While editing The Reminiscences of a Gentlewoman of the Last Century: Letters of Catherine Hutton, I felt a great desire to know more of the Coltman family, as several of the members are mentioned in those letters, and much interest in them was thereby created, but all my inquiries for information were at first fruitless. I have since learnt that the branch of the Coltman family which Miss Hutton knew is extinct. Quite by accident Mr. Thomas Worthington Clarke saw a review of Miss Hutton's letters in the T fines, and he at once communicated with me, through Messrs. Cornish Brothers, the publishers, and told me that Miss Hutton had been the friend of his great-grandmother, also of his great-aunt, Miss Mary Ann Coltman. This gentleman has kindly placed at my disposal the whole of the manuscript memoirs of the Coltman family of Leicester.