy in an age when the mortality rate of children under two was especially high. On 9 December 1777, for instance, his brother Charles noted that Sydney’s wife ‘is brought to bed and is very well: the child died three hours after she was born’.[1]

I have finally found a list of Townshend’s twelve children (in fact there are thirteen in the list, but I think the last two should be one person). The list is contained in The present peerages… by Joseph Edmondson (London, 1785), and is surprisingly comprehensive (p. 173):

From this list, and from some other sources, I gather Sydney’s thirteen children were as follows:

Georgiana (1 June 1761 – 12 September 1835)
Mary Elizabeth (2 September 1762 – 21 May 1821)
John Thomas (21 February 1764 – 20 January 1831)
Albinia Ann (9 October 1765 – buried 15 March 1770)[2]
Charles Horatio (10 December 1766 – buried 22 December 1773)[2]
Henry George (25 October 176? – buried 22 December 1773)[2] (apparently born 25 October 1765, but I can’t see how that’s possible given Albinia Ann was born on 9 October, unless they were twins and one of the dates is wrong)
Frederick Roger (20 April 1770 – died while at Eton, in 1782)
Frances (20 February 1772 – 13 August 1854)
Henrietta [or Harriot] Catherine (27 November 1773 – 24 August 1814)
William Augustus (10 March 1776 – 3 July 1816)
Sophia Charlotte (died young: probably the baby mentioned as dying three hours after her birth in the extract from Tink, so 8/9 December 1777)
[Horatio] George Powis (6 February 1780 – 25 May 1843)

I think “Horatia”, at the bottom of the list, probably did not exist, since I’ve not found her mentioned anywhere else. “George Powis”‘s given name was in fact Horatio, so I think that’s probably where the confusion lies.[3]

Either way, it looks like Lord Sydney buried an awfully large number of his children– two on the same day, so presumably felled by the same illness– and that most of them were not in fact tiny babies. Albinia was four and a half when she died; Charles Horatio was seven, as was William Augustus; Henry George possibly eight, and Frederick Roger was eleven or twelve. Only Sophia Charlotte died at birth.

I have to wonder how all this would have affected the 2nd Lord Chatham’s future wife, Mary. She would have been old enough to remember all the five siblings that died. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mary was extremely close to all her siblings, particularly her brother, Georgiana, and Frances, who later married Lord Dynevor.

References

[1] Andrew Tink, Lord Sydney: the life and times of Tommy Townshend (Melbourne, 2011), p. 149

[2] D. Lysons, The environs of London, volume 4 (London, 1796), from here

[3] Collins’s Peerage of England , volume VI by Sir Egerton Brydges (London, 1812), 321-2

“A most precious Jewel”

Posted on 05/11/2014 by Jacqueline Reiter | 3 Comments

Another super quick blog post, since I’ve finally received the last piece of a little puzzle that has been needling at me since I got hold of a batch of photocopied correspondence between Lord Grantham and his brother Frederick Robinson from Bedford & Luton Archives. I am still ever so slightly mystified, although I think I know what it means. If anyone else can help shed some light on the mystery, though, I’d be grateful.

The Robinson brothers were prominent movers in Whig political circles, and their letters are full of references to the big names of political life. One of the families they were close to was the Townshend family, including Thomas Townshend, the future Lord Sydney, his wife Elizabeth Powys, and their growing family. Frederick and Anne Robinson, Lord Grantham’s siblings, frequently dined and socialised with the Townshends. On 4 May 1778 Frederick Robinson wrote to Lord Grantham: “I was at the Opera at night & supped at Mrs Townshends[.] Georgiana [Thomas Townshend’s eldest daughter, born April 1761] is much grown though little alter’d[.] The second daughter [Mary Elizabeth, later Countess of Chatham, then fifteen] will be pretty”.[1]

Mary, Countess of Chatham

Almost exactly a year later, Mary’s future husband John, Earl of Chatham paid the visit to Grantham in Spain that I blogged about in a previous post. After John had left Madrid, Grantham wrote to Frederick Robinson with further thoughts about the three “English” who had been his guests for over a fortnight: “I believe he [Captain Colt] & Conway found out new Acquaintances at Madrid, but Lord Chatham never went with them, & I would not swear that he is not in possession of a most precious Jewel”.[2]

One thing is for sure about this curious turn of phrase: it was not meant literally. This “precious Jewel” was a euphemism for something, and something that made Chatham forego the pleasure of sharing Conway and Colt’s “new Acquaintances”. What was the nature of this jewel? Frederick Robinson’s response gives a clue:

I believe L[or]d Chatham is not in town, Nanny [Anne Robinson] met him at Tommy Townshend’s who gave him a dinner [upon Chatham’s return from abroad], I think it very probable that his Father recommended T[homas] T[ownshend] to him; if he has a mind to set that Jewel which you suppose him possess’d of very beautifully, he might consult Miss Mary Townshend.[3]

From which I gather that Lord Grantham guessed Chatham’s reluctance to visit Colt and Conway’s “Acquaintances” derived from some sort of attachment, and Robinson connected that attachment to Miss Mary Townshend, Tommy Townshend’s “pretty” second daughter. He certainly wasn’t wide of the mark, for four years later John and Mary were indeed married.

