Abraham CHITTY (I) (1582-1665?) - son of Matthew and the first of many Abrahams - save perhaps for one named 1598 as son of Henry of Godalming, clothier, who could possibly have been another brother of Matthew - and ancestor of all the later bearers of the name, - was baptised at Godalming 1582 Sep 2, doubtless accompanied his parents to North Warnborough in 1590, and was named as a clothier at Odiham in 1637.

His business activities were evidently divided between Odiham and London. The Rev. Christopher CHITTY (to whom I shall subsequently refer, for convenience, by the initials CC), suggested that Matthew made Abraham the firm's travelling agent. Certainly he married in London, at St Laurence Pountney, 1608 May 26, his bride being Alice PARKS. But his home continued for some time to be at Odiham, where most of their children were baptised from 1609 to 1624.

In 1620, Jun 27, Abraham witnessed the Will of Martin BARNHAM of Southover, Lewes, and it is interesting that a Francis BARNHAM died at North Warnborough in about 1624, and that Abraham's son Abraham II named BARNHAM cousins in 1684. But attempts to find relationship of CHITTY and BARNHAM have so far failed.

According to CC (who had presumably enquired of the Coopers' Company), Abraham was living at Odiham when he brought his son Abraham (II) to London to be apprenticed to William LAWTON in 1637. In 1641, a London Poll Tax census shows him and his son John lodging with Abel COARD, parish clerk, and his wife Helen in Pudding Lane precinct, Billingsgate Ward. This was probably the occasion of young John's being apprenticed to an unknown master.

However, by 1654 Abraham was resident in London, in the parish of St Dunstan in the East (when his daughter Elizabeth of that parish was married); and administration of his estate, granted to his son Henry in 1665, describes him as of that parish.

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