MAURICE, FREDERICK DENISON

English theologian and Christian Socialist; b. Normanstown, near Lowestoft, April 29, 1805; d. Cambridge, April 1, 1872. Maurice's father was a Unitarian minister, but others in his family were Calvinists or Anglicans. He was baptized an Anglican (1831) and was ordained (1834). With Whitmore he was joint editor of the Metropolitan Quarterly Magazine, and edited the London Literary Chronicle before and after it was amalgamated with the Athenaeum (1830). In 1840 he was appointed professor of English literature and history at King's College, London, and in 1846 he combined this position with the chair of theology. He was dismissed from both positions in 1853, however, for his denial of the eternity of hell. From 1848 to 1854 he was associated with J. M. F. Ludlow and Charles Kingsley as a leader of the Christian Socialists, and acted as joint editor of their publication, Politics for the People. He drew up a scheme for a workingmen's college in London and became its first principal. From 1866 until his death he taught moral philosophy at Cambridge, and from 1871 he was also incumbent of St. Edward's church in Cambridge. His Christian Socialism was ahead of its time and was largely a failure, although his views later influenced Anglo-Catholics such as Charles gore and the Lux Mundi school. The most important of his many writings are: The Kingdom of Christ (1838), What is Revelation? (1859), The Claims of the Bible and of Science (1863), and Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy (1871–72).

Bibliography: The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, Chiefly Told in His Letters, ed. f. maurice, 2 v. (New York 1884). a.r. vidler, The Theology of F. D. Maurice (London 1948), issued in U.S. as Witness to the Light (New York 1948). f. m. g. higham, Frederick Denison Maurice (London 1947). f. l. cross, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church 877–878. w. m. davies, An Introduction to F. D. Maurice's Theology (London 1964).

[w. hannah]