Could it be that John already had a thing for Mary in May 1779, when he was 22 and she was 16? Could it be that he had had a crush on her even before he left for Gibraltar, since Lord Grantham seems to have picked up on it even before John’s return to England? And if so, isn’t that kind of sweet?

Do you agree, or do you think Grantham was talking about something else?

References

[1] Frederick Robinson to Lord Grantham, 4 May 1778, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS, Bedford and Luton Archives, L30/14/333/91

[2] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 2 May 1779, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS, Bedford and Luton Archives, L30/15/54/139

[3] Frederick Robinson to Lord Grantham, 25 May 1779, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS, Bedford and Luton Archives, L30/14/333/211

Lord Chatham’s seal

Posted on 31/10/2014 by Jacqueline Reiter | 3 Comments

It’s rare to find any John-related artefacts out there, perhaps because people didn’t think his things worth keeping (the “wrong Lord Chatham”, as it were). A few months ago, however, I discovered something on the web that actually belonged to him.

Amazingly, the above was John’s seal. I found it on the finds.org.uk site for the public to register finds of archaeological/historical interest. The website notes:

Part of a late eighteenth century gold fob seal set with a cornelian intaglio. The struts and suspension loop are missing. The fob seal is oval in shape and measures 33.81mm by 28.08mm by 5.24mm. It weighs 11.25g. The arms engraved on the intaglio are those of John Pitt, 2nd earl of Chatham (1756-1835), impalling those of his wife, Mary Elizabeth Townshend (1762-1821), daughter of Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney. It encorporates the coronet, supporters and motto, BENIGNO NUMINE (‘by favour of the heavens’) of the earls of Chatham. The seal must date from between the marriage of John Pitt in 1783, and 1805, when the Pitt family sold their estate at Curry Rivel. (From here)

It was found on 1 February 2006, somewhere “in the Curry Rivel area” in Somerset, presumably on the Burton Pynsent estate, where the Pitt family had a house.

What remains of Burton Pynsent (from http://www.panoramio.com/photo/10263323)

I’d guess John was out walking or riding around his estate and lost part of his seal. It’s just one of those reminders that the people I read and write about were actually human beings, who were liable to lose things (and probably quite annoyed about it afterwards).

I have not seen any manuscripts sealed with this particular design, although to be fair most MSS do not include the envelopes along with the letters (some do, particularly if the inside of the envelope formed part of the letter). I do wonder if it is a pre-1790 seal, since John was invested with the Garter in December of 1790 and was so proud of it he put his star/garter symbol on absolutely EVERYTHING. Without knowing more about heraldry, however, I could not say for sure.

As the find.org.uk website notes, the crest on the seal is composed of Chatham’s arms impaled with those of his wife, Mary Elizabeth Townshend. The Chatham arms are below:

And this is the crest of Lord Sydney, Mary’s father:

I would very much like to see a colour version of the Pitt/Townshend crest. I may have to make one myself!

A “Not-So-Grand” Tour: Lord Chatham in Spain and France, March – May 1779

Posted on 27/10/2014 by Jacqueline Reiter | 2 Comments

Madrid in the 18th century (from https://villajardines.wordpress.com/history/)

At the beginning of March 1779, the 2nd Earl of Chatham was serving as aide-de-camp to Colonel Robert Boyd in Gibraltar. Aware, no doubt, that hostilities were brewing between Britain and Spain, he received permission to return home, touring round Spain and France on his way. The inveterate gossip Sir Nathaniel Wraxall later recalled Chatham telling him “that he rode post the whole way from [Gibraltar] to Madrid”, a distance of over 400 miles– although it appears he journeyed to Cadiz first.[1] Chatham spent a fortnight in Madrid, then travelled to Paris via Bordeaux. He arrived back in England at the beginning of May 1779, two months after leaving his garrison.

On 6 March 1779 Thomas Townshend wrote to Chatham’s mother that Lord Grantham, the British ambassador to Madrid, was in “daily expectation of seeing L[or]d Chatham. He says, that he knows L[or]d Chatham to be on the Road with one of L[or]d Hertford’s Sons & another Officer”.[2] Chatham was travelling with Hugh Conway (later Seymour-Conway, eventually known as Lord Hugh Seymour), a captain in the navy and later a notorious rake and close friend of the Prince of Wales. The third member of the group was Adam Colt, a captain in the 73rd Highlanders.[3] I haven’t yet managed to find much about him, but he was very much the junior member of the group in terms of rank and importance, and seems to have been treated as little more than a glorified servant.

Lord Hugh Seymour, by J. Hoppner (1799) (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Hugh_Seymour)

Grantham did not have a definite arrival date for the three travellers in Madrid, but began preparing the ground diplomatically for their arrival around the first week of March. “I desired Floridablanca [the Spanish Prime Minister] to drop in Conversation … that I expected Lord Chatham &c in order that new faces & high names might create no Surprize”.[4] Grantham himself was curious about his forthcoming visitors: he had not yet met Chatham, but obviously remembered Chatham’s father and wondered, naturally enough, what the 2nd Earl of the name would be like.

