The Death of the Earl of Chatham The Death of the Earl of Chatham The Death of the Earl of Chatham is the title of a 1781 oil-on-canvas painting by Boston-born American artist John Singleton Copley. It depicts the collapse of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham on 7 April 1778, during a debate in the House of Lords on the American War of Independence. Chatham is surrounded by peers of the realm, and the painting contains fifty-five portraits. Lord Chatham was the architect of the British victory in the Seven Years' War (1757–1763), in which Britain won supremacy in America. Although sympathetic to American grievances and
Richard Ryder (politician, born 1766) Richard Ryder (politician, born 1766) Richard Ryder (5 July 1766 – 18 September 1832) was a British Tory politician. He notably served as Home Secretary between 1809 and 1812. Ryder was a younger son of Nathaniel Ryder, 1st Baron Harrowby and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of the Right Reverend Richard Terrick, Bishop of London. Dudley Ryder, 1st Earl of Harrowby, was his elder brother and the Right Reverend the Hon. Henry Ryder, Bishop of Coventry and of Lichfield, his younger brother. He was educated at St John’s College, Cambridge. Ryder sat as Member of Parliament for Tiverton from 1795 to