Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dalison, William

1197729Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 13 — Dalison, William1888James McMullen Rigg

DALISON, Sir WILLIAM (d. 1559), judge, younger son of William Dalison of Laughton, Lincolnshire, sheriff and escheator of the county, by a daughter of George Wastneys of Haddon, Nottinghamshire, entered Gray's Inn in 1534, where he was called to the bar in 1537, elected reader in 1548 and again in 1552, on one of which occasions he gave a lecture on the statute 32 Henry VIII, c. 33, concerning wrongful disseisin, which is referred to in Dyer's ‘Reports’ (219 a) as a correct statement of the law. He took the degree of serjeant-at-law in 1552, receiving from his inn the sum of 5l. and a pair of gloves. In 1554 he was appointed one of the justices of the county palatine of Lancaster. In 1556 he was appointed a justice of the king's bench and knighted. His patent was renewed on the accession of Elizabeth (November 1558). He died in the following January, and was buried in Lincoln Cathedral. By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Dighton of Sturton Parva, Lincolnshire, who survived him and married Sir Francis Ayscough, he had issue four sons and five daughters. His descendants settled in Kent, and are now represented in the female line by Maximilian Hammond Dalison of Hamptons, near Tunbridge. Dalison compiled a collection of cases decided during the reigns of Edward VI and Philip and Mary (Harl. MS. 5141). His so-called ‘Reports’ were published in the same volume with some by Serjeant Benloe in 1689; but the greater portion of those attributed to Dalison were decided after his death.

[Wotton's Baronetage, i. 180; Allen's Lincolnshire, i. 33; Berry's County Genealogies (Kent) 180; Dugdale's Orig. 137, 293; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 89, 91; Cal. State Papers (Dom. 1547–80), p. 61; Dyer's Reports, 123 a; 4th Rep. Dep.-Keeper Pub. Rec. app. ii. 255; Peck's Desid. Cur. Lib. viii. No. iv. 6; Burke's Landed Gentry; Foss's Lives of the Judges.]

J. M. R.