Frederic William Maitland

Frederic William Maitland (28 May 1850 – c. 19 December 1906) was an English historian of medieval England and jurist who is regarded as the modern father of English legal history. From 1884 until 1888, he was Reader in English Law at Cambridge. He was Downing Professor of the Laws of England from 1888 until he died in 1906. He came from a distinguished intellectual family. Maitland was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge. Leaving for the bar after an initial failure to obtain a fellowship at Cambridge, he returned to academia in 1884 and quickly became one of the most distinguished historians of his generation.

Early life and education, 1850–72

Frederic William Maitland was born on 28 May 1850 at 53 Guilford Street in London. He was the only son and second of three children of John Gorham Maitland and Emma, daughter of John Frederic Daniell. His grandfather was Samuel Roffey Maitland. Maitland's father was a barrister but, having little practice, became a civil servant, serving as secretary to the Civil Service Commission.

Maitland was educated at a preparatory school in Brighton before entering Eton College in 1863, where Edward Daniel Stone was his private tutor. At Eton, Maitland was not prominent either academically or athletically, although a close school friend thought he would become "a kind of philosophic Charles Lamb". He then matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1869 as a commoner. A dislike of classics acquired at Eton initially led him to read mathematics, with little success. Then, inspired by Henry Sidgwick, he switched to the relatively new moral sciences tripos in 1870, and took first-class honours in 1872, being bracketed senior with his friend William Cunningham; he was elected a scholar of his college the same year. The following year, he took his degree and won the Whewell Scholarship in international law.