Thomas Robinson, 2nd Lord Grantham (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robinson,_2nd_Baron_Grantham#mediaviewer/File:Thomas_Robinson_2nd_Baron.jpg)

They finally arrived on Thursday 25 March. “I walked out this Afternoon,” Grantham wrote to his brother Frederick Robinson, and “met three Gentlemen riding posts[.] [T]heir hats seemed to touch each other, & to make a Line across the Calle. I could not doubt their being my English & stopped them”. The young men’s enormous hats would make several reappearances in Grantham’s correspondence over the next fortnight, but for now Grantham was mainly concerned with acquainting himself at last with Conway, Colt (“young & Scottish”) and of course Chatham, whom he was surprised to find was not, in fact, Pitt the Elder in the flesh: “tall & thin, like his father but has not his Countenance”.[5]

The three young men (Chatham was twenty-one, Conway nineteen, and Colt probably about the same age as Conway) were not staying with Grantham, but the ambassador took on the responsibility of entertaining them. I’m not too sure he realised what he was letting himself in for, and certainly the youngsters do not seem to have spared much thought for Grantham’s official duties. The very first day they were “an hour and a half” late for breakfast, and Grantham soon discovered that if he wanted to get anything done he had to get up early and reserve “two hours in the Evenings to myself”.[6] His chaplain, Robert Waddilove, took the young men on a tour of some of the principal sites in Madrid, while Grantham set down his more considered impressions of his guests:

Lord Chatham is certainly handsome, like his father, but very gentle & modest. He has an exceeding good look of Carlito Pignatelli [presumably a member of the Spanish-Italian Pignatelli dynasty]; is very well behaved & seems as far as I can judge to think & speak very right. Conway has much more vivacity, has a remarkably open Appearance … [and] is exceeding tall & stout. … Cap[tai]n Colt, is a very Cream coloured Foal as ever I saw, a mere Recruit.

Grantham clearly enjoyed punning about the young Scotsman, whom he called “the Colt”: he “has never been out of the field, & is as rough as you can conceive”. Chatham seems to have been slow to open up. Grantham thought he was “rather prim”, although he “opens more than at first”, and was both “engaging & altogether interesting”. He and Conway had “inclinations to Virtue”, something Conway clearly outgrew later in his career, and both “wish to see & to learn”.[7]

Grantham felt Chatham’s reticence was largely due to his background: he “had a very private Education, & has some Timidity in Consequence of it”. He was clearly struck by Chatham’s generous nature, and related a story to his sister Anne:

He [Chatham] has donr at Gibraltar one of the handsomest & most generous Things a Man can do, he forgave a Man, who made rude Use of his Name, he paid his Debts to save him from Perdition, & took the most feeling part possible in a very delicate Situation.[8]

Chatham’s shyness (“he is reserved”) was a bit of a handicap, and Grantham was not surprised to find that he was not universally liked in the army. “It is singular what Accounts reach us from Gibraltar of L[or]d Ch[atham],” Grantham wrote cryptically to his brother. At least one source suggested Chatham was “intemperate”, although, as Grantham observed, “he has disguised it if it so, as I have seen no marks whatever of such a Disposition … If he has been intemperate at Gibraltar, I will venture to say it was from not knowing how to resist ye. Tyranny of a Toastmaster”. By this time, Grantham had spent nearly two weeks in Chatham’s company and completely warmed to him: “I confess I am very partial to him”. He had no doubt most of the rumours were “formed upon some narrow principle of Regimental Party”: after all, Gibraltar “is divided into Parties, & … [Chatham’s] singular Education does not decently qualify him for a Garrison Life”.[9]

All in all Grantham seems to have found Conway the best company, Chatham the quietest and most mysterious, and Colt, well, “young and Scottish”.

Grantham presented the higher ranking two at the Spanish court (Colt, unfortunately, being only gentry, did not make the grade). Everywhere they went the young men attracted attention, partly, as Grantham noted, because of their “enormous hats”, but also because of who they were: “Ye. notice of Lord Chatham’s arrival, has everywhere excited much Curiosity”.[10] The noblemen received invitations to music parties, balls and dinners (incuding one of “one hundred & three people”), and Grantham was rushed off his feet taking them here and there, plying them with “Cold Meat & liquor” in his carriage between engagements. The boys kept him on his toes, and on one occasion he nearly “lost” Colt, who left a party early and got snarled up in Madrid’s streets.[11] Despite this, Grantham seems to have managed to keep them largely out of trouble.

