Prime Ministers

Abstract

Party affiliations are given for each government. But it should be noted that in the C18th there were fluid groupings of politicians who often had stronger affiliations to an individual leader than to a party, and party structures were practically non-existent. Many MPs also saw themselves as ‘King’s Men’, Court supporters, rather than party ‘Members’ and would rally to the government in power. Thus William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, by origin a Whig, headed a government in 1766–8 dominated by Court supporters and Tories with the principal Whig factions in opposition, and some Whigs joined the governments of 1762–3 (Bute) and in the 1770s and 1790s.