PART TWO

 

The Second Gloucestershire Line - 1850 to 1885

 

This is the second of four sections of Part Two of the Collett family

 

Updated May 2023

 

The information for a previous update was kindly provided by James R Dainty

Some of the earlier details in this file were kindly provided by

Hilary A Collett (Ref. 2S47) of Basingstoke in Hampshire and

Reg and Patricia Harvey (Ref. 2Q144) of Somerset

 

 

Caroline Sarah Collett [2O2] was born at Upper Slaughter in 1848 and it would appear that she never married.  In the churchyard of St Peter’s Church at Upper Slaughter a headstone marks her grave with the following inscription “In Loving Memory of Caroline Sarah Collett who departed this life 28th August 1926 aged 77 years”.  From the time she was born, up until shortly after 1871, Caroline lived with her family at Upper Slaughter where she was two years old in 1851, 12 in 1861, and 22 in 1871.  She left Gloucestershire sometime after the census day in 1871 and by 1881 she was working in London as a parlour-maid.  She was recorded as Caroline Collett who was 32 and from Upper Slaughter living and working at 91 Lexham Gardens in Kensington, the home of solicitor and bachelor Francis Evelyn Linklater.  Also living and working there, as a lady’s maid, was Annie Courtenay who was 28 and also from Upper Slaughter.  Caroline was still living and working in London in 1891 when she was recorded in the census that year within the Paddington St John registration district as Caroline Collett who was 42 and from Upper Slaughter.  It was during the next decade that she eventually left London for Wales and in 1901 she was listed as Caroline S Collett, aged 52 from Upper Slaughter, who was a draper and a shopkeeper in the parish of St Peter Cockett in Swansea.  She was still there in April 1911 when, as Caroline Sarah Collett, she was 62

 

John Brain Collett [2O3] was born at Upper Slaughter at the end of 1851, his birth recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 23) during the first three months of 1852.  He was listed in the Upper Slaughter census returns for 1861 and 1871 as being respectively nine years of age and 19 years old with no occupation.  Around five years later he married Annie who was born in 1853 at Chastleton in Oxfordshire, which is just four miles north-east of Stow-on-the-Wold.  By early April in 1881 John and Annie were living in the village of Upper Slaughter where John B Collett was 29 and a farmer of 90 acres employing one man and one boy, while Annie was described as being 28 and a farmer’s wife.  Living with them at Upper Slaughter was their daughter Mary A Collett, who was four and born at Bourton-on-the-Water, and their son John B Collett who was two years old who had been born at Bledington in Gloucestershire.  On the day of the census Annie may have been expecting the birth of the couple’s third child, since their second daughter was born later that same year.  Two further children were added to their family prior to the next census in 1891, by which time the family was living at Fulbrook to the north of Burford, where the couple’s most recent child had been born.  The census return on that occasion recorded the family as John B Collett, aged 39 and the driver of a thrashing machine, Annie Collett, aged 38 and from Chastleton, and their five children.  They were named as Mary A Collett, who was 14 and from Bourton, John B Collett, who was 12 and a plough boy from Bledington, Margaret E Collett, who was nine and at school, Walter R Collett, who was eight and also at school, and Evelyn Collett who was two years old and born at Fulbrook.  Her two older siblings had been born at Upper Slaughter

 

It would seem logical that the last child born to John and Annie two years later, was also born while the family was still living at Fulbrook, as was confirmed in the census of 1911.  Rather curiously, no traced of John and his wife Annie has been found in the census 1901, even though their son John was recorded as living in Birmingham, while their daughter Margaret was living at Hambledon in Surrey, the Surrey connection being fairly significant.  However, both John and Annie featured in the census conducted in April 1911 when they were living in the hamlet of Upton, one mile west of Burford in Oxfordshire.  John Brain Collett from Upper Slaughter was 59 and a traction engine driver, his wife Annie was 58 and from Chastleton, and living with the couple was their youngest son Arthur Frederick Collett who was 17 of Fulbrook, who was described as a domestic house and garden lad.  On that day, their daughter Evelyn Collett from Fulbrook was 21 and a nurse working in a hospital at Epsom in Surrey, not far from where their son Walter was also living around that time

 

2P1 – Mary Ann Collett was born in 1876 at Bourton-on-the-Water

2P2 – John Brain Collett was born in 1878 at Bledington

2P3 – Margaret E Collett was born in 1881 at Upper Slaughter

2P4 – Walter Raymond Collett was born in 1883 at Upper Slaughter

2P5 – Evelyn Collett was born in 1888 at Fulbrook, Oxfordshire

2P6 – Arthur Frederick Collett was born in 1893 at Fulbrook, Oxfordshire

 

