WILLIAM HENRY, Maule (1788-1858), of 14 Paper Buildings, London, Mdx.

Maule’s father was a self-supporting provincial surgeon and his mother came from a Quaker family in Leeds.1The estate of Maule’s great grandfather at Ecton, Northamptonshire had been gradually lost . His father was the second son of Rev. George Maule (d. 1773), who had been rector of Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire: Saturday Review 34:879 (Aug. 1872), 285. He went ‘through a rough schooling’, being educated by his clergyman uncle, John Maule, until the latter’s death in 1804 forced Maule to undertake tutoring for the children of a Quaker brewer at Ipswich.2Illustrated Review, 4:45 (Aug. 1872), 109. One obituary gave his year of birth as 1775, while another stated that he died in his 73rd year: Morning Post, 19 Jan. 1858; Standard, 18 Jan. 1858. His early years are documented in E. Leathley, Memoir of the Early Life of the Right Hon. Sir W.H. Maule (1872). In 1806 he went to reside at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he not only proved ‘a splendid classical scholar’, well-versed in modern languages, but was also awarded the Smith prize for proficiency in mathematics and natural philosophy. He graduated as senior wrangler (being the highest scoring student in mathematics) and was elected a fellow of the college, 4 Oct. 1811.3Cambridge University Alumni, 1261-1900; Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 10 Feb. 1810; The Literary Panorama, x (1811), 951.

Maule worked as a mathematical coach in Cambridge and amongst his pupils were the future judges Sir Cresswell Cresswell and Sir Edward Ryan.4E. Foss, The Judges of England (1864), ix. 224; Illustrated Review, 4:45 (Aug. 1872), 110; J.S. Getzler, ‘Cresswell, Sir Cresswell’; K. Prior, ‘Ryan, Sir Edward’, Oxford DNB, xiv. 149-50, xlviii. 431-2. During this time he assisted the work of his friend Charles Babbage, with whom he is said to have played games ‘of mental chess … to while away the tedium of a coach journey’.5Sir E.A. Parry, What the Judge Thought (1923), 133. Maule, however, abandoned academic pursuits and, while training for the law at Lincoln’s Inn, where he studied special pleading, he declined the professorship of mathematics at East India College, Haileybury.6Foss, Judges of England, 224. Babbage used to lament that ‘one who might have become the first mathematician in Europe should have thrown himself away on the law’: Saturday Review 34:879 (Aug. 1872), 286. An ‘acute lawyer’, in 1814 he joined the Oxford circuit, of which he became the leader. Blessed with a prodigious memory, he gradually acquired a great reputation in the City of London as a commercial lawyer and an authority on marine insurance.7Foss, Judges of England, 224. It was said that he retained ‘all the facetiae he had ever read’: Ibid., 226. Given the profitability of this employment, it was ‘with some reluctance and misgiving’ that he took silk in 1833. Yet his ability in handling ‘heavy mercantile cases’ secured him the lucrative post of counsel to the Bank of England in January 1835, and a directorship of the University Life Assurance Society soon followed.8J.D. Fitzgerald, rev. H. Mooney, ‘Maule, Sir William Henry’, Oxford DNB, xxxvii. 434-5; Daily News, 19 Jan. 1858; Leader, 23 Jan. 1858; J. Wishaw, A Synopsis of the Members of the English Bar (1835), 253; Foss, Judges of England, 224; Morning Post, 25 July 1836.

Being of ‘Liberal politics’, he had been present at the hustings in Liverpool in 1812 as a supporter of Henry Brougham in his contest with George Canning.9Morning Post, 19 Jan. 1858. Although he does not appear to taken a prominent part in politics in the intervening years, in April 1837 he acted as counsel to the petition of Nicholas Aylward Vigors for County Carlow, during which he is said to have made ‘the ablest argument ever delivered before an election tribunal’.10R. Malcomson, The Carlow Parliamentary Roll (1872), 83-4. He was rewarded for his exertions when the Liberal electors of Carlow adopted him as ‘the Ministerial candidate’ for the borough seat at the 1837 general election.11PP 1837 (307) x. 1; Standard, 4 July 1837; Morning Post, 8 July 1837. With the assistance of the local Catholic clergy he defeated the sitting Conservative after a severe contest, and overcame a petition against his return.12Standard, 7 Dec. 1837, 10 Mar. 1838; The Times, 12 Mar. 1838. Daniel O’Connell moved that he be admitted to the General Association on 11 July 1837.13Standard, 13 July 1837.

