Medallion
William Wyon (1795 - 1851)
Category
Coins and medals
Date
1813
Materials
Silver
Measurements
65 mm (Height) x 10 mm (Depth); 52 mm (Weight)
Place of origin
Manchester
Order this imageCollection
Chartwell, Kent
NT 1101159
Summary
Silver medallion with a portrait of the Rt. Hon. William Pitt, by Wyon, the Manchester Pitt Club 1813, the reverse with "Himself as Host" by the same. Formerly part of the Heirloom Collection.
Full description
The Right Hon. William Pitt (1759-, Prime Minister of England, under George III Pitt's career was brief and tragic. When quite a youth he rose to eminence. At the age of thirteen he composed a tragedy; at fourteen he matriculated at Cambridge, and became an orator at twenty-one. At twenty-three he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and at twenty-four Premier, and when he died, at the early age of forty-seven, he was proclaimed the " saviour of Europe." Pitt Clubs were formed throughout Great Britain to honour the memory of ‘the wisest and most virtuous Statesman that ever appeared in any country’. The followers of Pitt formed a distinct school of political thought. It was opposed to anarchy, and hoped ‘to rouse the genius of the British Isles,’ in the cause advocated by Pitt. Clubs met annually on May 28th, in order to celebrate the anniversary of Pitt's birthday. Churchill was made an Honorary Member of the London Pitt Club in 1946 but the exact circumstances of his acquisition of this medallion are not known.
Provenance
Purchased by the National Trust in 2020.
Marks and inscriptions
"Himself as Host"
Makers and roles
William Wyon (1795 - 1851), designer