Frederic William Maitland
British historian
- Lived
- 1850–1906
Updated September 2026
Free to read
All free classicsAbout Frederic William Maitland
Frederic William Maitland 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.
Biography from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Sources: book lists and dates from Wikidata and Open Library, ratings from Open Library readers, free texts from Project Gutenberg. Last updated September 2026.

