William Pitt Byrne

Who was William Pitt Byrne?

William Pitt Byrne was a British newspaper editor and proprietor of The Morning Post.

He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge with a B.A. and M.A.. He was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1835 and called to the bar in 1839 but never practised law.

His father Nicholas Byrne was his predecessor as editor and proprietor of the Morning Post, about whom there is little biographical information in the historical record. Nicholas Byrne took a strongly pro-Tory editorial stance, and his son was named after William Pitt the Younger. He was mysteriously attacked by a masked intruder around 1833 and never fully recovered, dying of his injuries about two years later.

His mother was the Gothic novelist Charlotte Dacre, who had three children with Nicholas: William Pitt Byrne, Charles and Mary; however the children were not baptised until 1811 and Nicholas and Charlotte did not marry until July 1, 1815. William Pitt Byrne was baptised on 8 Jun 1811 at St. Paul's, Covent Garden.

He married the writer Julia Clara Busk on 28 April 1842. Her books were sometimes attributed to "Mrs. William Pitt Byrne", and for this reason some sources mistakenly attribute authorship of her books to her husband.