William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, was a British Whig statesman who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1766 to 1768. Historians call him "Chatham" or "Pitt the Elder" to distinguish him from his son William Pitt the Younger, who also served as prime minister. Pitt was also known as "the Great Commoner" because of his long-standing refusal to accept a title until 1766.
The Whigs were a political party in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and the 1850s, the Whigs contested power with their rivals, the Tories. The Whigs became the Liberal Party when it merged with the Peelites and Radicals in the 1850s. Many Whigs left the Liberal Party in 1886 over the issue of Irish Home Rule to form the Liberal Unionist Party, which merged into the Conservative Party in 1912.
Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, was a British Whig statesman and magnate, most notable for his two terms as prime minister of Great Britain. He became the patron of many Whigs, known as the Rockingham Whigs, and served as a leading Whig grandee. He served in only two high offices during his lifetime but was nonetheless very influential during his one and a half years of service.
George Grenville was a British Whig statesman who rose to the position of Prime Minister of Great Britain, during the early reign of the young George III. He served for only two years (1763-1765), and attempted to solve the problem of the massive debt resulting from the Seven Years' War. He instituted a series of measures to increase revenue to the crown, including new taxes and enforcement of collection, and sought to bring the North American colonies under tighter crown control.
William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, was a British Pittite Tory politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1806 to 1807, but was a supporter of the Whigs for the duration of the Napoleonic Wars. As prime minister, his most significant achievement was the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. However, his government failed to either make peace with France or to accomplish Catholic emancipation and it was dismissed in the same year.
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, PC, FRS was a British statesman who succeeded his grandfather Edward Montagu, 3rd Earl of Sandwich as the Earl of Sandwich in 1729, at the age of ten. He held various military and political offices, including Postmaster General, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Secretary of State for the Northern Department. He is also known for the claim that he was the inventor of the sandwich.
Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple, KG, PC was a British politician and peer who served as Lord Privy Seal from 1757 to 1761. He is best known for his association with his brother-in-law William Pitt, serving with him in the Pitt–Newcastle ministry during Britain's participation in the Seven Years' War from 1756 to 1761. He resigned, along with Pitt, in 1761 in protest over the ministry's refusal to declare war on Spain.
Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1754 to 1783 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Sydney. He held several important Cabinet posts in the second half of the 18th century. The cities of Sydney in Nova Scotia, Canada, and Sydney in New South Wales, Australia were named in his honour, in 1785 and 1788, respectively.
John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, was a British Whig statesman and peer who served as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1757 to 1761. A leading member of the Whig party during the Seven Years' War, he negotiated the 1763 Treaty of Paris which ended the conflict. Bedford was also an early promoter of cricket and a patron of the arts who commissioned numerous works from prominent artists, most notably Canaletto.
The Rockingham Whigs in 18th-century British politics were a faction of the Whigs led by Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, from about 1762 until his death in 1782. The Rockingham Whigs briefly held power from 1765 to 1766 and again in 1782, and otherwise were usually in opposition to the various ministries of the period.
The 1807 United Kingdom general election was the third general election to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
The Grenville Whigs were a name given to several British political factions of the 18th and the early 19th centuries, all of which were associated with the important Grenville family of Buckinghamshire.
The 1768 British general election returned members to serve in the House of Commons of the 13th Parliament of Great Britain to be held, after the merger of the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland in 1707.
Foxite was a late 18th-century British political label for Whig followers of Charles James Fox.
Sir John Wrottesley, 8th Baronet, of Wrottesley Hall in Staffordshire, was a British army officer and politician who was a Member of the British House of Commons from 1768 to 1787.
The Grafton ministry was the British government headed by Prime Minister Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, in government from October 1768 to January 1770.
The Cobhamite faction were an 18th-century British political faction built around Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham and his supporters. Among its members, the group included the future Prime Ministers William Pitt and George Grenville. They had a general Whig philosophy and were at first supporters of Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole but later became opponents of his administration.
The Chatham ministry was a British government led by William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham that ruled between 1766 and 1768. Because of Pitt's former prominence before his title, it is sometimes referred to as the Pitt ministry. Unusually for a politician considered to be Prime Minister, Pitt was not First Lord of the Treasury during the administration, but instead held the post of Lord Privy Seal.
In British politics, a Whig government may refer to the following British governments administered by the Whigs:
