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 Byrne William Pitt Byrne William Pitt Byrne (c. 1806 – 6 or 8 April 1861) was a British newspaper editor and proprietor of "The Morning Post". He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge with a BA and M.A.. He was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1835 and called to the bar in 1839 but never practised law. His father Nicholas Byrne was his predecessor as editor and proprietor of the "Morning Post", about whom there is little biographical information in the historical record. Nicholas Byrne took a strongly pro-Conservative editorial stance, and his son was named after William Pitt the Younger.