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 (engineer) William Pitt (engineer) Captain William Abraham Pitt (29 November 1840 – 12 September 1909) was a Canadian ferryman from the Kingston Peninsula of New Brunswick. He was born in Reed's Point, Kings County, New Brunswick, and for over thirty years he operated a small sail and oars scow ferry connecting the Kingston Peninsula with the Kennebecasis Valley. Pitt was the inventor of the underwater cable ferry. His new invention was installed across the Kennebecasis River between Reed's Point and Gondola Point in 1904. Believing that the cable required to operated his new ferry was too heavy and bulky, Pitt decided