Charles Isaac Elton, QC (6 December 1839 – 23 April 1900) was an English

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

antiquary An antiquarian or antiquary () is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artefacts, archaeological and historic sit ...

, and politician. He is most famous for being one of the authors of the bestselling book '' The Great Book-Collectors''.

Biography

He was born in

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

. Educated at Cheltenham and

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and aro ...

, he was elected a fellow of Queen's College in 1862. On 6 August 1863 he married Mary Augusta Strachey, a granddaughter of

Sir Henry Strachey, 1st Baronet Sir Henry Strachey, 1st Baronet (23 May 1736 – 3 January 1810) was a British civil servant and politician who sat in the House of Commons for 39 years from 1768 to 1807. Life Strachey was the eldest son of Henry Strachey, of Sutton Court, ...

, in Clifton, England. He was called to the bar at

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, commonly known as Lincoln's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for Barrister, barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister ...

in 1865. His remarkable knowledge of old real property law and custom helped him to an extensive conveyancing practice and he took silk in 1885. He sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

for

West Somerset West Somerset was a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in the English county of Somerset from 1974 to 2019. The council covered a largely rural area, with a population of 34,900 in an area of ; it was the List of English dist ...

in 1884–1885 and for

Wellington, Somerset Wellington is a market town in Somerset, England. It is situated south west of Taunton, near the border with Devon, which runs along the Blackdown Hills National Landscape, Blackdown Hills to the south of the town. The town had a population o ...

, from 1886 to 1892. In 1869 he succeeded to his uncle's property of Whitestaunton Manor, near Chard, Somerset. During the later years of his life he retired to a great extent from legal practice, and devoted much of his time to literary work. He died at Whitestaunton.

Work

Elton's principal works were * '' The Great Book-Collectors'' (1864); * ''The Tenures of Kent'' (1867); * ''Treatise on Commons and Waste Lands'' (1868); * ''Law of Copyholds'' (1874); * ''Origins of English History'' (1882); * ''Custom and

Tenant Right Tenant-right is a term in the common law system expressing the right to compensation which a tenant has, either by custom or by law, against his landlord for increment at the termination of his tenancy. In England, it was governed for most part b ...

'' (1882). * ''William Shakespeare: His Family and Friends'' (1903), ed. from posthumous papers by A. Hamilton Thompson

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...

often quotes his poem "Luriana Lurilee" in her novel ''

To the Lighthouse ''To the Lighthouse'' is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centres on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920. Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel P ...

'' (1927),"Charles Elton's 'A Garden Song'", ''Notes and Queries'' (2007) 54(2) pp. 171–173; although the poem itself was not published until 1945.

References

* Virginia Woolf Web
"Luriana Lurilee"
retrieved 23 November 2006. * Poetry in To the Lighthous

retrieved 20 September 2023.

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Elton, Charles Isaac 1839 births 1900 deaths 19th-century English antiquarians English King's Counsel Politicians from Southampton Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies UK MPs 1880–1885 UK MPs 1886–1892 Writers from Southampton Strachey family