Madden, SIR FREDERICK

Madden, SIR FREDERICK, an eminent English antiquary, born in Portsmouth in 1801, employed in the British Museum first as assistant-keeper, from 1837 as keeper, in the department of MSS. He was knighted in 1832, and gazetted as one of the gentlemen of the privy chamber. In 1866 he retired from his office in the British Museum, and he died in London, 8th March 1873. Madden edited many works of literary or historical interest, including Havelok the Dane (1833), William and the Werwolf (1832), the early English versions of the Gesta Romanorum (1838), The Wycliffite Version of the Holy Scriptures (1850), Layamon's Brut (1847), and the Historia Anglorum of Matthew Paris, for the Rolls series (1858). As an editor he shows a rare combination of profound scholarship and temperate caution. His original writings are found in the pages of the Archæologia and Collectanea Topographica.