He was educated at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he won two junior scholarships in 1900 and the University gold medal in anatomy in 1901. He took the Conjoint qualification and the London MB with honours in medicine and forensic medicine in 1903; and won the Kirke scholarship and gold medal in 1904. Maples served as a specialist on the West African colonial medical staff, but retired owing to ill-health and settled in Jersey. He lived first at Gorey House, and later at 49 Stopford Road, St Helier. He died on 16 November 1948 at 7 Windsor Crescent, Jersey, and was cremated in Guernsey. He was survived by his widow, two sons and a daughter.