Mary Jane Collett [2O4] was born in 1857 at Upper Slaughter, her birth recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 7) during the second quarter of the year, another daughter of farmer John Brain Collett.  She was four years of age in 1861 and 14 in 1871, when living with her family at Upper Slaughter.  By 1871 she had already left school, so was most likely helping her mother in the farmhouse, as she was recorded as having no occupation.  It is unclear where Mary Jane was in 1881, following the death of her father on 1880, while it was three years after his death that her marriage to Henry Johns was recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 85) during the second quarter of 1883.  No record of Henry and Mary Jane Johns has been found after that day

 

George Edward Collett [2O5] was born at Upper Slaughter in 1859, another son of John Brain Collett and his wife Mary Ann Cambray, whose birth was recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 10) during the third quarter of the year.  As George E Collett he appeared with his family in the 1861 and 1871 Censuses for Upper Slaughter at the age of one year and 11 years respectively.  On reaching working age he left home to seek his fortune in London and by 1881 was he living as a boarder at 61 Pagnell Street in Deptford St Paul.  The family he was lodging with was made up of Richard Cowdrey, aged 62, a railway porter and his wife Charlotte from Swindon.  George Collett was 21 and a baker from Upper Slaughter.  Pagnell Street is still there in the twenty-first century running alongside the railway near New Cross Station.  It was later that same year, on 25th November 1881, at Alderbury near Salisbury that George Edward Collett, the son of John Brain Collett, married Frances England, the daughter of George England, with whom he had two daughters, the first of them born in the Derbyshire hamlet of Hilton, midway between Burton-on-Trent and Derby.  After she was born, George and Frances returned to London and it was at Enfield in Middlesex that the couple’s second daughter was born and where the family of four was living in 1891.  George Edward Collett from Upper Slaughter was 31 and a railway porter residing at Windmill Hill in Enfield with his wife Frances Collett from Alderbury in Wiltshire who was 35, and their two girls were Ethel Collett, who was eight and born at Hilton, and Matilda Collett, who was six and born at Enfield.  Ten years after that the complete family was living at Twyford, just north of Wokingham in Berkshire, where George E Collett was 41 and a general servant, Frances was 45, Ethel E Collett was 18, and Susannah Collett was 16

 

No record of George and Frances has been found after 1901, so it is possible that they emigrated to one of the colonies after the premature death of their youngest daughter.  As regards the two children, Ethel Elizabeth Collett, who was born at Hilton, but was baptised at the parish church in Marston-upon-Dove on 1st October 1882, with her birth recorded at Burton-on-Trent (Ref. 6b 21) during the last quarter of 1882.  Under her full name, and unmarried, she was 29 in 1911, when she was a live-in nurse, one of eight domestic servants, at Haselbech Hall in Northamptonshire, the home of the Ismay family.  The birth of her younger sister was recorded at Edmonton in London (Ref. 3a 286) during the third quarter of 1884, following which she was baptised at St Andrew’s Church in Enfield on 10th September 1884.  The parish register stated that she had been born on 30th July 1884 and that her father George E Collett was a porter with the Great Western Railway.  Tragically, just three years after the family was altogether in 1901, the death of Susannah Matilda Collett was recorded at Wokingham register office (Ref. 2c 135) during the first three months of 1804, when she was 19

 

2P7 – Ethel Elizabeth Collett was born in 1882 at Hilton, Derbyshire

2P8 – Susannah Matilda Collett was born in 1884 at Enfield, Middlesex; died in 1904

 

Francis William Collett [2O7] was born at Upper Slaughter on 14th March 1867 and it was there that he lived all his life.  He was the last child born to John Brain Collett and his wife Mary Ann with whom he was living in 1871 at the age of four.  During the next decade his father died, so by 1881 Francis, aged 14, was an apprentice carpenter living with his widowed mother Mary Ann Collett.  Ten years later at the age of 24 he was still working as a carpenter and was still living with his mother, but not long after 1891, Francis married Margaret Bell with whom he had five children, all of whom were born at Upper Slaughter.  The 1901 Census for Upper Slaughter revealed that the family was still living there and that Francis’ wife Margaret was 43 and a school mistress from Leamington Spa.  The census return also confirmed that all five of their children were born at Upper Slaughter, and they were Francis, who was six, Marjorie, who was four, Fred, who was two, and the twins Violet and Dorothy who were six months old.  Francis, who was 34, had progressed from simply being a carpenter to being a carpenter and a wheelwright by then.  Ten years later in April 1911 Francis and his family were still living at Upper Slaughter, by which time Francis William Collett was 44, and his wife Margaret Bell Collett was 53.  Their children were recorded as Francis George Brain Collett, aged 16, Marjorie Katharine Collett, aged 14, Fred Holt Collett, aged 12, and Violet Mary and Dorothy Elizabeth who were both ten

