Papers of Lady Harriot Pitt, later Eliot

Scope and Content

Numbers 1-61 are letters (2 August 1766 - 3 August 1786) from Lady Harriot Pitt to her mother the Countess of Chatham, with two exceptions (Numbers 4, 15 June 1773, and 27, 18 April 1780), both written to her father. Numbers 62-72 are empty envelopes addressed to the Countess of Chatham (62-70), the Countess Dowager of Chatham (71) and the Earl of Chatham (72).

Administrative / Biographical History

Lady Harriot Pitt (1758-1786) was the youngest Pitt daughter. In September 1785 she married Edward James Eliot, one of her brother William's intimate friends. The newly-weds divided their time between a rented house in Putney and Downing Street, where Harriot operated as her brother's hostess. She developed puerperal fever after the birth of her daughter Harriot Hester Eliot, and died in September 1786. Her daughter was later married to Sir William Henry Pringle.