Pitt
Pitt names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Pitt William, Earl of Chatham (1708-1778)
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
William, Earl of Chatham (1708-1778), a famous English statesman. He was born at Westminster and was educated at Trinity College, Oxford. He served for a time as a cornet in a regiment of dragoons. He entered Parliament in 1735. He remained in public service for the rest of his life. He rose to be premier. He was for many years the head of the British government. In a speech on the Excise Bill, he spoke as follows on the rights of the common people. "The poorest man may, in his cottage, bid defiance to all the force of the crown. It may be frail; its roof may sink; the winds may blow through it; the storms may enter it; the rain may enter in; but the king of England cannot enter. All his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement." Pitt shaped the policy of Great Britain during the French and Indian War. The acquisition of Canada was due largely to him. The city of Pittsburg, occupying the former site of Fort Duquesne, was named in his honor. Although Pitt believed in the authority of Parliament "to bind the colonies in all cases, whatsoever," he was regarded as a man of just views and a friend of the colonists. In 1766, when the repeal of the Stamp Act was under consideration, he said, "Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power. Taxes are the voluntary gift or grant of the commons alone. I rejoice," said he, "that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to have become slaves would be fit instruments to make slaves of the rest." In a speech of December, 1777, with reference to the employment of Hessians and Indians, he said: "If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms,--never! never! never!"
Pitt WILLIAM, an English statesman
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
WILLIAM, an English statesman; born in Hayes, England, May 28, 1759; second son of the Earl of Chatham; was educated at Cambridge University; studied law and was elected to Parliament in 1780. He was as strongly opposed to the American War as was his WILLIAM PITT father. In 1783 he became me prime min ister; was active in the negotiations of peace with the United States, and was instrumental in the passage of many important measures. Retiring in 1801, he was recalled to office when the Peace of Amiens was broken and war with Napoleon again brought on. Throug public career he was noted as a parliamentary leader and orator. He died in Putney, England, Jan. 23, 1806.
Pitt WILLIAM. See CHATHAM
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
WILLIAM. See CHATHAM.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The biographical outline in both accounts still stands: Chatham directed the war that won Canada in 1759-60, and his son became prime minister in December 1783 at twenty-four, still the youngest in British history. Two small corrections have caught up with Aiton's 1910 text. The city he mentions is now spelled Pittsburgh, the final 'h' having been restored by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names in 1911 after two decades of official 'Pittsburg'; and the celebrated 'poorest man in his cottage' passage, which Aiton gives as a speech on the Excise Bill, survives only through later reporting and is treated by modern historians as at best a loose reconstruction. Biographers since have also given far more weight to the collapses of health and spirits that removed Chatham from business for long stretches, usually read now as severe depressive illness rather than the gout of contemporary accounts.
Written for this edition, 2026.