A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Maine, Sir Henry James Sumner
Maine, Sir Henry James Sumner (1822-1888). -- Jurist, ed. at Christ's Hospital and at Camb., where he became Regius Prof. of Civil Law 1847-54. Called to the Bar in 1850, he went in 1862 to India as legal member of the Government. On his return he was in 1870 appointed Prof. of Comparative Jurisprudence at Oxf., which office he held until his election in 1878 as Master of Trinity Hall. He became Whewell Prof. of International Law at Camb. in 1887, and was the author of many valuable works on law and the history of political institutions, and profoundly influenced the study of jurisprudence. Among his writings are Ancient Law (1861), Village Communities (1871), Early History of Institutions (1875), and Dissertations on Early Law and Customs (1883).