Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford

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In politics

Thomas Pitt now became owner of the controlling interest in the rotten borough of Old Sarum and a considerable share in that of Okehampton in Devon. At intervals, Pitt now played an active part in politics. He was a Member of Parliament of the House of Commons for Old Sarum from December 1761 until 1768, for Okehampton from 1768 until 1774, and again for Old Sarum from 1774 until he was raised to the peerage in 1784. He followed in politics his near relative, George Grenville, who made him a lord of the admiralty in his ministry of 1763. He was invited, in compliment to his uncle, Chatham, to continue in office with the Rockingham ministry; but he was politically at variance with Chatham, and followed Grenville into opposition.

Pitt was one of the seventy-two whig members who met at the Thatched House Tavern, London, on 9 May 1769, to celebrate the rights of electors in the struggle for the representation of Middlesex; he seconded Sir William Meredith in his attempt to relax the subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, and he spoke against the Royal Marriage Bill. Through his influence, supported by Lady Chatham, the reconciliation of his uncle and Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple was effected in 1774. Horace Walpole, who quarrelled with him on political topics, calls him a 'flimsy' speaker, but Wraxall remarked that, although he rarely spoke, his family position guaranteed him an audience when he did. He made a speech in 1780 on John Dunning's motion to limit the influence of the Crown. He was one of the strongest opponents of Lord North's ministry, and a warm antagonist of the coalition. In November 1781, he protested against voting supplies until grievances were redressed. In February 1783, he moved the address for the Shelburne ministry, protesting that he had always been opposed to the use of force against the American colonies, and he attacked Charles James Fox's East India Bill.

He spoke carefully in 1782 against parliamentary reform. Next year, when the same question was brought forward, he was ridiculed for a change of opinion, and his offer to sacrifice his rotten borough for the public good. He was satirised by the authors of the Rolliad (1795), and was chaffed in the House of Commons by Fox (13 March 1784) and Edmund Burke (28 February 1785). In March 1783, when the king was endeavouring to form an administration in opposition to North and Fox, the leadership of the House of Commons and the seals of a secretary of state were offered to him, despite opposition from Lord Ashburton. On 5 January 1784 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Camelford of Boconnoc, a promotion attributed to the influence of his cousin William Pitt the Younger.

Dilettante

From March 1762, Pitt lived at Twickenham, playfully calling his house the 'Palazzo Pitti', a punning reference to the Pitti Palace in Florence. He was then the neighbour of Horace Walpole of Strawberry Hill House, who recognised his skill in Gothic architecture, and went so far as to call him 'my present architect.' On the death in 1779 of William Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Harrington, he bought the lease of Petersham Lodge (beneath Richmond Park, but now demolished and the grounds included in the park boundaries), and he purchased the fee-simple in 1784 from the crown, an act of parliament being passed for that purpose. In 1790 it was sold by him to the Duke of Clarence.

Thomas Pitt also built Camelford House, fronting Oxford Street, at the top of Park Lane, London; and as a member of the Dilettanti Society, to which he had been elected on 1 May 1763, he proposed in February 1785 that the shells of two adjoining houses constructed by him in Hereford Street should be completed by the society for a public museum, but financial considerations put a stop to the project. Although an amateur, Pitt was involved in architecture at the highest level, particularly at Stowe House in Buckinghamshire during the period 1770–1779. Earl Temple having first obtained a design from Jacques-François Blondel for the new south front of the house, which did not meet with the Earl's approval, in 1771 Robert Adam produced a new design for the south front; this design was adapted and made more uniform by Thomas Pitt assisted by Giovanni Battista Borra and was finished in 1779. The interiors of the new state apartments were not completed until 1788, much of the interior work being by an Italian, Vincenzo Valdrè (1740–1814).

Pitt interested himself in the porcelain manufactory of Plymouth porcelain, where they used the white saponaceous china stone found on his land in Cornwall. Angelica Kauffman wrote to him on the free importation into England by artists of their own studies and designs. Pitt was a friend of Mary Delany, to whom he gave for her lifetime portraits of Sir Bevil Grenville, his wife, and his father, and he proposed to John Maurice, Count of Brühl that they should jointly assist Thomas Mudge in his plans for the improvement of nautical chronometers. The wainscoting of the stalls in Carlisle Cathedral, where his uncle Charles Lyttelton was bishop, was designed by him.

Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford

Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford

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Early life

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Early life

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