Henry James Coleridge

Who was Henry James Coleridge?

Henry James Coleridge was a writer on religious affairs and preacher. He was the son of Sir John Taylor Coleridge, a Judge of the King's Bench, and brother of John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge, Chief Justice of England. His grandfather, Captain James Coleridge, was brother of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the poet and philosopher.

He was sent to Eton at the age of thirteen and thence to Oxford, having obtained a scholarship at Trinity College. His university career was distinguished; in 1844 he took the highest honours in a fellowship at Oriel, then the blue ribbon of the university. In 1848 he received Anglican orders. The Tractarian movement being then at its height, Coleridge, with many of his tutors and friends, joined its ranks and was an ardent disciple of John Henry Newman till his conversion.

Gradually various incidents, the secession of Newman, Dr. Renn Hampden's appointment as Regius Professor of Theology, the condemnation and suspension of Edward Bouverie Pusey, the condemnation and deprivation of William George Ward, and the decision in the Gorham case, seriously shook his confidence in the Church of England. In consequence Edward Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, declined to admit him as a college tutor, and he therefore accepted a curacy at Alphington, a parish recently separated from that of Ottery St Mary, the home of his family, where his father had built for him a house and school. His doubts as to his religious position continued, however, to grow and early in 1852 he determined that he could no longer remain in the Anglican Communion.