Maurice Amos
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Sir Maurice Amos KBE KC |
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|---|---|
| Cairo Native Court | |
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In office 1903–1906 |
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| Cairo Court of Appeal | |
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In office 1906; 1917 – 1913; 1922 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
15 June 1872 London |
| Died | 10 June 1940 (aged 67) Ulverston |
| Nationality | British |
| Profession | Barrister, judge |
Sir Percy Maurice Maclardie Sheldon Amos KBE KC (15 June 1872 – 10 June 1940) was a British barrister, judge and legal academic who served as an Egyptian judge, advisor to the Egyptian government and Quain Professor of Jurisprudence.
Amos is best known for founding and contributing to the Modern Law Review. Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, Amos was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in May 1897. Finding that his family could not support him through his early years at the Bar he travelled to Egypt, where he was appointed a member of the Cairo Native Court and then the Court of Appeals.
After a short return to Britain in 1915 to help at the Ministry of Munitions, Amos continued to work in Egypt until the end of the British Protectorate in 1922. He returned to Britain, resuming his practice as a barrister, and in 1932 was appointed Quain Professor of Jurisprudence, a position he held for five years. Involved in the founding of the Modern Law Review, his death on 10 June 1940 made him the first founder to die.
Amos was born on 15 June 1872 to Sheldon Amos, a legal academic, and Sarah Bunting, a political activist. Amos was educated by his mother and private tutors in France, Germany and England, until the family travelled to Australia in 1880 due to his father's health problems. Finding the country unpleasant they set out to return to England, but while passing through Egypt Sheldon Amos was offered the position of legal advisor to Lord Dufferin, which he accepted. The family stayed there until Sheldon's death in 1886, after which they returned to Europe to travel.
In 1891, Amos matriculated to Trinity College, Cambridge to study history, before switching to moral sciences following a talk with Bertrand Russell. He was joint Secretary of the Cambridge University Liberal Club from 1892 to 1894, and one of the people he shared this role with was Russell. Gaining a first, he graduated in 1895, having won the Cobden Prize, and was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in May 1897. Working as a conveyancing pupil in Lincoln's Inn, Amos found that the family income could not support him during his first, profitless years as a barrister, and applied to become an inspector in the Egyptian Ministry of Justice. To work in the courts there, Amos taught himself Arabic and gained the French "license en droit" from the University of Paris in 1889. While working as an inspector he lectured at the Khedival School of Law in Cairo. For his work as an inspector, he was awarded the Medjidie, Fourth Class in 1900. In 1903 he was made a judge of the Cairo Native Court, and in 1906 was promoted to the Court of Appeal, where he sat for seven years until offending the British population of Cairo by acquitting an Egyptian accused of assaulting a British child. Retiring from the bench, he became Director of the Khedival School of Law in 1913, where he set up a postgraduate program.
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