George Pitt, 1st Baron Rivers

George Pitt, 1st Baron Rivers (1 May, 1721 – 7 May, 1803) was a British diplomat and politician.

Family

He born in Geneva, the eldest son of George Pitt of Stratfieldsaye, Hampshire and his wife Mary Louise Bernier from Strasbourg. General Sir William Augustus Pitt was his younger brother. He was educated at Winchester and Magdalen College, Oxford, from which he graduated with MA in 1739 and DCL in 1745. He then travelled on the continent from 1740 to 1742.

In 1746, he married Penelope, daughter of Sir Henry Atkins, 4th Baronet of Clapham, Surrey. They had four children:
*George Pitt, 2nd Baron Rivers (1751–1828)
*Hon. Penelope Pitt, married Edward Ligonier, 1st Earl Ligonier in 1766; divorced in 1771 and married Capt. Smith in 1784
*Hon. Louisa Pitt (1754–1791), married Peter Beckford in 1773
*Hon. Marcia Lucy Pitt (1756–1822), married James Fox-Lane in 1789

Their marriage was unhappy and they separated in 1771, living mostly in France and Italy until her death in 1795.

Politics

In 1742, he was elected as a Member of Parliament at a by-election for Shaftesbury and sat as a Tory. At the General Election in 1747, he was returned both for Shaftesbury and for Dorset and to sit for the County, which he represented continuously until 1774, becoming an independent, supporting the government from the accession of George III.

Diplomacy

From 1761 to 1768, he served as Envoy-extraordinary and Minister-plenitpotentiary to the Kingdom of Sardinia at Turin. In 1770 he was appointed Ambassador to Spain, but was superseded the following year. [J. Haydn, "Book of Dignities" (1851), 82–3.]

Peerage

In 1776, he was raised to the peerage as Lord Rivers. In 1780, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, but was replaced in 1782, when he became a Lord of the Bedchamber. He was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Dorset in 1793. In 1802, be obtained a new patent as Lord Rivers with special remainder in default of male issue to the husband of his daughter Louisa, William Beckford. He took the surname Pitt-Rivers in 1828, on succeeding to the title and estates of his brother-in-law George Pitt, 2nd Baron Rivers. ["Burke's Peerage" (1939), s.v. Rivers]

References

*G. F. R. Barker, ‘Pitt, George, first Baron Rivers (1721–1803)’, rev. R. D. E. Eagles, "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22328] , accessed 24 Aug 2008.
*Rayment-hc