English politician William Pitt the Younger was BOTD in 1759. Born in Hayes, Kent to an aristocratic family, he was the second son of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, a famous statesman and former Prime Minister of Great Britain. Considered too delicate to be sent to school, he was educated at home, and attended Cambridge University. After his father’s death, he was left without an income, and qualified as a lawyer. In 1780, he was offered a seat in Parliament, and served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Shelburne’s government. In 1783, aged 24, he became the youngest Prime Minister in Britain’s history. He held office until 1801 and then from 1804 until his death in 1806, aged 46. Though quiet and painfully shy, he was an accomplished orator and a highly competent statesman, coordinating various government offices, improving public administration, removing corruption and rectifying Britain’s finances after the costly War of Independence with America. He is also credited with securing the monarchy in the face of republican fervour following the French Revolution, though he was unsuccessful in his quest to ban the slave trade. Pitt never married and mostly preferred the company of other men. His close friendship with his colleague Tom Steele was the object of satire and rumour throughout his life; the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan wrote a series of satirical verses dropping hints that Pitt and Steele were romantically involved. Historians have speculated that he may have been homosexual but suppressed his sexuality to focus on his career. He has been portrayed many times onscreen, notably by Simon Osborne in Blackadder the Third as a petulant schoolboy who comes to power “right in the middle of my exams”.