Many reports (I quote this one from the BBC) described William Hague as "the youngest leader of the Conservative Party since Pitt the Younger more than two centuries ago"; but there is surely more than a hint of hyperbole in this. For a start, the Conservative party was not founded until 1834; and it had no formal leader until 1922.
William Pitt the Younger was born in 1759, and he entered parliament in 1781 as an "independent Whig". He became Prime Minister in 1783, by which time he seems to be regarded as a Tory. As far as I can ascertain, this is because he opposed the Whig coalition that was nominally led by the Duke of Portland (but was really run by Charles James Fox and Lord North – another Tory). So while the Tories were not then, and never were, a party in the sense that we now understand the term, it would seem that Pitt became the leader of one of their factions at the age of 23 (or thereabouts).
When William Hague became Conservative leader, on 19 June 1997, he was 36 years and 85 days old. Pitt attained this age on 21 August 1795 – so OK, you could say that Hague was the youngest Tory leader for just over 200 years. But would he thank you for calling him a Tory?
© Haydn Thompson 2017