Coleridge, John Duke (1821-1894)

English jurist. His chief forensic triumph was in the Tichborne case, in which the impostor Arthur Orton made a false claim against the Tichborne family; his speech for the defendant lasted 23 days. He was the nephew of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

He became a barrister in 1846 and was subsequently recorder of Portsmouth and Liberal member of Parliament for Exeter 1865-73. He was appointed Lord Chief Justice of England in 1880.