Recorder of Portsmouth, and in 1861 a Q.C., and Bencher of the Inn. He was Reader in 1864, and Treasurer in 1890, some years after his return to the Middle Temple on the dissolution of Serjeants Inn. In 1865 he was elected to Parliament for the city of Exeter, and sat till he became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1873. When the Liberals came into office in 1868, he became Solicitor-General, and was knighted. In 1871 he became Attorney-General. As an advocate he acquired great reputation, and took part in many famous trials, as Saurin v. Starr, and the prolonged Tichborne Case, when tried in the Civil Court. In Jan. 1874 he was raised to the peerage, during his father's lifetime, as Baron Coleridge of Ottery St, Mary. On the death of Lord Chief Justice Cockburn (q. v.), in 1880, he became Lord Chief Justice of England, which dignity he held till his death in 1894.
Admitted 5 November, 1812.
Second son of James Coleridge, of Heath's Court, Ottery St. Mary. He was born at Tiverton on 9 July, 1790, and educated at Eton and Oxford, where in the same year as he entered the Middle Temple he was elected Vinerian Law Scholar. He was called to the Bar 16 June, 1819. After a successful career as an advocate, and after taking the degree of Serjeant in 1832, he was elevated to the King's Bench in 1835, where he sat till 1858, when he retired into private life. He died 11 Feb. 1876.
He was a scholar and a man of literary tastes, the friend of Wordsworth, Arnold, and other distinguished men of the day, and for some time edited the Quarterly Review. In 1825 he published an edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, and in 1869 a Memoir of John Keble.
Admitted 31 July, 1811.
Eldest son of John Dyer Collier of Hatton Garden. He was born in Broad Street, London, on 11 Jan. 1789. His first literary employment was as reporter on the Times where he got into trouble by misreporting a speech of Joseph Hume. He subsequently joined the Morning Chronicle. His prospects at the Bar, to which he was called 6 Feb. 1829, were obscured by an imprudent "criticism" of the profession, published under the pseudonym of "Amicus Curiæ." This led to his taking up literature as a profession, and he published in rapid succession many works. He is best known, however, for his studies on English Dramatic, and especially Shakespearian literature, many of which are valuable, but not always reliable. His various publications are too numerous to be detailed here, but chief amongst them are his editions of Dodsley's Old Plays (1825—27); his History of English Dramatic Poetry and the Stage (1831); his annotated Editions of Shakespeare (1842—44); and his edition of Spenser's Works (1862). His Shakespearian criticisms became the source of violent controversy.
Admitted, 24 November, 1694.
Son and heir of Henry Collins, and great-grandson of Anthony Collins, a Bencher of the Inn. His learning and abilities acquired him the esteem of the philosopher Locke, and brought him into correspondence with most of the learned of his time. The titles of his works given below show the nature of the controversies in which he engaged. He died in 1729. During his life he published: Several of the London Cases Considered [Tract] (1707); Essay
