Author: Pitt, William
Biography:
PITT, William (1749-1823: ODNB)
Pitt was born and died in the West Midlands, but he curiously insisted on distinguishing between past and present places of residence in his title-pages—typically, “formerly of Pendeford, now of Edgbaston Street Birmingham.” He was born in the village of Tettenhall, Staffordshire (now part of Wolverhampton), and baptised at Bloxwich on 9 Apr. 1749, the son of Catharine (or Kathrine) Martin and James Pitt, who had been married at St. Peter’s, Wolverhampton, on 30 Aug. 1747. Nothing is known of his education, nor of the qualifications that led him to be commissioned by the Board of Agriculture, under the chairmanship of Sir John Sinclair, MP, to write an agricultural survey of Staffordshire as the first of a series of such county surveys, inaugurated in 1793. But he was articulate and well informed and took advice from “respectable gentlemen and farmers” of the districts surveyed. Probably he was a gentleman, if not a landowner, himself. Pitt’s “General View” of Staffordshire appeared in 1794, followed by Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, and Worcestershire. His satire on the Bullion controversy of 1810-12, his only known poem apart from an epitaph, is dedicated to Sinclair. He also published A Topographical History of Staffordshire in 1817. He has been supposed to have died unmarried but in fact he married Mary Allen of Tettenhall (d 1792) on 27 Oct. 1774 at St. Mary’s, Bushbury, Staffordshire; they baptised four children between 1775 and 1781. He died at Wolverhampton and was buried with his wife at St. Michael and All Angels, Tettenhall, on 11 Sept. 1823, having prepared the way with an epitaph that would allow his name to be added to hers on the gravestone: “this second rhyme/ Is by her husband writ,/ Just to remind each friend so kind,/ That here lies William Pitt.” (ODNB 24 Oct. 2023; ancestry.com 24 Oct. 2023; findmypast.com 24 Oct. 2023; Staffordshire Advertiser 13 Sept. 1823)