Fitton was the son and heir of Sir
Edward Fitton (the elder) of
Gawsworth,
Cheshire and his wife Anne Warburton, daughter of Sir Peter Warburton and Elizabeth Winnington. His education included attending
Brasenose College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1566 with a BA, and then went on to
Gray's Inn (1568). Fitton was Receiver General for Ireland in 1579. His father died in July that year and, being disappointed in his expectation of succeeding his father as Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, he retired to England shortly after having been knighted by Sir
William Pelham in 1580. Sir Edward was returned as a member of parliament (MP) for
Wigan, Lancashire in 1572, as MP for
Boroughbridge, Yorkshire in 1588. Sir Edward's interest in Ireland revived when it was proposed to
colonise Munster with Englishmen, and he was one of the first to solicit a slice of the forfeited estates of the
Gerald FitzGerald, Earl of Desmond. On 3 September 1587 Sir Edward passed his patent for 11,515 acres in the counties of Limerick, Tipperary, and Waterford; but the speculation proved to be not so profitable as he had anticipated, and on 19 December 1588 he wrote to
William Cecil that he was £1,500 out of pocket through it, and begged that his rent might be remitted on account of his father's twenty years' service and his own. He was most energetic in his proposals for the extirpation of the Irish, but failed to fulfil the conditions of the grant, and was noted as an absentee. Sir Edward was also active in the administration of districts close to his family seat of
Gawsworth in Cheshire. From around 1583 he was a Justice of the Peace (JP) in Cheshire and
Lancashire,
Sheriff of Lancashire in 1591/92, and in 1601 mayor of
Macclesfield. He died in London in March 1606 and was buried shortly after on 3 April at Gawsworth. ==Family==