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
Thomas Pitt married Charles Cholmondeley (b. 1684, d. 1759). Thomas Pitt also had a grandson, by his older son Robert, named Thomas Pitt but perhaps Thomas Pitt's most famous descendant was his great-grandson (through William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham) – William Pitt the Younger, who went on to himself become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the early 19th century. Pitt is best known for his purchase of a 410 carat (82 g) uncut diamond acquired from an Indian merchant named Jamchand in Madras in 1701. The merchant had purchased the diamond from an English sea captain, who had, in