 

Francis William Collett died on 13th February 1933 and was buried at St Peter’s Church in Upper Slaughter where he was joined sixteen years later by his wife Margaret Collett nee Bell who died on 24th July 1949.  The epitaph of the headstone that marks their grave reads “In Loving Memory of Francis William Collett 14th March 1867 – 13th February 1933 Also of his wife Margaret Bell died July 24th 1949 aged 82 years”.  Exactly two years to the day, prior to his own death, Francis William Collett, a carpenter, was named as the sole administrator for the estate of his son Frederick Holt Collett who died at the age of just 33.  During the second decade of the twenty-first century, new information was received from John Collett at Upper Slaughter, the great great grandson of Francis William Collett who founded the business of F W Collett & Son, General Builders of Upper Slaughter which was established in 1890.  The company in 2011 was being managed by John and his brother Peter, together with their father Tony Collett, in premises at Lower Farm Workshop, Upper Slaughter near Cheltenham, from where they carry out property maintenance and repairs

 

2P9 – Francis George Brain Collett was born in 1894 at Upper Slaughter

2P10 – Marjorie Katherine Collett born 1896 at Upper Slaughter; died in April 1987

2P11 – Frederick Holt Collett was born in 1898 at Upper Slaughter

2P12 – Violet Mary Collett was born in 1900 at Upper Slaughter

2P13 – Dorothy Elizabeth Collett was born in 1900 at Upper Slaughter; died on 20th December 1928

 

Jane Elizabeth Collett [2O9] was baptised at Guiting Power on 8th February 1852, the eldest child of George Collett and his second wife Ann.  She was nine years old in 1861 and, following the death of her father in 1868, no record of Jane has been found in 1871.  However, in the next census of 1881, she was 28 years of age, unmarried, and working as a domestic housemaid employed by Henry E Bayley and his family.  Jane E Collett from Guiting Power was living with the family at 17 Lansdown Place in Cheltenham, Henry Bayley MA being a clergyman and master at the college in the town.  It is now known that Jane Elizabeth Collett later married Tom Lanchbury, the eldest son of Job Lanchbury, to whom her mother was married in 1875, following the earlier death of Jane’s father

 

Emily Collett [2O10] was baptised at Guiting Power on 4th September 1853, the daughter of George and Ann Collett.  She was seven years of age in the Guiting census of 1861 and was fourteen when her father passed away.  Like her older sister Jane (above), Emily has not been identified in the census of 1871 while, after a further ten years, Emily Collett from Guiting power was 26 and a domestic servant at 12 York Terrace in Cheltenham, the home of retired merchant navy seaman Henry M Simpson from Edinburgh and his Irish wife Elizabeth.  It is interesting that Helen M Collett, aged 24 and also from Guiting Power, was living not far away at 9 York Terrace, where she was employed as a domestic servant at the home of widow Christiana Hope, aged 63 and from London.  Helen’s younger brother was Thomas Collett, who was also born at Guiting Power, who was a non-domestic groom in 1881 when he was 23, unmarried, and lodging at 2 Northfield Terrace in Cheltenham, the home of 72-year-old groom James Grant from London.  So far, siblings Helen and Thomas have not been positively identified in any of the great many Gloucestershire family lines of the Collett family.  In 2021, Geoffrey Collett (Ref. 2R18) visited the churchyard at Lower Guiting where he located the gravestone of the Collett sisters Emily and Helen (Ellen) which, being at ground level, had become overgrown with grass etc.  Once cleared away, the stone revealed the details of their passing, which also confirmed they were the daughters of the late George Collett, Geoffrey’s great great grandfather.  From the gravestone, it is now known that Emily Collett died in 1947, fifteen years after her younger sister Helen.  The inscription on the stone says “In Loving Memory of Helen Collett 1867-1932 and Emily Collett 1853-1947 interred at Gloucester daughters of the late George Collett”