The Escorial, Madrid (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vista_aerea_del_Monasterio_de_El_Escorial.jpg)

During the day Waddilove showed them the Escorial, the “Cabinet of Natural History”, and “the Academy”. The young men spent the Easter weekend in Madrid, and were therefore able to see the Maundy Thursday ritual of washing the feet of the poor.[12] Grantham took them to a concert given by a singer named “Madame Dos”: “Colt fancies himself in Love with her, Conway is in Raptures, & Lord Chatham capable of the most sentimental Admiration”. The three young men finally left on 7 April, leaving an exhausted Grantham suffering from a terrible cold but still mourning his guests, “as they have been exceeding good Company”.[13]

Conway and Colt went their own way, both returning eventually to service in Gibraltar. Chatham, however, went northwards, carrying despatches from Grantham detailing the collapse of diplomatic relations with Spain. Chatham passed through Bordeaux, where he arrived on 18 April and made contact with Grantham’s wine merchant, John Black. He left with £100 worth of wine on credit (……….. whether he actually ever paid for it seems unlikely, so poor John Black) and went on to Paris, which Black assumed he would have reached by the 25th.[14]

The Hon. Frederick Robinson (from http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/872137)

Chatham landed back in England at the beginning of May and reached London late in the evening of Friday the 7th. The next day he went to visit his mother, whom he had not seen for a year, but not before delivering his despatches to Grantham’s brother Frederick Robinson, who was very curious to meet him after all he had heard: “From the little I could see of him in a short & first visit he seems to answer your descriptions of him[.] I think in his person he is a very good likeness of Camerena’s Nephews in the Spanish Guards[.] He is darker than any of his family which I have seen.”[15] This comparison of John to dark Spaniards will surprise no-one who has seen J.S. Copley’s “Death of Lord Chatham” at the National Gallery: Copley has gone so far as to give John Chatham a noticeable five o’clock shadow.

John, 2nd Earl of Chatham, in John Singleton Copley’s “The Death of the Earl of Chatham” (1779)

This was the end of Chatham’s immediate adventures, at least for a while. There was, however, a sequel. In January 1780 Chatham, who had transferred to the 86th Foot, was sent with his regiment to the West Indies. Grantham was desperate to make contact before he left because Chatham still owed him £150 from his visit to Madrid. It seems Chatham did leave without paying, but when Grantham wrote “to wish him a good Journey & to desire his Directions about the Money” (a not-so-subtle hint) Chatham did, eventually, order his banker Coutts to pay up.[16]

Clearly Chatham was fond of Grantham, and grateful for his Spanish hospitality, because Chatham did not very often pay his debts!

References

[1] Wraxall, Posthumous Memoirs of my Own Time (London, 1836) III, 129; Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 19 March 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/125

[2] Thomas Townshend to Lady Chatham, 6 March 1779, National Archives PRO 30/8/60 f 176

[3] Army List for 1780, WO 65/30

[4] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 11 March 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/124

[5] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 25 March 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/126

[6] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 27 March 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/127

[7] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 27 March 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/127

[8] Lord Grantham to Anne Robinson, 2 April 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/17/4/245a

[9] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 5 April 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/131; Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 6 April 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/132

[10] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 27 March 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/127

[11] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 5 April 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/131

[12] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 31 March 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/129

[13] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 5 April 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/131

[14] John Black to Lord Grantham, 28 April 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/14/36/25

[15] Frederick Robinson to Lord Grantham, 11 May 1779, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/14/333/207

[16] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 17 January 1780, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/162; Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 19 January 1780, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/163; Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 9 February 1780, Bedford Archives, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS L30/15/54/170

“A difficult part to act”

Posted on 24/10/2014 by Jacqueline Reiter | Leave a comment

When I came to Parliament everyone knew who I was. Now they all look through me as though I’m not there … I have no presence, no role, nothing but a name, and even that is more William’s than mine now.

Thus speaks the 2nd Earl of Chatham, the main character of my novel The Long Shadow, shortly after his brother Pitt the Younger makes his maiden speech in the House of Commons. John’s words are, of course, my own, and they reflect one of the main themes of the novel, John’s search for his own identity beyond the long shadow of his father and brother. My theme, however, is well-grounded in fact. He was the eldest son, the head of the family, but heavily dependent on the patronage and favour of his younger brother. It was a complete inversion of the 18th century aristocratic norm. Not only that, but John possessed an impoverished and virtually landless title which was nonetheless closely associated with greatness and authority. How difficult must John’s position have been?

John, 2nd Earl of Chatham, in John Singleton Copley’s “The Death of the Earl of Chatham” (1779)

With our 20/20 hindsight it is all too easy to forget that Pitt the Younger was not his father’s eldest son. When the first Earl of Chatham died in 1778 all eyes did not automatically turn to his second son, who was barely nineteen, still kept rooms at Cambridge, and was only just embarking on legal training at Lincoln’s Inn. William Pitt had not yet done anything to distinguish himself in the public, although his reputation for hard study and a defence of his father’s posthumous reputation published as an open letter to Lord Bute suggested he had inherited more than his fair share of the family brains. Quite reasonably, everyone turned their attention to the eldest son, John, now the 2nd Earl. “One looks upon him as the Child of the Publick,” Lord Grantham wrote, explaining his curiosity to meet the eldest son of the great Lord Chatham.[1]

At the time of his father’s death John was twenty-one and about to serve as aide-de-camp to General Boyd at Gibraltar. He does not seem to have been well known in political circles, but had clearly kept up social links with the effective head of the Chathamite political interest in Parliament, Lord Shelburne, and he had served on various occasions as a scribe for his gout-stricken father. John’s closest friend, the Duke of Rutland, might have formed a political group of his own — his father, the Marquis of Granby, was nearly as famous a political figure as Pitt the Elder, and Rutland’s rank, wealth and intelligence would have suited him to the task. Astonishingly, however, Rutland laid himself completely at the service of “a man for whom I profess & most sincerely do feel so much”[2]:

