Sir Pitt Crawley

Character Analysis

A dirty, disheveled, stingy old man, Sir Pitt is a baronet and the owner of Queen's Crawley, where Becky works as a governess. Eventually he comes to want Becky to be his wife but is disappointed to learn that she has already become his daughter-in-law by marrying his son Rawdon.

Sir Pitt is a funnier and less menacing version of Lord Steyne. He is a lecherous, unwashed, low-bred, unpleasant man – but at the same time, he's a titled nobleman. Thackeray wants to know why we endow these wastes of space with our deference and admiration? Does just being born into the right family really make them that special? Just how low must a nobleman go before we can write him off? In Sir Pitt's case, it's quite low indeed – all the way to openly living with a mistress and getting wasted every night with his groundskeeper.