 

George Edward Collett [2O11] was baptised at Guiting Power on 6th May 1855, the third child and eldest son of George and Ann Collett.  George E Collett was six years old at the time of the Winchcombe & Guiting census of 1861 when he was living there with his family, while attending the village school.  Upon leaving school George moved out of the family home in Guiting Power and, in 1871 at the age of 16, he was a servant at the home of Mr Reeks, a butcher, on the High Street in nearby Winchcombe, not far from his widowed mother, following the death of his father, a butcher, in 1868.  It is not clear where George was at the time of the census in 1881, but it is established that he married Eliza Breakwell from Birmingham on 28th January 1877 at St Paul’s Church near Balsall Heath.  Eliza was the daughter of an iron bedstead manufacturer and lived within the same Balsall Heath area of Birmingham where George had his butcher’s shop at 291 Moseley Road.  The butcher’s shop was managed by George up until 1891 and also had Moorcroft Farm between the years of 1886 and 1891

 

By 1881 Eliza had already given birth to the couple’s first child and over the following fifteen years a further eight children were added to the family, although two of them suffered infant deaths.  The first seven children were all born while the family was living at 291 Moseley Road in Balsall Heath, where Edward had a butcher’s shop, although two of them suffered infant deaths.  Around the end of the decade, Edward became a tenant of Moorcroft Farm in Moseley, with the family residing at Russell Street in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, in 1891.  By then, George E Collett was 36 and a farmer, Eliza Collett was 38, and their daughters Harriet M Collett was eleven, Eva R Collett was ten, Una M Collett was six, Jesse Collett was five and Flora D Collett was under one year old.  Visiting the family was Eliza’s younger sister Louisa Breakwell, who was 23.  Later that same year, during the month of September, that the family moved to Parkfield House, a farm in Coughton, between Studley and Alcester, within the parish of Sambourne, when Edward became a tenant farmer of the Throckmorton family.  On the occasion of the baptism of the couple’s two youngest children, their baptism records stated that the family was residing in Sambourne.  It was also at Sambourne where the family was recorded in the census of 1901.  George Edward Collett was a farmer aged 47 from Guiting, his wife Eliza Collett was 49 their six surviving children were listed as Harriet May Collett who was 21, Eva R Collett who was 19, Una M Collett who was 16, Flora D Collett who was 10, Winifred Collett who was seven and Otto Collett who was six years old.  The four eldest children were all confirmed as having been born in Birmingham, like their mother.  However, the place of birth for the two youngest children was recorded as Coughton.  On that day, the family employed eighteen years old Sidney Pitman from Wales as a domestic servant.  The family was again living at Sambourne on the occasion of the next census in April 1911, when the place of birth of the two youngest children was then confirmed as having taken place at Sambourne

 

Over the years that followed, two of George’s three eldest daughters left the family home to be married.  According to the April census of 1911 George Edward Collett, aged 56, had living with him, his wife Eliza, aged 59, his daughters Flora Dorothy Collett, aged 20, and Winifred Collett, aged 17, and his son Otto Collett who was 16.  George Edward Collett of Coughton, a farmer, died on the 14th February 1920, after which his Will was proved at Birmingham on 26th March 1920 when the following gentlemen were named as executors of his estate amounting to £6,264 15 Shillings 6 Pence.  They were his sons Jesse Collett and Otto Collett, and his sons-in-law Ernest Johnson and William Green.  All four were described as farmers.  At the time of the death of her husband Eliza Collett nee Breakwell was described as the tenant of Parkfield House.  George Edward Collett and his wife Eliza Collett, nee Breakwell, are both buried in the family vault at St Marys Church in Moseley, along with their two infant daughters and Eve Reletta Collett, the only grown-up daughter not to marry

 

2P14 – Harriet May Collett was born in 1879 at Balsall Heath, Birmingham

2P15 – Eva Reletta Collett was born in 1881 at Balsall Heath, Birmingham

2P16 – Una Marie Collett was born in 1884 at Balsall Heath, Birmingham

2P17 – Jesse Collett was born in 1885 at Balsall Heath, Birmingham

2P18 – Ida Collett was born in 1887 at Balsall Heath, Birmingham; died in 1888

2P19 – Ivy Collett was born in 1889 at Balsall Heath, Birmingham; died in 1899

2P20 – Flora Dorothy Collett was born in 1890 at Balsall Heath, Birmingham

2P21 – Winifred Collett was born in 1893 at Coughton, Warwickshire

2P22 – Otto Collett was born in 1894 at Coughton, Warwickshire

 

