Call Number:

C1383

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 1 box
• 0.2 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); George Pretyman Collection, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1741-1886 (inclusive)

Creator:

Princeton University. Library. Special Collections and Pretyman, George, 1750-1827

Form:

Correspondence -- 19th century and Manuscripts, English -- 18th century.

Abstract:

Consists of material of British clergyman and bishop George Pretyman (also known as George Pretyman Tomline) related to William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) and others.

Pretyman was an English clergyman, bishop of Lincoln, and a close political confidant of William Pitt, the Younger, who was prime minister of Great Britain from 1783 to his resignation in 1801. In 1803, Pretyman inherited extensive property from a distant relative, Marmaduke Tomline, and took the name Tomline.

The collection consists primarily of material of George Pretyman related to William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) and others. Included are over 100 pp. of memoranda (one on the resignation of Pitt) and drafts of Parliamentary speeches, with occasional annotations in Pitt's hand; Pretyman's untitled political essay "for Mr. Pitt's perusal"; preface to Pretyman's Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honorable William Pitt (1821); three letters (1806-1809) addressed to Pretyman as Bishop of Lincoln; and a small leather record book concerning single and double votes (by college) for Pitt at the University of Cambridge in the 1784 general election. In addition, there are approximately 50 pp. of financial documents and notes (ca. 1741-1802) regarding subsidies granted by Parliament to foreign governments, including the Queen of Hungary (Mária Terézia), the King of Sardinia, and the Elector of Bavaria, and the payment of a pension for Duchess Elisabeth Sophia Maria of Brunswick; and documents (1791-1805) relating to British politician John Eliot (1761-1823) and his niece. A recent addition is a printed copy of A Catalogue of All Known Portraits, Busts, Engravings from Portraits, &c., of William Pitt (1886) by George Scharf, inscribed by Edward Stanhope to Ernest G. Pretyman. Many of the portraits described in it are identified as being in the collection of Stanhope (1840-1893), a British Conservative Party politician.