(1815-1886) Jurist and historian, educated at Bedford School, and after holding various minor offices became in 1871 clerk to the House of Commons, retiring in 1886, when he was raised to the peerage. He had previously, 1866, been made K.C.B. He was the author of a treatise on the laws, privileges, etc., of Parliament, which, first puborn in 1844, reached in 1901 its tenth edition, and was translated into various languages. His Constitutional History of England, 1760-1860 is practically a continuation of Hallam's great work. He also wrote Democracy in Europe. As an historical writer May was learned, painstaking, and impartial.