Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chitty, Thomas
CHITTY, THOMAS (1802–1878), special pleader and legal writer, was the second son of Joseph Chitty [q. v.], and brother of Joseph Chitty, jun. (‘Chitty on Contracts’). He began to practise at the very early age of nineteen, being admitted a special pleader in 1820, and continued to attend his chambers at 1 King's Bench Walk for fifty-seven years. He never was called to the bar. Like his father he trained an immense number of eminent lawyers: Lords Cairns and O’Hagan, Chief-Justice Whiteside, Mr. Justice Willes, Mr. Justice Quain, Sir James Hannen, Sir Emerson Tennent, Mr. Forster (author of ‘Life of Dickens’), Mr. Henry Matthews, Lord Herschell, Mr. Justice Mathew, and Mr. Justice A. L. Smith. Though he was in practice thirty-two years before the Common Law Procedure Act, he was no adherent of the old system of technical pleading, but advocated and adapted himself to both the Common Law Procedure Act and the Judicature Act. He was an excellent whist-player and musician, performed on the violoncello, and was a pupil of Linley. He was also an energetic volunteer. He retired from practice at the end of 1877, and died at his house in Lancaster Gate 13 Feb. 1878. Chitty edited Archbold’s ‘Practice’ (2nd edit. 18315; 14th edit., by T. Willes Chitty, 1885), and Burn’s ‘Justice of the Peace’ (1845), and wrote ‘Forms of Practical Proceedings’ (1834), quoted as ‘Chitty’s Forms,’ of which his grandson, T. Willes Chitty (son of Thomas Edward Chitty), edited the twelfth edition in 1883. His second son, Joseph William, was raised to the bench in 1881.
[Ann. Reg. cxx. 136; Solicitors’ Journal, 23 Feb. 1878; Law Journal, 23 Feb. and 2 March 1878.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.65
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 267 | ii | 16-17 | Chitty, Thomas: for Sir Emerson Tennent read Sir James Emerson Tennent |