[NI0360]
from A Dictionary of English Surnames by P. H. Reaney (Routledge, London and New York) p. 105
"Coleridge, Colridge: Cristian de Colrig 1275 RH (D); John Colregge 1327 SREss; Humphrey Coleridge, William Colridge 1642 PrD. From Coleridge in Egg Buckland, or Coleridge House in Stokenham (D)."
D means Devon
PrD means Protestation Returns for Devon from a transcription by A. J. Howard
The Story of a Devonshire House by Lord Coleridge, K.C., p. 11 (Bernard John Seymour Coleridge)
"From 1600 downwards the Coleridges jostle one another in the parish registers of Dunsford, Drewsteignton and Doddiscombesleigh in Devon. They were a numerous clan, humble in position, yeomen, tillers of the soil, small traders. Occasionally one of their body would occupy a somewhat higher station, In 1624, Humphrey Coleridge owned "Wallon," a freehold estate in Drewsteignton; and in 1698 Richard Coleridge died possessed of "Farrants," still a freehold estate in Dunsford, to which his son Richard added the freeholds of Whitemore and Goosemore, in Doddiscombesleigh. Nicholas Coleridge, of Dunsford, a freeholder in the reigh of James I., was granted in 1643 the goods of Scipio Heywood, who had forfeited them to the Crown by reason of his committing suicide, on payment to the Chief Almoner, the Bishop of Wnichester, of the sum of 70 pounds for distribution among estate was 463 pounds, a large sum in those days.
Another of the family, William Coleridge, of Doddiscombesleigh, suffered a loss of 140 pounds by fire, perhaps equal to 1,400 pounds of our present money. His ease was recommended to the clergy by the Bishop of the Diocese, and on June 14, 1691, a collection was made for him in Crediton Church. Alas for the generosity of the congregation, for the sum collected only amounted to ten shillings!
Finally one John Coleridge, who had married a Drewsteignton girl, Mary Wills, migrated to Crediton and became a weaver, and there on January 21, 1719, a son John was born, named, as was then customary, after a brother who had died in infancy in 1716. Early marriages were common, and John was only eighteen when he married Mary Wills. If John's grandfather were, as I believe, the John Coleridge who married Sarah Ealeb at Dunsford on October 30, 1694, the bridegroom on this occasion was only sixteen years of age when he entered the holy estate..."