12 Facts About Derwent Coleridge

Derwent Coleridge, third son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was a distinguished English scholar and author.

Derwent Coleridge was born at Keswick, Cumberland, 14 September 1800.

Derwent Coleridge was sent with his brother Hartley to be educated at a small school near Ambleside.

Derwent Coleridge became involved in the intellectual life of the town, joining The Plymouth Institution as a lecturing member.

Derwent Coleridge agreed with the conclusions which Gladstone supported in Church Principles considered in their Results, published the following year, although Gladstone wrote as a pronounced high churchman, while Coleridge aimed at setting forth the views of his father on church and state.

Derwent Coleridge held that post until 1864, and undoubtedly did much to shape the course of elementary education in England.

Derwent Coleridge was a strong advocate of Latin in mental training, placing it altogether above mathematics or physical science.

Derwent Coleridge could read Cervantes and Alfieri as easily as Racine and Schiller, and was well acquainted with Hungarian and Welsh poetry; of the latter he was intensely fond.

Derwent Coleridge could read not only Arabic and Coptic, but Zulu and Hawaiian.

Derwent Coleridge published several pamphlets in the course of his principalship, all evidently inspired by the desire to place the education of the people in the hands of the church, though his view of the church itself and its doctrines was by no means a narrow one.

Derwent Coleridge's last publication on the subject was a manifesto against compulsory education and in favour of denominational schools.

Derwent Coleridge's life of his brother Hartley, published in 1849, is a very well-written biography, and he edited some of his father's works in conjunction with his sister.