Overall: 23.5cm (9in) x 27cm (10.5in)
Printed paper inscribed in ink, the border decorated with funerary wreath, palms, winged death’s heads and winged hour glass; to the left a cypress tree and weeping allegorical female figure over a classical sarcophagus charged with the arms of the Pitt, and the motto ‘Non Sibi, Sed Patriae, Vixit’ (Not for self but for country lived) next to the Pitt family crest (A Stork Beaked And Membered Or, Resting The Dexter Claw On An Anchor). The whole inscribed in print and manuscript ‘Funeral / of the late Right Honorable / William Pitt / Admit / WB Drummond / Surgeon RI?N / into the Procession / W. Smith’. Ticket: 14.5cm (6in) x 15cm (7in).
Upon on his sudden death in 1806 Prime Minister William the Younger, was honoured in the same way as his father, with a publicly funded state funeral. He too lay in state before being buried with his family in Westminster Abbey. In addition to the cost of the funeral itself, the public purse also covered his debts, which came to £40,000.
Occurring just six weeks after Nelson’s grand state funeral, Pitt’s was a politically tense affair. Paradoxically, Pitt actually helped plan Nelson’s grand state funeral before dying of exhaustion from overwork shortly after.