Hon. Stephen Coleridge

Hon. Stephen Coleridge
Hon. Stephen Coleridge

The Hon. Stephen William Buchanan Coleridge, anti-vivisectionist and man of letters, was born on May 31, 1854, second son of the famous Lord Chief Justice and a kinsman of Samuel Taylor and Hartley Coleridge. After taking his degree at Trinity College, Cambridge, he became private secretary to his father, during which time he ws called to the Bar by the Middle Temple. In 1890 he was appointed Clerk of Assize for the South Wales Circuit. He was one of the founders of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, President of the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports, and a director of the National Anti-Snaring Society, for which cause he was an indefatigable worker. Besides “Memories,” “The Idolatry of Science,” and similar works in which he maintained that “knowledge and reason have always been, and must always be, miserable bases on which to build conduct, character, and life,” he published several volumes of literary appreciation, including “A Morning in My Library,” “An Evening in My Library among the English Poets,” “The Chobham Book of English Prose,” “Quiet Hours in the Temple,” “Quiet Hours in Poets’ Corner,” and four volumes of letters to a grandson. He was a skilful amateur painter, contributing to the Royal Academy and the R.B.A. and holding one man exhibitions in London. He was twice married: first to Geraldine Beatrice (daughter and co-heir of Charles Manners Lushington), who died in 1910, leaving three sons; and secondly, in 1911, to Susan, daughter of Allan Duncan Stewart.

The Annual Register by Epstein M, 1936, Vol. 178, p. 126

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