Frederick Maurice (soldier, born 1841)

Major-General Sir John Frederick Maurice KCB (24 May 1841 – 12 January 1912) was a senior British Army officer, chiefly remembered for his military writings.[1]

Major General

Sir Frederick Maurice

KCB
Born24 May 1841
London, England
Died12 January 1912(1912-01-12) (aged 70)
Camberley, Surrey, England
Service/branchBritish Army
Years of service1861–1912
RankMajor-General
Battles/wars
Relations
Other work

Family and early life

Maurice was born in Southwark, London in 1841, the eldest son of Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice, an Anglican priest, theologian and author,[2] by his first wife, Anna Eleanor Barton, a daughter of Lieutenant-General Charles Barton.[3][4] He published several volumes on his father's life in 1884.[2]

Maurice was educated at the Royal India Military College, Addiscombe, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1861.[1]

Career

Maurice served as private secretary to Sir Garnet Wolseley in the Ashanti Campaign of 1873–1874; in the Zulu War in 1880; was deputy assistant adjutant general of the Egyptian expedition in 1882; and was brevetted colonel in 1885. In 1885–1892 he was professor of military history at the Staff College, Camberley, and in 1895 was promoted to major general. Later in his career he was commander of the Woolwich District until September 1902.[5]

In 1905, Maurice was part of a team which went to Berlin to negotiate with the Germans on the problems of the Navy estimates and the escalating threat posed to the Empire. In January 1906, news was leaked to The Times that implicated him in the leaking of war material purchases, which he had discussed.[6] Campbell-Bannerman complained to Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary of "an outrageous interview with Genl. Sir F. Maurice in a French paper, describing all that wd. happen if Germany & France went to war; how we of course should join France".[7]

Later in the same parliament British government policy evolved around Grey's adherence to the Entente Cordiale and the British willingness to defend the neutrality of the Low Countries.[8]

Personal life

In Dublin in 1869, Maurice married Annie FitzGerald, the daughter of Richard Augustine FitzGerald. They had a large family of at least 11 children.
His eldest son was Sir Frederick Maurice (1871–1951).[1]
His second daughter Annie married John Macmillan Bishop of Guildford. Another daughter, Cosette, married the Oxford military historian C.T. Atkinson.

Writings

Maurice's reputation depends chiefly on his military writings, which include:

  • Hostilities without Declaration of War (1883)
  • Popular History of Ashanti Campaign (1874)
  • A life of his father, John Frederick Denison Maurice (1884)
  • The Balance of Military Power in Europe (1888)
  • War (1891)
  • National Defenses (1897)
  • The Franco-German War, 1870–1871 (1900)
  • Diary of Sir John Moore (1904)
  • History of the War in South Africa, an official account (four volumes, 1906–1910)

Further reading
  • Bond, Brian (2006) [2004]. "Maurice, Sir John Frederick (1841–1912)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/34949. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

References
  1. "Obituary: Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice". The Times. The Times Digital Archive. 13 January 1912. p. 11.
  2. "Frederick Denison Maurice". The Times. The Times Digital Archive. 12 April 1884. p. 4.
  3. Thomas Carlyle, Charles Richard Sanders, Clyde de L. Ryals, The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle (1981), p. 45
  4. "Maurice, (John) Frederick Denison", in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004), doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18384
  5. "Naval & military intelligence". The Times (36868). 9 September 1902. p. 8.
  6. Sir Edward Grey letter to Lascelles, F.O. 371/76 (no. 53), dated 31 January 1906; Owen, Hidden, p. 63.
  7. Campbell-Bannerman letter to Grey, 26 January 1906, quoted in John Wilson, CB: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (St Martin's Press, 1974), p. 529.
  8. John Wilson, pp. 528–9; Owen, p. 86.
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