William Pitt the Younger was born on the 28th of May 1759 at Hayes Place in the village of Hayes in Kent. He entered Pembroke College, Cambridge, on the 26th of April 1773 just one month before his fourteenth birthday.
King George III appointed William Pitt the Younger as Great Britain's youngest prime minister ever to replace the Fox North coalition government in December 1783. His administration survived for seventeen years despite contemporary satire calling it a mince-pie that would not outlast Christmas.
In 1786 William Pitt instituted a sinking fund so that £1 million a year was added to accumulate interest and pay off national debt. In 1797 he introduced Great Britain's first-ever income tax to offset losses in indirect tax revenue caused by a decline in trade.
William Pitt resigned on the 16th of February 1801 because King George III strongly opposed Catholic emancipation. The king argued that granting additional liberty would violate his coronation oath to protect the Church of England.
William Pitt died at Bowling Green House on Putney Heath on the 23rd of January 1806 probably from peptic ulceration of his stomach or duodenum. He was unmarried and left no children but Parliament agreed to pay his debts which amounted to £40,000 when he died.