Stephen Coleridge
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
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author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
, opponent of vivisection
Vivisection
Vivisection is defined as surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure...
and co-founder of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Stephen Coleridge was the second son of John Duke Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice of England
Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is the head of the judiciary and President of the Courts of England and Wales. Historically, he was the second-highest judge of the Courts of England and Wales, after the Lord Chancellor, but that changed as a result of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005,...
, and Jane Fortescue Seymour, an accomplished artist. His grandfather was nephew to the famous poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
. He was educated at Bradfield College
Bradfield College
Bradfield College is a coeducational independent school located in the small village of Bradfield in the English county of Berkshire.The college was founded in 1850 by Thomas Stevens, Rector and Lord of the Manor of Bradfield...
.
In 1903, in the Brown Dog affair
Brown Dog affair
The Brown Dog affair was a political controversy about vivisection that raged in Edwardian England from 1903 until 1910. It involved the infiltration of University of London medical lectures by Swedish women activists, pitched battles between medical students and the police, police protection for...
, Coleridge accused William Bayliss
William Bayliss
Sir William Maddock Bayliss was an English physiologist.He was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire and gained a B.Sc from London University. He graduated MA and DSc in physiology from Wadham College, Oxford....
of the Department of Physiology at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
of breaking two laws in his handling of a dog which was killed after vivisection
Vivisection
Vivisection is defined as surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure...
. Bayliss sued for libel and was awarded damages of £2,000.
At fourteen he was sent to the public school Bradfield. This seems to have rankled since his father, grandfather and elder brother were all educated in the more prestigious Eton. However things got better afterwards. His university course was at Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
where he graduated in 1878. At this time his mother painted his portrait which now hangs on a wall at Chanter’s House. He was a rather beautiful young man. A copy of this painting appears in ‘Memories’. This was also the time when Stephen caught the attention of Ellen Terry
Ellen Terry
Dame Ellen Terry, GBE was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud....
. The following year he set off on a voyage round the world. Ellen wrote to him;
‘Pretty boy, I’m very happy even without you. Still you see you are in my thoughts, or how should I be talking to you in pencil at this moment ... little dear, take care of yourself. Think how dear you are to very many and if the knowledge will only make you more prudent know that you are a dear in a guise to ‘Livie’ too.’
During the early 1900s and until his death in 1936 Stephen Coleridge resided in The Ford House, of Chobham, Surrey. he married Susan in 1911. He published two books which both included the subject of the Ford and its many reputed hauntings. The first "The Chobham book of poetry and prose" and the second "Digressions".
He was criticized for his work as we see Charles Richard Sanders in "Two Coleridgeans" making a quote that suggests this: "He found Coleridge's tendency to mix poetry, philosophy, and religion particularly objectionable, since it seemed to him that such a mixture was contrary and to clear-headed thinking." It appears he believed he had some spiritual connection with the manor house and that he personally had healed it by heavy restoration and the act of reversing of all the doors throughout the estate. He claimed the house had given each owner a three year trial before ridding them from its doors by either death or misfortune. Up until this day only two families have resided in the house for more than ten years. Stephan Coleridge, whose father was John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge, and Woodley, Michael Woodley The Baron of Menie and his family.
Stephen Coleridge's surprisingly short will is a last testament to his love for the Ford House:
This is my last will and testament of me Stephen Coleridge of The Ford, Chobham, Surrey.
I give and bequeath all my property real and personal, not the subject of trust, to my wife Susan Coleridge. I appoint my brother in law Ralegh Phillpotts executor of this my will dated this 29th of July 1921.