Hester Pitt, Countess of Chatham


The Countess of Chatham
Portrait by William Hoare, c. 1766
BornHester Grenville
(1720-11-08)8 November 1720
London, England
Died9 April 1803(1803-04-09) (aged 82)
Burton Pynsent, Somerset, England
BuriedWestminster Abbey
Spouse(s)
(m. 1754; died 1778)
Issue
Parents

Hester Pitt, Countess of Chatham (née Grenville; 8 November 1720 – 9 April 1803) was the wife of William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham, who was prime minister of Great Britain from 1766 to 1768.[1]

The sister of George Grenville, who was prime minister from 1763 to 1765, she was also the mother of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and a niece of the noted Whig politician Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, who had served as her husband's mentor.

Chatham and Elizabeth Grenville, her sister-in-law, are the only two women in British history to have been both the wife of a prime minister and the mother of another prime minister.

  1. ^ Cokayne, p. 143.