Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Statham, Nicholas

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559205Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 54 — Statham, Nicholas1898Charles Lethbridge Kingsford

STATHAM, NICHOLAS (fl. 1467), lawyer is stated to have been born at Morley, Derbyshire (Ashmolean MS. 816, where he is called John). He was reader of Lincoln's Inn in Lent term 1471. On 30 Oct. 1467 he received a patent for the reversion as second baron of the exchequer on the death of John Clerke. Clerke was certainly alive in 1471, but there was no mention of either him or Statham between that date and 3 Feb. 1481, when Thomas Whittington was made second baron. Consequently it is not known whether Statham ever obtained the office. Statham's name is never mentioned in the year-books, but he is credited with an abridgment of the cases reported in them in the reign of Henry VI, which is the earliest work of the kind now extant, Statham's abridgment was printed by R. Pynson as 'Epitome Annalium Librorum tempore Henrici Sexti,' London [1495?], 4to; other editions appeared in 1585 and 1679 (Brit. Mus. Cat.)

[Dugdale's Orig. pp. 58. 247. 257; Fuller's Worthies; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 590; Foss's Judges of England.]

C. L. K.

Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.258
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line

Page Col. Line  
112 i 4 Statham, Nicholas: for (fl. 1467) read (d. 1472)
12 after no mention insert in records of judicial appointments
16 after the office. insert He was member for Old Sarum in the parliament of June 1467. His will, dated 15 July 1472, was proved on 5 August following (cf. Skottowe, Short History of Parliament, p. 14).