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 of Boconnoc Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc ("c." 1705 – 17 July 1761) was a British landowner, Member of Parliament and Lord Warden of the Stannaries. He was the grandson and namesake of the better known Thomas Pitt and the son of Robert Pitt, MP, of Boconnoc, near Lostwithiel in Cornwall. He was the elder brother of William Pitt the Elder. He succeeded his father in 1727 to his estates, including Boconnoc. He was Assay master of the Stannaries from March 1738 to February 1742 and Lord Warden of the Stannaries from February 1742 to March 1751, when the