Myth, Reality and William Pitt the Younger

William Pitt is, in some respects, an unlikely political icon. A delicate child, he was described as a man by H. A. Bruce as a ‘tall, ungainly, bony figure’. Pitt was a satirist’s gift. The best known, James Gillray, also captured the aloofness that many remembered. In an age where personal contacts mattered, Pitt was not clubbable. As William Wilberforce, a rare exception, put it, ‘Pitt does not make friends.’ He preferred to immerse himself in the details of commerce and finance – matters which Wilberforce dismissed as ‘subjects of a low and vulgarising quality’. But only Walpole has served longer as prime minister. How is Pitt’s longevity and achievement to be explained?