Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pickering, Danby
PICKERING, DANBY (fl. 1769), legal writer, son of Danby Pickering of Hatton Garden, Middlesex, was admitted, on 28 June 1737, a student at Gray's Inn, where he was called to the bar on 8 May 1741. He re-edited the original four volumes of ‘Modern Reports’ (1682–1703), with the supplements of 1711, 1713, and 1716, under the title ‘Modern Reports, or Select Cases adjudged in the Courts of King's Bench, Chancery, Common Pleas, and Exchequer, since the Restoration of His Majesty King Charles II to the Fourth of Queen Anne,’ London, 1757, fol. He also edited Sir Henry Finch's ‘Law, or a Discourse thereof in Four Books,’ London, 1759, 8vo. His most important work, however, was the abridgment of the ‘Statute Book,’ entitled ‘The Statutes at Large, from Magna Charta to the end of the Eleventh Parliament of Great Britain,’ Cambridge, 1762–9, 24 vols. 8vo; continued with his name on the title-page to 1807, and thereafter without his name until 1809. The date of his death is uncertain.
[Gray's Inn Reg.; Bridgman's Legal Bibliography; Marvin's Legal Bibliography; Wallace's Reporters.]