My dear Lord, give me Leave to thank you in the Sincerest Manner for the Great Honor you have done me in trusting me with your Proxy [while John was abroad in the West Indies]. Such an unequivocal testimony such a Publick distinguished Demonstration of Confidence from one whose Good opinion & Friendship is the Pride & Pleasure of my Life is a Circumstance too affecting, for me to be able to Express the Satisfaction I feel upon it in terms adequate to my Sensations.[3]

Charles, 4th Duke of Rutland (Wikimedia Commons) [a]

While Rutland was in Ireland, he left Chatham in charge of his parliamentary interest, instructing his agent Daniel Pulteney to apply to Chatham for advice on all political issues.

Had Chatham wanted to, he could have taken advantage of his name and parentage (as his brother William was later to do). His attitude to politics started out diligently enough. He was in Gibraltar from June 1778 until March 1779, so he could do nothing in that period, but one of the first things he did upon returning to England was to take his seat in the House of Lords. The reappearance of the Earl of Chatham in Parliament caused a frenzy of interest:

The young Earl of Chatham took the oaths and his seat in Parliament on Thursday last. His Lordship was dressed in his regimentals … and presented a very elegant, manly, and graceful figure. He is as tall as his late father, has the appearance of much mildness in his countenance, and is said to be a most exemplary young nobleman in his morals, and general good character.[4]

Chatham did not spend much time in England over the next two years, but he crops up regularly enough in the Journals of the House of Lords, and was one of nine opposition Lords who signed an official protest against the King’s elevating Lord George Germain to the peerage as Viscount Sackville.[5] As Rutland’s letter suggests, Chatham cared enough about political issues to make arrangements for his proxy vote to be deployed in his absence.

During a period of leave in 1781 he spent some time at Lord Shelburne’s house at Bowood, where he was looked upon with great curiosity by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham:

Do you know Lord Chatham? … He has his father’s Roman nose, and, if events should concur to make him have a good opinion of himself, will soon, I dare say, acquire his commanding manner: at present, one sees little more than a kind of reserve, tempered with mildness, but clouded with a little dash of bashfulness.[6]

That “bashfulness”, however, was one of several reasons why John never did manage to find a political niche for himself. His “mildness” was remarked upon by many who met him, often in surprise. “Lord Chatham … has not his [father’s] Countenance,” Lord Grantham noted in astonishment when he met John in Madrid in 1779.[7] But Chatham was not his father, despite inheriting the title: he simply wasn’t cut out for politics. Much later in his life, during the Walcheren debacle, a military subordinate suggested “that he wants confidence in his own powers”, a remarkably incisive comment.[8] He had the intelligence to be interested, but neither the energy nor the drive to make his name. And in any case, by the time Bentham was writing in 1781, the rising star of the Pitt family was becoming clear… and it wasn’t John.

What sort of effect must all this have had on Chatham? He must have been aware that his father always expected great things of him. “The promise of our dear children does me more good than the purest of pure air,” Pitt the Elder once wrote to his wife, referring specifically to both John and William.[9] In the first few years after his father’s death he must have had a great burden on his shoulders, one he was not necessarily well-suited to carry, but he did his best.

William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham by William Hoare (Wikimedia Commons) [b]

As contemporaries realised, it was a difficult line to tread. When various rumours were circulated regarding his behaviour in Gibraltar, Lord Grantham and his brother Frederick Robinson immediately dismissed them as partisan talk. “I think much depends on ye. hands he will fall into,” Grantham concluded cautiously, but it was Robinson who put his finger on a deeper truth: “I think Ld. Chatham has a difficult part to act in this country, & do not wonder at his character being variously spoken of”.[10]

References

[1]Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 27 March 1779, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS, Bedford and Luton Archives, L30/15/54/127

[2] Rutland to Chatham, 8 December [1778], PRO 30/8/368 f 231

[3] Rutland to Chatham, 22 January 1780, PRO 30/8/368 f 233

[4] London Evening Post, 19 July 1779

[5] House of Lords Journal vol XXXVI, 18 February 1782

[6] Jeremy Bentham to George Wilson, 1781, Benthamiana, ed. J H Burton (London, 1843), p 333

[7] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 25 March 1779, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS, Bedford and Luton Archives, L30/15/54/126

[8] Letters from Flushing by an officer of the 81st Regiment (London, 1809), p 126

[9] Lord Chatham to Lady Chatham, 8 June 1770, Chatham Correspondence IV, 267

[10] Lord Grantham to Frederick Robinson, 6 April 1779, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS, Bedford and Luton Archives, L30/15/54/132; Frederick Robinson to Lord Grantham, 27 April 1779, Wrest Park (Lucas) MSS, Bedford and Luton Archives, L30/14/333/198

Image references

[a] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A4th_Duke_of_Rutland.jpg

[b] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWilliamPittTheElder.jpg

“He has at least won all our hearts”: Letters from Flushing

Posted on 16/10/2014 by Jacqueline Reiter | Leave a comment

No, I’m not ready to do that post just yet, but the Walcheren campaign of 1809 — and obviously the involvement of John, 2nd Earl of Chatham in that campaign — has been on my mind recently. I am aware that when I lay down my pen in a few months at the end of my novel, I am going to have to do some research on Walcheren: I feel I owe it to myself, and to my boy Chatham, to do it. I know it won’t be pleasant, but I can hardly call myself a Chatham expert until I have familiarised myself with every aspect of the campaign.