Maule’s parliamentary career was brief. As a ‘Whig and something more’, he staunchly supported Lord Melbourne’s ministry, but is not known to have served on any select committees or introduced any bills.14Standard, 18 Jan. 1858. Despite his ‘rich gift of irony’ and ‘pithy language and flow of apt and easy illustration’, he spoke rarely and at no great length in debate, restricting himself to subjects that were germane to his profession. He later remarked that speaking in the Commons was much harder than at the bar, where ‘you were yourself obliged to speak, and your audience bound to listen, which was not the case in Parliament’.15Parry, What the Judge Thought, 149; Saturday Review, 286; Carlow Parliamentary Roll, 84. He nevertheless spoke for the small minority who supported Pryme’s attempt to bring in a bill to abolish grand juries in England, 28 Nov. 1837, arguing that the bill was a fit subject for the consideration of the House, and ‘did not deserve to be classed with those frivolous and trifling Bills which had wasted so much of the time of the House in former Sessions’.16Hansard, 28 Nov. 1837, vol. 39, c. 362. Drawing upon his experience with the Carlow petition, he voted for the second reading of the controverted elections bill, 27 Nov. 1837, and, with respect to the Sligo election committee, argued that any Act of Parliament which regulated their proceedings ‘ought to be so construed as to enable substantial justice to be effected’.17Hansard, 18 Dec. 1837, vol. 39, c. 1279. Consequently, he supported William Smith O’Brien’s efforts to draw the House’s attention to the use of public subscriptions to contest Irish election returns (known as the ‘Spottiswoode conspiracy’), 6 Dec. 1837.

A supporter of the Irish poor law, Maule opposed O’Connell’s attempt to postpone the introduction of the relevant bill, 9 Feb. 1838, and voted for its third reading, 30 Apr. He voted in favour of Grote’s ballot motion, 15 Feb., but otherwise divided with the Whig ministry on most issues, including its policy towards Canada, 7 Mar., and its proposal to use surplus Irish Church revenues for the education of all classes ‘without distinction of religious persuasion’, 15 May. He also supported the government motion to overturn a vote in favour of the immediate cessation of slave apprenticeships, 28 May. Regarding Irish municipal reform he voted with the government in support of a £5 Irish municipal franchise, 11 June, and divided in favour of the bill’s third reading, 25 June 1838.

Although it was believed that Maule might, ‘had he exercised himself … have taken a distinguished rank in the house’, he was not a natural politician.18Morning Post, 19 Jan. 1858. Asthmatic, he had a ‘pallid face, ample forehead, aquiline nose, piercing eyes, and singularly heavy mouth’ and lived ‘much in seclusion’.19Daily News, 19 Jan. 1858. Having had ‘barely time to begin feeling his way’ at Westminster, he was appointed baron of exchequer and presented to the queen by the lord chancellor in February 1839.20Carlow Parliamentary Roll, 84; Standard, 21 Feb. 1839. He was became a justice of common pleas that November and presided over assizes on the northern and midland circuits, appearing regularly on the bench in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Worcestershire, North Wales and Cheshire.21Morning Post, 12 Nov. 1839. He was generally regarded as an excellent judge, who combined knowledge of the law with common sense, courtesy, and ingenuity in defeating technicalities.22Standard, 24 July 1855. Others, however, concluded that it was ‘not that he was a great man, but rather that he was a great character’, who regarded the court as ‘a machine not to administer justice, but to declare the law and compel its due observation’.23Parry, What the Judge Thought, 131, 136-7. His health having been for some years ‘much broken’, he ‘altogether renounced society’ and retired from the bench in July 1855, when he was immediately placed on the privy council, serving as an effective member of its judicial committee for the remainder of his life.24Morning Post, 19 Jan. 1858; Daily News, 19 Jan. 1858; Foss, Judges of England, 225.

In January 1858 Maule, who never married, died ‘rather suddenly’ from the effects of bronchitis at the home he shared with his widowed sister, Emma Maria Leathley, and his unmarried niece, Emma Leathley, at Hyde Park Gardens, London.25Fitzgerald, rev. Mooney, ‘Maule, Sir William Henry’; Birmingham Daily Post, 18 Jan. 1858; Morning Post, 20 Jan. 1858. His will was proved at under £35,000.26Standard, 15 Mar. 1858; Foss, Judges of England, 225.