William Pitt 'the younger' (1759-1806) The precocious son of Pitt 'the elder', William Pitt was marked out for a brilliant political career at an early stage. He was elected to the House of Commons, aged twenty-one, in 1781, and immediately got himself noticed as a supporter of parliamentary and government reform. The following year he was invited by the Earl of Shelburne to become chancellor of the exchequer and the Leader of his ministry in the Commons: Shelburne's government was manoeuvred out of power by the odd coalition of the Whig Charles James Fox and the Tory Lord North; but Pitt helped to engineer its collapse with the connivance of the King. Aged twenty-five, Pitt formed his first government and remained prime minister for the next sixteen years. Like his father, he was to become best known as a war Leader. Three years after the French Revolution of 1789, Britain went to war against the new French republic: Pitt's control over British politics was not weakened by the grim continental struggle, but his relations with the King were upset by his determination to overcome the growth of the Irish reform movement through a Union which included the political emancipation of the Catholics. The King's refusal to accept his proposals resulted in his resignation in 1801. Pitt came back, though, following the collapse of Addington's administration in 1804, as the struggle against Napoleon Bonaparte's strengthening grip over Europe entered its worst period. He died in January 1806, still only forty-six.