He was the son of John Gorham Maitland, and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, being bracketed at the head of the moral sciences tripos of 1872, and winning a Whewell scholarship for international law.
He was called to the bar (Lincoln's Inn) in 1876, and became a competent equity lawyer and conveyancer, but finally devoted himself to comparative jurisprudence and especially the history of English law. In 1884 he was appointed reader in English law at Cambridge, and in 1888 became Downing professor of the laws of England. Though he suffered poor 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, including Select Pleas for the Crown, 1200-1225, Select Pleas in Manorial Courts and The Court Baron; and among his principal works were:
His written style was lively, and as a historian he used original sources; he was no pedant. His death at Gran Canaria deprived English law and letters of an outstanding representative.
See P Vinogradoff's article on Maitland in the English Historical Review (1907); Sir F Pollock's in the Quarterly Review (1907); GT Lapsley's in The Green Bag (Boston, Mass., 1907); AL Smith, F. W. Maitland (1908); HAL Fisher, F. W. Maitland (1910).
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