Geoffrey Coleridge, 3rd Baron Coleridge

Who was Geoffrey Coleridge, 3rd Baron Coleridge?

Geoffrey Duke Coleridge, 3rd Baron Coleridge was responsible for making the archive of his ancestor the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge available to researchers for the first time.

The only son of Bernard Coleridge MP, and grandson of John Coleridge, a Lord Chief Justice of England, Coleridge was educated at Eton College in Berkshire, England. He graduated from Trinity College, Oxford in 1900 with a BA.

As a young man he often travelled the law circuits with his father, and went with him to the United States, where he later claimed to have danced down Broadway with Ellen Terry. Coleridge served as a Lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, the Devonshire Regiment until resigning his commission in 1901. He served in World War I in the 4th Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment, and was promoted Acting Captain in April 1917. Coleridge left the Army in 1919. He succeeded to the title of 3rd Baron Coleridge of Ottery St. Mary on 24 September 1927 after the death of his father.

In 1930 Coleridge and his wife were approached by Canadian academic Kathleen Coburn for permission to examine the family archive at The Chanter's House for material written by his great-great-great uncle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The Coleridges mistakenly thought Coburn was interested in the house and its furniture. She later wrote,