Family and Education

b. c.1734, s. of William Colman of Gornhay, Tiverton, Devon by Jane, da. of Sir Edward Seymour, 5th Bt., and cos. of Francis Seymour Conway, 1st Earl of Hertford.1 m. Martha, 2s. 2da.

Offices Held

Cornet 1 Drag. 1751, lt. 1754, maj. 1771, ret. 1775.

Clerk of the robes and wardrobes Sept. 1770-5; gent. usher of the privy chamber May 1771-5; serjeant-at-arms to House of Commons 1775-1805.2

Biography

Colman was returned on Lord Hertford’s interest at Orford, to act as a stop-gap till Hertford’s son Robert Seymour Conway was of age. On 27 Jan. 1769 Hertford wrote to the King ‘that his wishes and instructions have been expressed in the fullest manner to his sons and Mr. Colman in regard to Mr. Wilkes’s case and expulsion’;3 and Colman voted regularly with Administration. There is no record of his having spoken in the House.

He died 29 July 1815.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Mary M. Drummond

Notes

• 1. Vivian, Vis. Devon only mentions one son, Wm. Colman, but Wm. Colman, senior, refers in his will to his ‘other children’, though without naming them. In division lists Edw. Colman is described as ‘a cousin of Lord Hertford’, and his daughter’s name was ‘Jane Seymour Colman’.
• 2. Thanks are due to Maj.-Gen. I.T.P. Hughes, serjeant-at-arms to the House of Commons, and to Sir Owen Morshead for helping us from their records definitely to identify Edw. Colman, the Member and Court official, with Edw. Colman the serjeant-at-arms.
• 3. Fortescue, ii. 73.