In due course, therefore, I will probably be writing a series of Walcheren-related posts. For now I’m thinking about it mainly because I have recently made contact with Dr Carl A. Christie, whose doctoral research was on the Walcheren campaign and who kindly sent me an article he wrote on the subject in 1981.[1] While reading the article one of the references caught my eye, so I chased it up:

I was expecting the book to be harsh on John, but while it is not exactly favourable,I was surprised at how positive it was about him. I freely admit I’m much more likely to blog about the nice stuff at this stage (cross my heart I will be fair to Chatham when I come to look at Walcheren properly) but after the bad press he has in the history books I really wasn’t expecting his subordinates to, well … like him. Although it must be noted that being a likeable chap does not necessarily make for a great military commander, and there’s plenty of censure here too.

George Cruikshank, “The Grand Expedition” — a rather more critical *coughs* portrayal of Lord Chatham’s inactivity than in “Letters from Flushing” (Wikimedia Commons)

The anonymous officer of the 81st Regiment who wrote the letters printed in “Letters from Flushing” may have had a pro-Chatham agenda of some sort, I don’t know: I haven’t done enough research even to guess who he might have been. He certainly had an axe to grind against the navy, so would be expected to take the army’s side in a debate. Taking all that as given, he begins (pp. 3-5) with a lengthy description of Lord Chatham, and the way in which he was viewed at the beginning of the expedition at the end of July 1809. (The letter in question is dated from Ramsgate, 27 July 1809.)

There’s a fair amount of implied criticism in the account — the author is quite circumspect about his opinion: “there is an old proverb, that ‘walls have ears’, and perhaps there are some things which should not be committed to letters” — but the John I have come to know in my research is certainly recognisable here.

So much, however, I will say, that I could wish the Earl [of Chatham] would be more active in putting his talents forth. He is certainly a man of abilities, he thinks solidly, and writes extremely well; but it is not very easy to arouse him into exertion; he is indolent beyond any man I have ever seen. At the present moment he bustles about with some appearance of alacrity; but it is evidently only a fit and a start, and all of us begin to apprehend a relapse. If you pass his window in his hours of leisure, you will invariably see him yawning, or with a book, over which he is sleeping. To sum up all, however, and perhaps to compensate for all, he has the reputation of being as honest a man as Heaven ever formed; he is the perfect gentleman, moreover, in his manners and deportment, and, as I have said before, whatever he does, he does well. If his activity were but equal to his talents, he would be inferior to none of our most celebrated Generals.

The author goes on to hint at one possibility never mentioned by historians for why Chatham was chosen to lead the expedition: his name and heritage inspired loyalty in the troops under his command (pp 4-5).

As the brother of the immortal Pitt, his appointment has given universal satisfaction amongst all the officers; and I do really believe that, under this impelling principle, they would do more for him than for any General in the service. I can scarcely describe to you the enthusiasm with which the good people of Ramsgate flock around the brother of Pitt, and the son of Chatham.

Presumably the soldiery were at least expecting a man who would be at least half as brilliant as his father and brother, although as the account suggests Chatham’s reputation for indolence was well-known.

On pp 125-7, the author again speaks of Chatham’s popularity among the soldiers, something I found rather surprising: from a couple of sources quoted in Gordon Bond and Martin Howard’s accounts of Walcheren I had the impression he was viewed as a distant commander, rather out of touch with what was happening on the front lines. Still, John was always an affable chap, and well-mannered, as the author keeps mentioning (he’s not the only one to lay emphasis on John’s “manners”). There’s nevertheless a flavour of censure about his easy-goingness, and the author does attack his hesitation and inactivity:

As to our Commander in Chief, he spends the greater part of his time in Middleburg [the headquarters], and very freely and good-naturedly permits the officers to follow their own inclinations.

Above: Middelburg, Walcheren Island

So much I must say of him, that every one seems to feel a lively regard for him; his manners are so gentlemanlike, and his temper so easy and affable, that he has at least won all our hearts. But there are certainly some murmurs that he is not sufficiently decisive, that he wants confidence in his own powers [I’d say this is a very incisive observation], that he is too fond of councils of war, and that he is deliberating, where the nature of the service requires that he should be acting. Be this as it may, he is the perfect gentleman [but of course]; and when he thinks proper to exert himself, an excellent officer. Every one acknowledges his abilities, whilst they lament that he does not sufficiently put them forth.

