Researching William Younger

Pitt's prime ministerial tenure, which came during the reign of King George III, was dominated by major political events in Europe, including the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Pitt, although often referred to as a Tory, or "new Tory", called himself an "independent Whig" and was generally opposed to the development of a strict partisan political system.

Pitt was regarded as an outstanding administrator who worked for efficiency and reform, bringing in a new generation of outstanding administrators. He increased taxes to pay for the great war against France and cracked down on radicalism. To engage the threat of Irish support for France, he engineered the Acts of Union 1800 and tried (but failed) to secure Catholic emancipation as part of the Union. He created the "new Toryism", which revived the Tory Party and enabled it to stay in power for the next quarter-century.

The historian Asa Briggs argues that his personality did not endear itself to the British mind, for Pitt was too solitary and too colourless, and too often exuded an attitude of superiority. His greatness came in the war with France. Pitt reacted to become what Lord Minto called "the Atlas of our reeling globe". William Wilberforce said, "For personal purity, disinterestedness and love of this country, I have never known his equal." Historian Charles Petrie concludes that he was one of the greatest Prime Ministers "if on no other ground than that he enabled the country to pass from the old order to the new without any violent upheaval ... He understood the new Britain." For this he is ranked highly amongst all British Prime Ministers in multiple surveys.

Pitt served as prime minister for a total of eighteen years, 343 days, making him the second longest serving British prime minister of all time.

He was born in London the son of the medical doctor William Heberden the Elder and his wife Mary Wollaston. He was educated at Charterhouse School and St John's College, Oxford and followed his father into medicine becoming the Physician at St George's Hospital (1793–1803) and Physician in Ordinary to the Queen (1806) and to George III (1809).

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1791.

He lived at 2 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair from 1815 to 1820.

He died in 1845, and was buried in the family vault at Windsor. He had married Elizabeth Catherine Miller in 1795; they had at least nine children.

His father, William Younger, was a brother of George Younger, 1st Viscount Younger, and of Robert Younger, Baron Blanesburgh; his great-uncle was William McEwan, a Liberal MP for Edinburgh and the founder of McEwan's Brewery.

He was educated at Winchester College and at Balliol College, Oxford, before joining the firm of McEwan's Brewery, which later became Scottish Brewers before merging with the Newcastle Brewery Company in 1961 to become Scottish & Newcastle. Younger was the first chairman and managing director of the new company.

He stood twice as the Unionist Party candidate for West Lothian at the 1950 general election, but it was a safe seat for Labour and he was not elected. He was honorary secretary of the Scottish Unionist Association from 1955 to 1964, and was later chairman of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party from 1971 to 1974.

He was made a Baronet in February 1964, of Fountainbridge, in the County and City of Edinburgh; the title became extinct on his death. He was appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant of the City of Edinburgh in 1984.