Pitt Street, George Town have lived here for centuries. Pitt Street was named after William Pitt the Younger, who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain between 1783 and 1801. When Captain Francis Light founded Penang Island in 1786, he renamed the island the "Prince of Wales Island" in honour of the Prince of Wales, the new settlement of George Town after King George III and the first street within the settlement after himself. Worried that Prime Minister William Pitt may have felt offended as nothing was named after him, Light felt compelled to name Pitt Street after him. Pitt Street, created soon after
William Pitt the Younger after having offered the position to him three times previously. A constitutional crisis arose when the King dismissed the Fox-North coalition government and named Pitt to replace it. Though faced with a hostile majority in Parliament, Pitt was able to solidify his position in a few months' time. Some historians argue that his success was inevitable given the decisive importance of monarchical power; others argue that the King gambled on Pitt and that both would have failed but for a run of good fortune. Pitt, at the age of 24, became Great Britain's youngest Prime Minister ever. The contemporary satire