Malden attended Preston's School and was a scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a B.A.
[2] He was the friend and associate of Thomas Babington Macaulay and John Moultrie.
[3] Malden was Professor of Greek at University College London from 1831 until 1876.
[4] [5] In 1833 he agreed to become joint headmaster (with the Professor of Latin) of University College School, a post he held until 1846.
[3] On 7 July 1843 at the Church of St. Mary & St. Nicholas, Leatherhead, in Surrey he married Georgiana Augusta Drinkwater Bethune (1810–1888), daughter of Colonel John Drinkwater Bethune and his wife Eleanor.