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 Morton Pitt William Morton Pitt William Morton Pitt, FRS (16 May 1764 – 28 February 1836) was a British Member of Parliament. He was the eldest son of John Pitt of Encombe House, Dorset and educated at Queen’s College, Oxford. He entered Lincoln's Inn to study law in 1774. In 1780 he was returned to Parliament as the Member for Poole, which he represented until 1790 after which he represented Dorset from 1790 to 1826. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1787. He died in 1836. He had married twice; firstly Margaret, the daughter of John Gambier, Governor