William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, was a British statesman of the Whig group who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1766 to 1768. Historians call him Chatham or William Pitt the Elder to distinguish him from his son William Pitt the Younger, who was also a prime minister. Pitt was also known as the Great Commoner, because of his long-standing refusal to accept a title until 1766.
George III was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death in 1820. He was the longest-lived and longest-reigning king in British history. He was concurrently Duke and Prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg ("Hanover") in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was a monarch of the House of Hanover but, unlike his two predecessors, he was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language and never visited Hanover.
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute,, styled Lord Mount Stuart between 1713 and 1723, was a British nobleman who served as the 7th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1762 to 1763 under George III. He was arguably the last important royal favourite in British politics. He was the first prime minister from Scotland following the Acts of Union in 1707. He was also elected as the first president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland when it was founded in 1780.
William Wildman Shute Barrington, 2nd Viscount Barrington, PC, was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons for 38 years from 1740 to 1778. He was best known for his two periods as Secretary at War during Britain's involvement in the Seven Years War and American War of Independence.
Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, was a British Whig statesman, 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. Grenville was born into an influential political family and first entered Parliament in 1741 as an MP for Buckingham. He emerged as one of Cobham's Cubs, a group of young members of Parliament associated with Lord Cobham.
Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, better known by his courtesy title Lord North, which he used from 1752 to 1790, was 12th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led Great Britain through most of the American War of Independence. He also held a number of other cabinet posts, including Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
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.
William Petty Fitzmaurice, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne,, was an Anglo-Irish Whig statesman who was the first home secretary in 1782 and then prime minister from 1782 to 1783 during the final months of the American War of Independence. He succeeded in securing peace with America and this feat remains his most notable legacy.
John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, was an 18th-century British statesman. Bedford was a leading Whig political figure around the time of the Seven Years' War, and negotiated the Treaty of Paris which ended the conflict in 1763. He was also an early promoter of cricket and a patron of the arts who commissioned many works from artists, most notably Canaletto.
Frederick North, Lord North was appointed to lead the government of the Kingdom of Great Britain by King George III from 1770 to 1782. His ministry oversaw the Falklands Crisis of 1770, the 1780 Gordon Riots and the outbreak of the American War of Independence.
The 1807 United Kingdom general election was the third general election to be held after the Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
The Bedford Whigs were an 18th-century British political faction, led by John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford. Other than Bedford himself, notable members included John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich; Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Gower; Richard Rigby, who served as principal Commons manager for the group; Thomas Thynne, 3rd Viscount Weymouth; Edward Thurlow; and George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough
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.
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, served as Prime Minister of Great Britain during 1762–1763. He was the first Tory Prime Minister since the Harley ministry during 1710–1714 though his ministry was largely made up of Whigs.
Between 1757 and 1762, at the height of the Seven Years' War, the Pitt–Newcastle ministry governed the Kingdom of Great Britain. It was headed by Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, serving in his second stint as prime minister. The most influential and famous minister however was William Pitt the Elder, Secretary of State.
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 Cider Bill of 1763 was a proposed measure by the British government of Lord Bute to put a tax on the production of cider. Britain's national debt had reached unprecedented levels during the early 1760s following the country's involvement in the Seven Years War which had been very expensive.
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.
