Wilson’s curate there who soon engaged with his rector in a most vehement controversy, and supported his opinions with Ciceronian action and flaming eyes … We slept last night at Barkway, where we learnt that Pembroke was a sober, staid college, and nothing but solid study there. To make out our five days, we took the road by Binfield, and called in upon Mr. I have the pleasure of writing to my dear father, after having breakfasted upon College rolls, and made some acquaintance with my new quarters which seem, on the short examination I have given, neat and convenient … When they arrived, Pitt immediately wrote an excited letter to his father: Wilson and Pitt travelled from Somerset to Cambridge together in October 1773, a journey which took them five days.

Wilson was highly confident of the new student’s prospects: ‘He will go to Pembroke not a weak boy to be made a property of, but to be admir’d as a prodigy not to hear lectures, but to spread light.’ 4 His name was entered into the college admissions book on 26 April 1773. Since Wilson was a graduate of Pembroke Hall (later Pembroke College), Cambridge, and his brother was presently a Fellow there, it was decided that this would be the most suitable place for William to go. 3 Yet Chatham and the assiduous tutor Edward Wilson had evidently decided that William could cope with a college environment in spite of his youth and continued illnesses. A sample of undergraduate admissions to Pembroke Hall in the twenty years preceding Pitt’s arrival there suggests that fewer than one in five of them were even under eighteen. ‘He was always the most lively person in company, abounding in playful wit and quick repartee but never known to excite pain, or to give just ground of offence.’įOR A FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD to be admitted as an undergraduate to Cambridge University was highly unusual in the eighteenth century, just as it would be today. THE EARL OF CHATHAM TO JOSEPH TURNER OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE 1 Too young for the irregularities of a man, I trust, he will not, on the other hand, prove troublesome by the Puerile sallies of a Boy.’

An ingenious mind and docility of temper will, I know, render him conformable to your Discipline, in all points. ‘He is of a tender Age, and of a health not yet firm enough to be indulged, to the full, in the strong desire he has to acquire useful knowledge.

William pitt the younger book