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
Hester Pitt, Countess of Chatham over twenty years as a friend of her brothers, on 16 November 1754 at her home in Argyle Street, London. They spent their ten-day honeymoon at West Wickham, Kent. The marriage was a happy one and the couple moved to a house in Hayes, Kent in 1756. They had five children: On 4 December 1761, she was created Baroness Chatham, of Chatham, in the County of Kent, with remainder to her sons by William Pitt, who was later created Earl of Chatham in 1766. Hester Pitt, Countess of Chatham Hester Pitt, Countess of Chatham, 1st Baroness Chatham (; 8 November