Sheldon Amos

  General Notes:

He was the youngest son of the noted jurist Professor Andrew Amos. (Andrew Amos 1791-1860 had been a schoolfellow of the poet Shelley at Eton. He was the first Professor of Law at the University of London, later University College London; the lecture hall was packed at his opening lecture in 1829). Sheldon was educated at Clare College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar as a member of the Middle Temple in 1862. Met Percy William Bunting at Cambridge. An idealist like his wife, he was invited by F.D. Maurice to teach at The Working Men's College, with fellow Cambridge graduates and friends Richard Chevenix Trench and J. R. Seeley. In 1869 in his father's footsteps he was appointed to the chair of jurisprudence in University College, London, and in 1872 became reader under the council of legal education and examiner in constitutional law and history to the University of London. Failing health (asthma and kidney disease) led to his resignation of those offices, and in 1879 he took a voyage to the South Seas. He resided for a short time at Sydney, but found Australia unpleasant and set out to travel home. However while passing through Egypt (which captivated him), Sheldon was offered the position of legal adviser to Lord Dufferin, which he accepted, and practised as an advocate. After the bombardment of Alexandria, the ensuing British occupation and the reorganisation of the Egyptian judicature, he was appointed judge of the court of appeal, but being without any previous experience of administrative work he found the strain too great for his health. He came to England on leave in the autumn of 1885, and on his return to Egypt he died suddenly at Alexandria on 3.1.1886. His principal publications are: Systematic View of the Science of Jurisprudence (1872), Lectures on International Law (1873), Science of Law (1874), Science of Politics (1883), and History and Principles of the Civil Law of Rome as Aid to the Study of Scientific and Comparative Jurisprudence (1883)

Sheldon married Sarah Maclardie Bunting, daughter of Thomas Percival Bunting and Eliza Bealey, on 24 Dec 1870 in St George the Martyr, Queen Square, Camden. (Sarah Maclardie Bunting was born in 1840 in Manchester and died on 21 Jan 1908 in Cairo.)