Derwent Coleridge - Literary Work and Later Life

Literary Work and Later Life

His life of his brother Hartley, published in 1849, is a very well-written biography, and he also edited some of his father's works in conjunction with his sister. In 1864 the works of Praed appeared under his editorship, and with a memoir by him. In 1854 Bishop Blomfield offered him the living of Northolt, but he declined it. Ten years later he accepted from Bishop Tait the rectory of Hanwell. Finding the parish church a long way from the population, he set to work to build a new one in the midst of them, and it was consecrated on the last day of 1879, when he was in his eightieth year. His mind had lost none of its vigour when he resigned next year, but he had become subject to constant attacks of acute neuralgia, and he retired to Torquay, where he died on 28 March 1883. His wife, to whom he had been married for more than fifty-five years, survived him. He left a son (Ernest Hartley Coleridge) and a daughter (Christabel Rose Coleridge).