room at 1 Pump Court a great number of the most eminent lawyers, and poured forth a series of standard practitioners’ books. His learning and his memory were alike extraordinary, and although inclining to excessive technicality he did more than perhaps any man of his time to facilitate the study of the law. An illness in 1833 withdrew him from practice, but his labours as an author continued almost to the time of his death, which took place at his house in Southampton Street, Fitzroy Square, on 17 Feb. 1841. His sons, Joseph [see below], Thomas [q.v.], Edward [q.v.], and Tompson (d. 4 Feb. 863, aged 47), all continued to practise and write upon law.
Chitty’s works were: 1. ‘A Treatise on Bills of Exchange,’ 1799; third edit. 1809; fourth, 1812; fifth 1818; sixth, 1822; ninth, assisted b J. W. Hulme, 1840. 2. ‘Precedents of (general Issues ’ and a ‘Synopsis of Practice,’ each on a single sheet, 1805. 3. ‘Precedents of Pleading,’ first ed. 1808. 4. ‘Prospectus of Lectures on Commercial Law,’ 1810 ; second edit. 1836. 5. ‘Treatise on the Law of Apprentices,’ 1811. 6. ‘Treatise on the Game Laws,’ 1811; second edit. 1826. 7. ‘A Treatise on the Law of Nations,’ 1812. 8. Beawes’s ‘Lex Mercatoria,’ sixth edit. 1812. 9. ‘A Treatise on Criminal Law,’ 1816; second edit. 1826. 10. ‘A Synopsis of the Practice in the King's Bench and Common Pleas,’ 1816. 11. ‘A Treatise on Commercial Law,’ 1818; second edit. 1826. 12. ‘Reports of Cases on Practice and Pleading, with Notes,’ vol. i. 1820; vol. ii., with ‘ Reports of Cases in Lord Mansfield’s Time from the MSS. of Mr. Justice Ashurst,’ 1823. 13. ‘On Commercial Contracts,’ 1823. 14. ‘A Treatise on the Law of Stamp Duties,’ assisted by Mr. Hulme, 1829. 15. ‘A Collection of the Statutes of Practical Utility, with Notes,’ 1829-37 (continued to 1880 by Mr. J. M. Lely, and commonly quoted as ‘Chitty’s Statutes ’) 16. ‘The Practice in the Courts of King? Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer,’ 181-2 ; 3rd edit. 1837-42, commonly quoted as ‘ Chitty’s Practice.’ 17. An edition of ‘Blackstone’s Commentaries,’ 1832. 18. ‘The Practice of the Law in all Departments,’ 1833-8. 19. ‘A Treatise on Medical Jurisprudence,’ 1834. 20. ‘The Practice on Amendments of Variances,' 1835. 21. ‘On the Office of a Constable,’ 1837.
Joseph Chitty the younger, special pleader, of the Middle Temple, wrote on (1) the Prerogatives of the Crown, 1820; (2) Bills of Exchange, 1834; (3) Contracts, 1841 (11th edit. 11 by Mr. J. A. Russell), quoted as ‘Chitty on Contracts;’ (4) Precedents in Pleading, 1886-8. He died 10 April 1838 (Gent. Mag. 1838, i. 554.)
[Ann. Reg. lxxxiii. 187; Gent. Mag., February 1841, p. 96, November 1841, p. 537; Law Mag. viii. 64, x. 139.]
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.]
CHOKE, Sir RICHARD (d. 1483?), judge, son of John Choke of Stanton Drew in Somersetshire, a pears as a pleader in the ‘Yearbook’ for 1440–1, again in that for 1453–4, and thenceforth with frequency during the reign of Henry VI. He was called to the degree of serjeant in July 1453. The following year he bought the manor of Long Ashton in Somersetshire, a property worth, as Leland informs us, 600 marcs per annum, and here, according to the same authority, he ‘kept his chief house,’ having ‘great furniture of silver.’ In 1455 he was one of the commissioners then appointed to raise money for the defence of Calais. Shortly after the accession of Edward IV he was created a justice of the common pleas, his patent being
