George Pitt

George Pitt (c. 1663–1735), of Strathfield Saye, Hampshire, was a British landowner and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1694 and 1727. Early life Pitt was the eldest son of George Pitt of Strathfield Saye and his wife Jane Savage, eldest daughter of John Savage, 2nd Earl Rivers MP. He matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford on 26 March 1680, aged 16. He married by licence dated 14 March 1691, Lucy Lowe, widow of Laurence Lowe of Shaftesbury and daughter of Thomas Pile of Baverstock, Wiltshire. and Shroton, Dorset and the marriage led to the acquisition for his son of the reversion to the Dorset estates of Thomas Freke. He succeeded his father in 1694 and inherited landed wealth, estimated at between £10,000 and £12,000 a year, including Strathfieldsaye, the estates of Wareham priory, with the advowsons of three of the town's churches, which gave a strong electoral influence there, and valuable collieries in north Durham, which his father had acquired in 1686. In 1692, Pitt was involved in a tavern quarrel, in which, ‘o’ercome with wine and loyalty’, he killed one John Hoyle of the Inner Temple, a controversial figure described by one contemporary as ‘an atheist, a sodomite . . . and a blasphemer’. The young Pitt had been offended by his ‘scurrilous’ references to the monarchy. Pitt fled the scene but was soon arrested, and was convicted of manslaughter later in the year. Although he obtained an almost immediate pardon, there remained the chance of a retrial as late as 1696. Pitt was slow in making his presence felt in the Commons, and avoided facing electoral contests, which may be as a consequence of this episode. Pitt's wife died on 17 November 1697 and he made a second marriage by 1700, to Lora Grey, daughter of Audley Grey of Kingston Marwood, in Stinsford, Dorset, who brought him even more property in Dorset. For many years he was closely associated with his kinsman, Governor Thomas Pitt, who entrusted him with ‘paternal authority’ over his children in 1706 and with the custody of the famous Pitt diamond in 1710.