Even the author, however, seems to have fallen under the spell of John’s charm, since he can’t resist finishing off with a sweet story from John’s childhood. It’s almost certainly apocryphal, but having read a fair amount of Pitt family correspondence there is a flavour of truth about the tale:

I have heard that the late Lord Chatham, the great Chatham as he is deservedly called, entertained a very high opinion of our Commander’s abilities. The late Lord Clarendon being one day at his house, and Mr Pitt and Lord Chatham, at that time boys, happening to pass — ‘There, my Lord,’ said Lord Chatham, ‘are my best services to my country; there are two boy who will hereafter be most useful men. The one, Mr Pitt, is the readiest; he has a due confidence in himself. The other will be the most solid thinker.’

There, then, you have it: easy-going, lazy, difficult to rouse, diffident, a slavish follower of official military protocol: yes, that is definitely a Chatham I recognise. But popular, intelligent, full of ability, respected by the men under his command? Now that’s a John I have yet to see in any history books.

____________

Reference

All quotations from Letters from Flushing by an officer of the 81st Regiment (London, 1809)

[1] Carl A. Christie, “The Royal Navy and the Walcheren Expedition of 1809”, New Aspects of Naval History ed C. L. Symonds et al (Annapolis, 1981) 190-200

Happy 258th birthday John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham

Posted on 10/10/2014 by Jacqueline Reiter | 2 Comments

As those who have followed this blog since its beginning will know, I do not follow the majority view that John, 2nd Earl of Chatham was born on 9 October 1756. As far as I can see the only justification for this is that John’s father wrote a letter to William Pitt (John’s brother) on 9 October 1773 in which he talked of it being “the happy day that gave us your brother”.[1] Possibly it was John’s birthday, as certainly John read Tomline’s draft before the book was published and might have been expected to correct the error, but I tend to think Tomline mistranscribed.

This is why:

John, 2nd Earl of Chatham’s baptismal record, Hayes, Kent[2]

Even given this is a partial record, I think it’s fairly obvious that I have good grounds for commemorating John’s birthday on the 10th and not the 9th.

Anyway, moving on… in celebration of John’s 258th (he always looked younger than his years), today’s post is about his childhood. I’ve been posting a lot about his later years recently, so it seems fitting to go right back to the beginning for once.

John, 2nd Earl of Chatham, in John Singleton Copley's "The Death of the Earl of Chatham"

John, 2nd Earl of Chatham, aged 21/2, in John Singleton Copley’s “The Death of the Earl of Chatham”

John was, like his younger brother William, born at Hayes Place, his father’s country house in Kent. (The other three children were born in London.) “We are all well here … and intend that our little colony shall, God willing, receive its increase in the pure air of our village,” Pitt the Elder wrote to his brother-in-law George Grenville on 20 August 1756.[3]

In accordance with his later reputation, it seems John arrived a little later than expected, but when he did decide to make his appearance he was in a hurry.[4] It was probably the quickest entrance he made in his entire life. A delighted Pitt the Elder gushed to George Grenville on the morning of 10 October 1756 about John’s health and size:

Lady Hester is as well as can be in her situation, after being delivered of a son this morning, who is also well. She had a sharp time, but not longer than two hours and a half. There was enough notice to have [William] Hunter [the fashionable accoucheur] and all comforts about us. … Mrs Grenville, I am sure, and perhaps you, will excuse my talking nursery: the young man meets with general applause for stature and strength … He is, however, as they flatter me, without appearance of heaviness, notwithstanding his size.[5]

Pitt was evidently delighted to have a son at last. “[Lady Hester] and the child are as well as possible,” he reported to his nephew Thomas Pitt, “and the father in the joy of his heart”.[6]

William Pitt the Elder by William Hoare

Most books focus on the childhood of John’s brother William, but there are occasional glimpses of John in the family correspondence. The impression drawn from history is that Lord and Lady Chatham favoured their second son above all the other children, and there is probably some truth in this, but John, too, was much loved. In 1770 Lord Chatham spent some quality time at Burton Pynsent with John, who was going to travel on with his tutor Mr Wilson to Cornwall, while Lady Chatham remained with the four others at Hayes:

Pray tell all at Athens, professors, and scholars, how truly charmed I am with their performances [ie, as correspondents] … They may all rest satisfied that Pitt [John, whose courtesy title as heir was Viscount Pitt] is every thing that can please: he is a sweet, idle boy; he is a sensible, conversable, discreet man: sense or nonsense, verse or prose, Homer, mouse, taste, all shine alike, and draw perpetual applauses from papa and Mr Wilson.[7]

Along with his four siblings Hester, Harriot, William, and James Charles, John was educated at home by a tutor, Reverend Edward Wilson. There were some thoughts of sending him to Eton, where his father had gone, but apparently these came to nothing.[8] He seems to have been a bright boy: he often bested William in his studies, and their tutor Wilson’s comments on the subject can be followed in the Chatham MSS at the National Archives .[9] “John was distinguish’d first for his Mathematicks, and then for his Latin Lesson,” Lady Chatham wrote to her husband in July 1766. “… Mr Wilson imputed their success [John and Hester’s], to the subject, which he told me they took to, with a Taste and an ardour of Application that was quite fine. The subject, was an account of Aristides, and his great Virtues”.[10]

