William Hart Coleridge, born on 27 June 1789, was the only son of Luke Herman Coleridge of Thorverton and Sarah Hart of Exeter. His father, a brother of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, died during his infancy, and William was brought up in Ottery St Mary under the care of his uncle, the Revd George Coleridge, master of the King’s School. His early education in Ottery led him to Christ Church, Oxford, where he was remembered for his steady application and unfailingly courteous manner. He graduated B.A. in 1811, M.A. in 1814, and proceeded to B.C. and D.D. in June 1824.
After leaving Oxford he served as a curate at St Andrew’s, Holborn, and later became secretary to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. He also preached at the National Society’s chapel in Ely Place. These roles placed him at the centre of the Church of England’s expanding educational and missionary work in the early nineteenth century.
In 1824 Coleridge was consecrated the first Bishop of Barbados. His formal enrolment in Bridgetown in January 1829 was marked by a public procession lined by the Royal Militia. He found the diocese in poor condition: too few clergy, too few churches, and very limited provision for schooling. His first charge in 1830 noted gradual improvement, particularly among the enslaved and formerly enslaved population, who were increasingly attending church and abandoning older funerary customs. By 1838, on the eve of full emancipation in the British West Indies, he reported unusually large numbers of communicants and a marked increase in church attendance. The diocese then contained ninety‑nine clergy, forty‑two schoolhouses and fifty‑three parish churches. Seven of these had been rebuilt after the devastating hurricane of 11 August 1831.
After sixteen years of work Coleridge’s health failed, and in 1842 he resigned the see. The diocese was subsequently divided into three: Barbados, Antigua and Guiana. He returned to England and, when St Augustine’s Missionary College was founded at Canterbury, became its first warden. He held the post until his sudden death on 21 December 1849 at Salston, his seat in Ottery St Mary. His connection to the town had never been broken, and his return there at the end of his life brought him back to the place where his education and vocation had begun.
Coleridge was also a member of the Canterbury Association from 1848 until his death, linking him to the wider movement of Anglican settlement and missionary activity in the mid‑nineteenth century. He may well have provided inspiration for his kinsman John Coleridge Patteson.
