Alexander Fitton

Sir Alexander Fitton (1630?–1698) sometimes known by his Jacobite title Baron Gawsworth, was an Irish barrister and judge, who became Lord Chancellor of Ireland, despite having spent many years in prison for a criminal offence. Family and early career Fitton was the second son of William Fitton of Awrice (or Awne), County Limerick and his wife Eva Trevor, daughter of Sir Edward Trevor of Brynkynallt, Chirk, Denbighshire and Rostrevor, County Down, and his second wife Rose Ussher, daughter of Henry Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh. He was the great-grandson of Sir Edward Fitton, Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, who died in 1579. The Irish Fittons were a junior branch of the Fittons of Gawsworth Old Hall, Cheshire: Alexander was the grandson of another Alexander Fitton, who was Sir Edward's second son, and his wife Jane MacBryan O'Connogh. A lawsuit over the rightful ownership of Gawsworth was to preoccupy Alexander for most of his life. His mother's family later gained the title Viscount Dungannon. He married Anne Joliffe, daughter of Thomas Joliffe (or Jolley) of Cofton Hall, Worcestershire and his first wife Margaret Skinner, and they had one surviving daughter, also called Anne. His wife was a considerable heiress, and as a result of the fortune she brought him Alexander was soon able to pay off the mortgage on the family's Limerick estates, which he inherited on the death of his brother Edward. Anne died in 1687, and was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. Their daughter joined her father in exile in France. She married a Captain Miles McGrath, and died in 1700. He entered Gray's Inn in 1654 and the Inner Temple in 1655; he was called to the Bar in 1662. Since he almost immediately became embroiled in the Gawsworth inheritance claim, it is unclear if he ever practised as a barrister, which later led to questions about his suitability for judicial office, quite apart from the obvious objection that he had spent much of his adult life in prison.