Rev. Edward Wilson and his brother Thomas, From W.A. Shuffrey, “Some Craven Worthies” (London, 1903)

In terms of his likes and dislikes, John was pure boy. He was never happier than when out riding or shooting, two pastimes he kept up for the rest of his life. In 1777 his mother apologised to a correspondent for John’s not adding his good wishes to a letter, because he was “following the Fox Hounds, for the first day this season”.[11] It seems, however, that he was proficient at drawing, and his tutor Mr Wilson often referred to the vividness of his imagination.[12] Dancing was also a passion: he and his siblings were under the tutelage of the fashionable dancing master Giovanni Gallini, and there are frequent mentions in the correspondence of John staying out late dancing or accepting invitations to Pantheon balls.[13] On at least one occasion Lord Chatham referred to his eldest son as “the powdered beau”, suggesting an early inclination to dressing fashionably and well which he never entirely outgrew.

John was early destined for a career in the army (… which has always struck me as a little unusual as the destination for an older son, but there you go). His future was already determined before he was 14: Lord Chatham joked he was learning “how to live in a March, or bad quarters” when they made a bad journey from London to Somerset in July 1770.[15] John spent the summer of 1773 applying himself assiduously to his studies, Lord Chatham having procured him an ensigncy in the 47th Foot. John was due to go out with General Guy Carleton to Quebec the following year, but in the meantime the sixteen-year-old spent most of a holiday spent at Lyme in Dorset studying with a local military engineer.

Lord Chatham wrote to his wife referring to his eldest son as “young Vauban” and described how he was kept from joining his father and second brother on a ride because “he was generously occupied in learning to defend the happy land we were enjoying. Indeed, my life, the promise of our dear children does me more good than the purest of pure air”.[16] John’s brother James Charles was slightly less generous when the travellers returned to Burton Pynsent, expressing astonishment “that Pitt has made so amazing a progress in the military art, in so short a time”– but that’s siblings for you.[17]

When he left England for Canada in June 1774 John, theoretically, stopped being a boy and became a man. He was still only 17, though, and he had spent all his childhood at home with his family. Travelling abroad must have been a big shock for a boy who had, essentially, rarely gone much further north than London. Apart from his brother James, he was by far the most well-travelled of the Pitts, travelling with the army to North America, Gibraltar, and the Leeward Islands, as well as in due course the Netherlands.

He was, also, and less positively, the man responsible for selling the house in which he had been born, Hayes Place, and the house in which he spent much of his childhood, Burton Pynsent. Hayes was sold in 1785, Burton Pynsent in 1805, after his mother’s death, both to settle John’s debts– although he had inherited both of them mortgaged to the hilt. John never had children of his own; nor would he, strictly speaking, fulfil the promise his father clearly felt he showed in his youth. But promise he had, and it is well worth remembering that the man who would, in later life and posthumously, be castigated as an idiot, once bested his brother in mathematics.

References

[1] Tomline, Life of Pitt I, 15

[2] Thanks to Stephenie Woolterton for the picture

[3] Grenville Papers I, 171

[4] Letters written by the late Earl of Chatham to his nephew Thomas Pitt… (London, 1804), p. 96

[5] Grenville Papers I, 173-4

[6] Letters of Lord Chatham to Thomas Pitt, p. 97

[7] Lord Chatham to Lady Chatham, 3 August 1770, Chatham Correspondence III, 470

[8] Lady Chatham to Lord Temple, 23 September 1769, Grenville Papers 5, 463

[9] PRO 30/8/67

[10] Lady Chatham to Lord Chatham, 11 July 1766, PRO 30/8/9

[11] Lady Chatham to Mrs Thomas Pitt, 25 October 1777, Dropmore Papers, British Library Add Ms 59490, ff 61-2. Thanks to Stephenie Woolterton for the reference

[12] James Charles Pitt to Lord Chatham, 21 June 1773, PRO 30/8/13; Edward Wilson to Lady Chatham, 23 August 1766, PRO 30/8/67

[13] Vere Birdwood, So dearly loved, so much admired (London, 1994), p. 9; Marie Peters, The Elder Pitt (London, 1998), pp. 211-2

[14] Ghita Stanhope and G.P. Gooch, Life of Charles, 3rd Earl Stanhope (London, 1914), p. 10

[15] Lord Chatham to Lady Chatham, 31 July 1770, PRO 30/8/9

[16] Quoted in Tresham Lever, The House of Pitt (London, 1947), pp. 192-3

[17] James Charles Pitt to Lord Chatham, 21 June 1773, PRO 30/8/13

The Late Lord

Researching and writing about 18th century British political, military, and naval history

Yearly Archives: 2014

The 2nd Earl of Chatham’s muddled finances

Mary, Countess of Chatham’s “Rheumatick complaint”

“Likely to get frampy”: In which the 2nd Lord Chatham has trouble getting his act together

Lord Sydney’s children

“A most precious Jewel”

Lord Chatham’s seal

A “Not-So-Grand” Tour: Lord Chatham in Spain and France, March – May 1779

“A difficult part to act”

“He has at least won all our hearts”: Letters from Flushing

Happy 258th birthday John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham