Ottery's famous poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge as a young man
- Credit: Books18 (flickr CC BY-SA 2.0)
No one person born in Ottery St Mary has ever yet grown up to be as famous as Samuel Taylor Coleridge. One of the most important British poets to have ever lived, Coleridge lived too full a life to describe fully in detail here. So, for now, I’ll just focus on his childhood.
Samuel was born, the tenth of 10 children – although some accounts say he was the youngest of fourteen – in the vicarage of Ottery on October 21, 1772, before the start of the industrial revolution and early in the reign of King George III. He seems to have been a surprise: his father, the Reverend John Coleridge was already 53 and his mother, 45, when “Sam” was born. The new baby reportedly had a shock of black hair and large grey eyes.