172 THE PITT FAMILY OF BLANDFORD ST. MARY. 



1713, and he appears to have done the same just previously 

 at Blandford St. Mary, where the memorial tablet, which 

 mentions the virtues of his parents and the facts of his own 

 wandering life and pious restorations, bears the date 1712. 

 His death took place at Swallowfield, near Reading, on 

 April 28th, 1726, and he was buried at Blandford St. Mary 

 on May 21st. 



The wife of this strange character a man of fortune and 

 wide travel was a woman of good position and connection. 

 She was a daughter of Sir James Innis, of Reidhall, in the 

 county of Moray, and her mother was Lady Grizel Stuart, 

 daughter of the Earl of Moray. She and her husband can 

 hardly be said to have lived in great harmony together, 

 and she outlived him only nine months, dying in January, 

 1727. Robert, the eldest son, after his father's death, 

 resided chiefly at Boconnoc, and died there in 1736. He 

 had married Harriet Villiers, sister of Earl Grandison, and 

 two sons were born to them Thomas, the eldest, who inher- 

 ited Boconnoc and most of the landed estates, and William, 

 who became the great orator and Statesman so well known 

 as Earl of Chatham. There is a tradition that the Great 

 Commoner was born at the Manor House at Stratford-under- 

 Castle, but I can find no trace of his ever being at Blandford 

 St. Mary, though it is not unlikely that he attended the funeral 

 of his father, who certainly lies buried in the church. 



The second son of Governor Pitt was Thomas, who married 

 a daughter of Robt. Ridgway, Earl of Londonderry, a descend- 

 ant of one of the first colonists planted by Elizabeth in N. 

 Ireland. On the decease of the Earl, Thos. Pitt was created 

 a Baron, and later in 1726 was advanced to a viscounty and 

 earldom of the same title as his father-in-law. He was 

 M.P. at various times for Wilton and Old Sarum, and in 1727 

 was appointed Governor of the Leeward Islands, and after 

 not quite two years of office died at St Kits on September 

 12th, 1727. So great was the regard paid to the old Dorset 

 home that the body was brought over the ocean and laid 

 beside his father in St. Mary's Church, where the coffin \vas 



