Four of the Prime Ministers of George III

Left to right: Lord Bute, Lord North,William Pitt the Younger, Lord Liverpool (2) George III is still the longest reigning British King, ruling from 1760 to 1820. He had 14 different Prime Ministers over those 60 years—six Tories and eight Whigs. They included two pairs of fathers and sons: William Pitt the Elder and his son William Pitt the Younger , and George Grenville and his son William Wyndham Grenville. They also included the only British Prime Minister ever to be assassinated—Spencer Perceval.









George III's Prime Ministers





Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle

Whig – 1757-1762

Thomas Pelham-Holles,

1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne

Pastel by William Hoare (c1752)

© NPG 757 (1)

Lord Bute from The Historical and Posthumous

Memoirs of Sir Nathaniel Wraxall (1884)

George Grenville

by and published by Richard Houston

after William Hoare mezzotint (c1750-75)

© NPG D20047 (cropped) (1)

Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess

of Rockingham, after Sir Joshua Reynolds,

oil on canvas, feigned oval (c1768)

© NPG 406 (1)

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham,

studio of William Hoare, oil on canvas (c1754)

© NPG 1050 (1)

Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton,

by Pompeo Batoni, oil on canvas,

feigned oval (1762) © NPG 4899 (1)

Frederick, Lord North,

from The Last Journals of Horace Walpole (1910)

Charles Watson-Wentworth,

2nd Marquess of Rockingham

(Details as above)

William Petty, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne,

(Lord Shelburne) after Sir Joshua Reynolds

oil on canvas (1766) © NPG 43 (1)

William Henry Cavendish Bentinck,

3rd Duke of Portland, by William Evans

after Sir Joshua Reynolds, stipple engraving

pub 1811 ©NPG D31637 (Cropped & lightened) (1)

William Pitt the Younger

from Posthumous Memoirs of his own time

by N Wraxall (1836)

Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth

by Sir William Beechey, oil on canvas

engraved 1803 © NPG 5774 (1)

William Pitt the Younger

(details as above)

William Wyndham Grenville,

1st Baron Grenville by John Hoppner

oil on canvas (c1800)

© NPG 318 (1)

William Bentinck, 3rd Duke

of Portland (details as above)

Spencer Perceval,

from The Life and Administration

of the Right Hon Spencer Perceval

by Charles Williams (1813)

Lord Liverpool, from the

European Magazine and London Review (1818)

(2nd term of office)(2nd term of office)(2nd term of office)Notes(1) These pictures are © National Portrait Gallery and are displayed under a Creative Commons licence (2) For source details of pictures in collage, see under the relevant Prime Minister above.Sources used include: