Charles I. Elton

Charles Isaac Elton (December 6, 1839 – April 23, 1900) was an English lawyer and antiquary.

He was born in Southampton. Educated at Cheltenham and Balliol College, Oxford, he was elected a fellow of Queen's College in 1862. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn 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 for West Somerset in 1884–1885 and from 1886 to 1892. In 1869 he succeeded to his uncle's property of Whitestaunton, 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. Elton's principal works were

• 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 (1882).

Virginia Woolf often quotes his poem "Luriana Lurilee" in her novel To the Lighthouse (1927), although the poem itself was not published until 1945.

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Virginia Woolf Web. "Luriana Lurilee", retrieved November 23, 2006.