William Pulteney, earl of Bath, an English statesman, born in 1682, died in London, July 8, 1764. He was educated at Westminster school and at Christ Church, Oxford, travelled on the continent, and in 1705 became member of parliament for the borough of Hedon in Yorkshire. This position he owed to his guardian, Henry Guy, who subsequently left him a legacy of £40,000 and landed estate to the amount of £500 a year. He acted as a whig throughout the reign of Queen Anne, participated in the prosecution of Sacheverell, and defended Walpole in the prosecution against him in 1712. When that minister resigned in 1717, Pulteney gave up his office of secretary at war, to which he had been appointed on the accession of George I. When Walpole resumed office in 1720, Pulteney was appointed cofferer of the household; but he went over to the opposition in 1725, was dismissed from his office, and became one of the most bitter enemies of the minister. He allied himself with Bolingbroke, and published pamphlets in which he attacked the ministry so virulently as to bring about a duel in 1731 between himself and Lord Hervey, in which both were slightly wounded.

Through the brilliancy of his speeches, and his patriotic sentiments, he became the most popular man in the nation; and in 1742, when Walpole was driven from power, Pulteney constructed a new cabinet with the earl of Wilmington at its head, in which he took a seat, but without office, and accepted a peerage. The administration satisfied neither the people nor his partisans. Pulteney lost his popularity, and, as Chesterfield wrote, "shrunk into insignificance and an earldom." In 1746 the Pelham ministry resigned, and Pulteney became premier; but he had so little influence that he was unable to obtain the assistance of any men of importance, and he held office only two days. In 1760 he published "A Letter to Two Great Men" (Pitt and the duke of Newcastle). As his only son had died before him, the peerage in his family became extinct.