MAITLAND, FREDERIC WILLIAM (1850-1906), English jurist and historian, son of John Gorham Maitland, was born on May 28, 185o, and educated at Eton and Trinity, Cam bridge. He was called to the bar (Lincoln's Inn) in 1876, and made himself a thoroughly competent equity lawyer and con veyancer, but finally devoted himself to comparative jurispru dence and especially the history of English law. In 1884 he was appointed reader in English law at Cambridge, and in 1888 be came Downing professor of the laws of England. Though handi capped in his later years by delicate health, his intellectual grasp and wide knowledge and research gradually made him famous as a jurist and historian. He edited numerous volumes for the Selden Society, hcluding Select Pleas for the Crown, 1200-1225, Select Pleas in Manorial Courts and The Court Baron; and among his principal works were Gloucester Pleas (1884), Justice and Police (1885), Bracton's Note-Book (1887), History of English Law (with Sir F. Pollock, 1895 ; new ed. 1898) ; Domesday Book and
Beyond (1897), Township and Borough (1898), Canon Law in England (1898), English Law and the Renaissance 0900, the Life of Leslie Stephen (1906). His writings are marked by vigour and vitality of style, as well as by the highest qualities of the historian who recreates the past from the original sources ; he had no sympathy with either legal or historical pedantry. He died at Grand Canary on Dec. 19, 1906.
See P. Vinogradoff's article on Maitland in the English Historical Review (1907) ; Sir F. Pollock's in the Quarterly Review (1907) ; G. T. Lapsley's in The Green Bag (Boston, Mass., 1907) ; A. L. Smith, F. W. Maitland (1908) ; H. A. L. Fisher, F. W. Maitland (Iwo).