| Maurice Vile | |||||||
| Birth Name: | Maurice John Crawley Vile | ||||||
| Birth Date: | 23 July 1927 | ||||||
| Birth Place: | Stoke Newington, London, England | ||||||
| Nationality: | British | ||||||
| Education: | Hackney Downs School Regent Street Polytechnic London School of Economics | ||||||
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| Occupation: | Political scientist | ||||||
Maurice John Crawley Vile (born 23 July 1927) is a British political scientist. His main areas of interest are constitutional theory, federalism, the separation of powers, American government and politics.
Vile was born on 23 July 1927 in Stoke Newington, East London, and moved to Victoria Park, South Hackney, three years later. His father Edward, was a packer at a textile warehouse, Jeremiah Rotherham and Company in Shoreditch, until it was destroyed in the Second World War. In 1938 he gained a London County Council Scholarship to Hackney Downs School and moved with the School when it was evacuated to Norfolk in 1939.[1] In 1943 he returned to London and studied for a year at the Regent Street Polytechnic, before entering the London School of Economics, then relocated to Cambridge.
In 1945 he enlisted in the Royal Armoured Corps, and was commissioned in 1947. He served with the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards in Palestine until shortly before the creation of Israel in 1948.[2]
Vile was successively a lecturer in government at the University of Exeter, a research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Kent. A founding member of the University of Kent, he became successively dean of social sciences, pro-vice chancellor and deputy vice chancellor.[3] He has been a visiting professor at the University of Massachusetts, and at Smith College, as well as director of Boston University London Programmes, and research director at Canterbury Christ Church College (now University). He was made an honorary fellow of Canterbury Christ Church University in recognition of the role he played in its development.[4] He is emeritus professor of political science in the University of Kent.