Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants

William Pittman Lett

William Pittman Lett was an Irish Canadian journalist, bureaucrat and poet. He arrived in Upper Canada as a 10-month-old baby in the family of Captain Andrews Lett, a veteran of the 28th Cameronian Regiment of Foot and a pioneer of the settlement of Richmond. A journalist for the Orange Order, a Tory and loyal to the British Crown, William Pittman was a founding father and chronicler of Bytown, subsequently the City of Ottawa, and its first and longest-serving civic clerk (1855–1891). He promoted theatre in Ottawa and its learned societies and was a prolific commentator and poet of public affairs throughout the second half of the 19th century.