Frederick Denison Maurice

Frederick Denison Maurice 1805-72, English clergyman and social reformer. He was brought up a Unitarian but became an Anglican. He studied law at Cambridge and was a founder of the Apostles' Club. Entering Oxford in 1830, he took holy orders in 1831, but in 1853 he lost the post of professor of divinity at King's College, London, because of the views contained in his Theological Essays (1853). He held the chair of moral philosophy at Cambridge from 1866 until his death. Besides one novel, Eustace Conway (1834), he wrote many religious works, including Lectures on Ecclesiastical History (1854) and The Doctrine of Sacrifice (1854). Maurice was a leader of the Christian socialism movement and also a leader in education, being a founder of Queen's College for women (1848) and the Working Men's College (1854), both in London.

Bibliography: See biographies by his son, Sir J. F. Maurice (1884), and C. F. G. Masterman (1907); studies by F. M. McClain (1972) and O. J. Brose (1972).

Maurice, Frederick Denison (1805–72). Anglican theologian and social reformer. Son of a unitarian minister, Maurice was ordained in the Church of England and became professor of theology at King's College, London, but was forced to resign in 1853 because of his unorthodox views on eternal punishment. Maurice rejected the narrow moralism of his day and called for a wider understanding of the kingdom of God. He was deeply moved by the political events of 1848 and declared himself a Christian socialist. In 1854 he founded the Working Men's College in London and became increasingly recognized as a leader of Christian social reform. Contemporaries like John Stuart Mill criticized Maurice as muddled and obscure; but to his friends he was a saintly and prophetic figure. His writings supported the tenets of the broad-church school of Anglicans (modernists) and also influenced the Christian socialist revival of 1877–1914.

John F. C. Harrison

Maurice, Frederick Denison (1805–72), Christian Socialist. The son of a Unitarian minister, he gradually accepted the Anglican faith and was ordained in 1834. In 1846 he became Professor of Theology at the newly-created Theological School at King's College, London. He was moved by the political events of 1848 and became interested in the application of Christian principles to social reform; acquaintance with J. M. F. Ludlow led to the formation of the Christian Socialists (q.v.). Maurice's orthodoxy was constantly under suspicion and he was dismissed from King's College when his Theological Essays (1853) provoked a crisis; in one of these he attacked the popular view of the endlessness of future punishment and maintained that in the NT ‘eternity’ had nothing to do with time. In 1866 he became Knightsbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge. Feast day in the American BCP (1979) and CW, 1 Apr.