Early Life
He was the son of Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc (died 1761), a brother of William Pitt the Elder, and was born and baptised at Boconnoc in Cornwall on 3 March 1737. His mother was Christian, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, 4th Baronet, of Hagley. He was admitted fellow-commoner at Clare College, Cambridge, on 7 January 1754, and resided there until 1758. In 1759 Pitt obtained the degree of M.A. per literas regias.
He accompanied Thomas Hay, 9th Earl of Kinnoull, British ambassador to the court of Portugal, on his journey to Lisbon in January 1760. Thomas Gray and his friends contrived that John Bowes, 9th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, a college companion, should go with him; and Philip Francis, a lifelong friend, also joined the expedition. They entered the Tagus on 7 March 1760, and left Lisbon on 21 May 1760. Passing through Spain to Barcelona, they crossed to Genoa, and passed some time in Italy. Pitt corresponded with Gray, and wrote a manuscript journal of his travels; Cole notes that the description of the bull-fight in the manuscript is identical with that in Edward Clarke's Letters on the Spanish Nation. Horace Walpole introduced Pitt to Sir Horace Mann at Florence, and praised his conduct in cutting off the entail to pay his father's debts and to provide for his sisters. Pitt was staying at Florence with his uncle, Sir Richard Lyttelton, when news arrived of the death of his father, on 17 July 1761.
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