The unknown Coleridge

The Unknown Coleridge is an overdue first biography of Derwent Coleridge, the poet's second son. Derwent was born in 1800 into the full flood of Lakeland Romanticism. A profound love of Nature, and reverence for his father's poetic circle, never left him. He is the only Coleridge who tried throughout a long and significant public life to put into practice his father's philosophy. After his unconventional upbringing in the Lake District, and an ardent and moody student life in the Cambridge of the 1820s, Derwent obtained his first job teaching in Plymouth. His passionate courtship of Mary Pridham led to newfound religious convictions and a remarkable marriage partnership. Under her influence he entered the Anglican clergy and became curate and schoolmaster in the Cornish township of Helston. For a decade the Helston Grammar School defied geographical isolation, attracting some distinguished pupils (including Charles Kingsley) and building its master's skills and reputation. The school was ruined by Cornwall's lack of railways and in 1841 Derwent moved to Chelsea to become Principal of St. Mark's College, the first national Anglican teacher training college. Derwent soon found himself embarked upon his greatest life's work. He became committed to putting into practice his father's rational and religious faith in the educability of all people, and the social powers of education. His "teachers of the people" were to be "educated men" in the highest and best sense. Government policy in 1862 put a cruel brake on such aspirations, but not before Derwent had written and practised his philosophy into educational history. The debates he began are resounding today in the controversy over the higher education or the "training" of teachers. Derwent continued his work until he was 80 in the Middlesex parish of Hanwell, where his house was enlivened by a succession of American pupils, who remembered him with deep respect and affection.