Thomas Chitty
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Thomas Chitty (1802 – 13 February 1878) was an English lawyer and legal writer who was pupil master to a generation of eminent lawyers and played a significant role in documenting the legal reforms of the nineteenth century.
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[edit] Early life
Thomas was the third son of Joseph Chitty and his wife, Elizabeth née Woodward. He was never called to the bar but began to practise as a special pleader in 1820 at the early age of nineteen.[1]
[edit] Legal practice
Chitty practiced at 1 King's Bench Walk[1] where he educated a generation of eminent pupils including:
- Hugh Cairns, a future Lord Chancellor;[1]
- Farrer Herschell, another;[1]
- James Whiteside, a future Chief Justice of Ireland;[1]
- William Shee;[2]
- and sundry future judges and politicians.[1]
The practice of special pleader demanded mastery of detail and the technical intricacies of the law and Chitty's career spanned huge changes from the Common Law Procedure Acts 1852-4 to the Judicature Acts 1873-5, reforms that changed the ancient regime of forms of action into, essentially, the modern system. Chitty exploited the opportunity in publishing a number of practitioners' texts including preparing new editions of:
- John Frederick Archbold's The Practice of the Court of King's Bench in Personal Actions and Ejectments, despite Archbold's objections;
- His father's Treatise on the Parties to Actions;
- Richard Burn's Justice of the Peace (1845);
- and publishing several works in his own right including Forms of Practical Proceedings (1834). His grandson T. Willes Chitty edited the 11th edition in 1879.[1]
[edit] Family, personality and death
"Chitty was known as a kind and genial man, a keen whist player and musician, and an energetic volunteer."[1] He retired in 1877, and died at home in London.[1]
In 1826, he had married Eliza née Cawston and the couple parented two sons who followed their father's legal footsteps:[1]
- Thomas Edward Chitty (1826/7-1868), clerk to the Bristol assizes;[1] and
- Joseph William Chitty, became a judge in 1881.[1]
[edit] References
[edit] Bibliography
- Obituaries:
- Annual Register (1878), 136
- Solicitors' Journal, 23 (1877–8), 329
- Law Journal, 23 Feb 1878, 131–2; 2 March 1878, 148
- Hamilton, J. A. (2004) "Chitty, Thomas (1802–1878)", rev. Michael Lobban, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, accessed 9 August 2007 (subscription or UK/ Ireland public library membership required)
- Simpson, A. W. B. (ed.) (1984). Biographical Dictionary of the Common Law. London: Butterworths. ISBN 040651657X.
