Maurice, (John) Frederick Denison 1805-72
English theologian and writer

He was born in Normanston, Suffolk, and attended Trinity College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, but as a Dissenter, left in 1827 without a degree, and began a literary career in London. Influenced by Coleridge, he took orders in the Church of England, became chaplain to Guy's Hospital (1837) and to Lincoln's Inn (1841-60). In 1840 he became Professor of Literature at King's College London, where he was also Professor of Theology (1846-53), and from 1866 he was Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge. The publication in 1853 of his Theological Essays, dealing with atonement and eternal life, lost him his professorship of theology. With Thomas Hughes and Charles Kingsley he founded the Christian socialism movement (1848). He also was the founder and first Principal of the Working Man's College (1854) and of the Queen's College for Women. His other books include Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy (1850-62), The Conscience and Social Morality (1869).