Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford

Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford (3 March 1737 – 19 January 1793) was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1761 until 1784 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Camelford. He was an art connoisseur.

Early life

Pitt was born and baptised at Boconnoc in Cornwall on 3 March 1737, the son of Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc (died 1761), elder brother of William Pitt the Elder. His mother was Christian, eldest daughter of Thomas Lyttelton, 4th Baronet, of Hagley. He was admitted fellow-commoner at Clare College, Cambridge, on 7 January 1754, and resided there until 1758. In 1759 Pitt obtained the degree of Master of Arts (MA) per literas regias.

Thomas Pitt accompanied Thomas Hay, 9th Earl of Kinnoull, British ambassador to the court of Portugal, on his journey to Lisbon in January 1760. Thomas Gray and his friends contrived that John Bowes, 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, a college companion, should go with him; and Philip Francis, a lifelong friend, also joined the expedition. They entered the Tagus on 7 March 1760, and left Lisbon on 21 May 1760. Passing through Spain to Barcelona, they crossed to Genoa, and passed some time in Italy. Pitt corresponded with Gray, and wrote a manuscript journal of his travels; Cole notes that the description of the bullfight in the manuscript is identical with that in Edward Clarke's Letters on the Spanish Nation. Horace Walpole introduced Pitt to Sir Horace Mann at Florence, and praised his conduct in cutting off the entail to pay his father's debts and to provide for his sisters. Pitt was staying at Florence with his uncle, Richard Lyttelton, when news arrived of the death of his father, on 17 July 1761.

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. and Sir J. Eardley-Wilmot dubbed him in 1765 'the prince of all the male beauties,’ and 'very well bred, polite, and sensible'. In his biography of Horace Walpole, Timothy Mowl took these comments to claim Pitt was a homosexual.