Family and Education

b. ?1722, 2nd s. of Thomas Pitt (d.1729), 1st Earl of Londonderry [I] , and 1st cos. of Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc. educ. Westminster, Apr. 1730, aged 8; Bury St. Edmunds 1734; St. John’s, Camb. 25 Sept. 1740, aged 18. unm. suc. bro. as 3rd Earl 24 Aug. 1734.

Offices Held

Biography

In 1747 Londonderry was included in a list of persons to be brought into Parliament by the Prince of Wales. The duty of finding him a seat fell to his first cousin, Thomas Pitt, the Prince’s Cornish election manager, whose only hope of extricating himself from his desperate financial difficulties was a twenty year old suit in Chancery claiming £95,000 from Londonderry’s estate. Pitt would have preferred to put his cousin up for Bossiney, but Londonderry successfully insisted on being nominated for Camelford, where he had the backing of Pitt’s most influential supporter.1 He did not stand again, dying 8 Jan. 1765, when all his honours became extinct.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Romney R. Sedgwick

Notes

• 1. HMC Fortescue, i. 108, 110, 115, 133.