Colonel Coleridge had died in 1836, his widow in her daughter's house
in 1838, and Heath's Court had become the property of Mr. Justice
Coleridge, who always came thither with his family as soon as the
circuit was over. In 1841, Feniton Court, about two miles and a half
from thence, was purchased by Judge Patteson, much to the delight of
his children. It was a roomy, cheerful, pleasantly-situated house,
with a piece of water in the grounds, the right of shooting over a
couple of farms, and all that could render boy life happy.

Feniton was a thorough home, and already Coley's vision was, 'When I
am vicar of Feniton, which I look forward to, but with a very distant
hope, I should of all things like Fanny to keep house for me till I
am married;' and again, when relating some joke with his cousins
about the law-papers, of the Squire of Feniton, he adds: 'But the
Squire of Feniton will be a clergyman.'

Whether this were jest or earnest, this year, 1841, brought the dawn
of his future life. It was in that year that the Rev. George
Augustus Selwyn was appointed to the diocese of New Zealand. Mrs.
Selwyn's parents had always been intimate with the Patteson family,
and the curacy which Mr. Selwyn had held up to this time was at
Windsor, so that the old Etonian tie of brotherhood was drawn closer
by daily intercourse. Indeed, it was from the first understood that
Eton, with the wealth that her children enjoyed in such large
measure, should furnish 'nerves and sinews' to the war which her son
was about to wage with the darkness of heathenism, thus turning the
minds of the boys to something beyond either their studies or their
sports.

On October 31, the Rev. Samuel Wilberforce, then Archdeacon of