Men of Kent and Kentishmen/William Pitt
William Pitt,
THE ILLUSTRIOUS STATESMAN,
Was born at Hayes, May 28, 1789, and may therefore be claimed as a Kentish man, though by descent he belonged to an old Cornish family. His father, the great Earl of Chatham, purchased the estate of Hayes. The best bedroom in the house is still pointed out as the apartment in which William Pitt was born; and it is probably also (says Stanhope in his "Life"), the apartment where his father died. William was the second son, John the eldest succeeded to the title and estates, James Charles the youngest was destined for the navy, William, in due time for the Bar. At the age of fourteen he was entered at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where in the spring of 1773, at the age of seventeen, he was admitted Master of Arts. He still continued, however, to reside at the University for the most part till his coming of age, and it was during these years that he laid in those stores of knowledge of which he made such effective use in after life. After leaving the University he spent some time on the Continent, and on his return he became a student at Lincoln's Inn, where he was called to the Bar in 1780. On the 23rd of January in the year following he took his seat in Parliament as member for Appleby. This date (says his principal biographer) marks both the commencement and close of his public life; for it was on the anniversary of the same day that he died. The "public life" of Pitt being so intimately bound up with the history of his country during the next twenty-five years, it will be unnecessary here to refer to it.
Hayes Place, where Pitt was born, was disposed of by his eldest brother; but the "Great Commoner's" connection with his native county continued throughout his life. Holwood House, the residence of Lord Cranworth, between Keston and Farnborough, was long his favourite retreat. Here, where as a boy he used to go birdsnesting, he took pleasure in planting and laying out the grounds, and it was in Holwood Park, just on the descent into the Vale of Keston, at the root of an old oak tree that he discussed and settled with Wilberforce the Slavery-Abolition Bill in 1788. At Walmer Castle, too, is shown a room in which he had frequent conferences with Nelson whilst the fleet lay in the Downs watching the Boulogne flotilla in 1801. He died at his residence at Putney on January 23rd, 1806.
[See his Life, by Stanhope, and English Histories of the Period.]