John William Collett [2O12] was baptised at Guiting Power on 15th February 1857, a son of George and Ann Collett.  It was as John William Collett aged four years, that he was recorded in the Guiting Power census of 1861, and as John W Collett in the Guiting Power census of 1871, when he was 14 years old.  Where John was in 1881 has still to be determined, while it was three years later that the marriage of John William Collett and Agnes Letitia Peters was recorded at Cheltenham (Ref. 6a 228) during the second quarter of 1884.  Agnes was born at Cardiff in 1860, with whom John had two daughters.  After the birth of their first child John and Agnes were living within the parish of Henbury in the Barton Regis area of Bristol in 1891.  For some reason, in the census that year, the head of the household referred to himself as William Collett who was 33 and a shepherd, his wife Agnes was 32 and from Cardiff, and their daughter of the same name was five and born at Henbury.  Ten years later, after the birth of a second daughter, the family of four was residing at Abbots Leigh in Somerset to the west of Bristol, where John W Collett from Lower Guiting was 44 and working as a cowman on a farm, Agnes L Collett was 41, Agnes E Collett was 15 and a dressmaker’s apprentice, and Helen G Collett was seven years old.  By 1911, the couple’s eldest daughter was no longer living with her parents, when the remainder of the family was living within the village of Chew Magna, Somerset, to the south of Bristol.  The census return that year recorded the three members of the family as John William Collett who was 54 and a domestic gardener, Agnes Collett who was 51, and Helen G Collett who was 17.  The birth of the couple’s eldest daughter was recorded at Barton Regis, Bristol, (Ref. 6a 110) during the third quarter of 1885, while it was at the Church of St Mary Shirehampton, west of Bristol, where Agnes Emily Collett was baptised on 30th August 1885, daughter of John William Collett and Agnes Letitia Collett.  The birth of the youngest daughter was recorded at the Somerset Bedminster register office (Ref. 5c 95) during the first three months of 1894.  It was at Holy Trinity Church in Abbots Leigh on 8th April 1894, that Helen Gwendoline Collett was baptised and confirmed as the child of John and Agnes Collett

 

2P23 – Agnes Emily Collett was born in 1885 at Henbury, Bristol

2P24 – Helen Gwendoline Collett was born in 1894 at Abbots Leigh, Somerset

 

Ann Eliza Collett [2O13] was born at Guiting Power, where she was baptised on 26th December 1858, another daughter of George and Ann Collett.  Her birth was recorded at Winchcombe (Ref. 6a 332) during the last quarter of that year and as simply Ann Collett, she was three years of age in the Guiting Power census of 1861.  Following the death of her father in 1868, it was as Annie E Collett, aged 12 and still attending school, that she was listed with her widowed mother Ann and the rest of the family, in the Guiting Power census of 1871.  Upon leaving school, Annie entered into the life of a domestic servant who, by 1881, was a cook and domestic servant in Devon, at 1 Elliot Terrace in Plymouth, the home of the family of Aldborough Lloyd Williams, an undergraduate from the University of London, a non-practicing surgeon.  Annie E Collett was single, aged 23, and born at Guiting in Gloucestershire.  Four years later, she had returned to Gloucestershire, where the marriage of Annie Eliza Collett was recorded at Gloucester (Ref. 6a 659) during the fourth quarter of 1885

 

Esther Margaret Collett [2O14] was born at Guiting Power in 1860, her birth recorded at Winchcombe (Ref. 6a 332) during the third quarter of 1860.  Again, as Esther Margaret Collett, she was baptised at Guiting Power on 30th September 1860, another daughter of George and Ann Collett.  On the day of the Guiting Power census in 1861 and in 1871, Esther M Collett was eight months old, and ten years later she was 10 years of age and still at school.  Where she was in 1881 has not yet been determined, while it was three years later, that the marriage of Esther Margaret Collett and George Holder was recorded at Winchcombe (Ref. 6a 701) during the third quarter of 1884.  By 1891, Esther had given birth to her first two child, the family residing at Upton Street within the Barton St Mary district of Gloucester, where George Holder, from Miserden, was employed by the Great Western Railway as an engine shunter.  He was 32, his wife ‘Hetty was 31, Rosie Holder was five and Fred Holder was three.  In 1901 and again in 1911, the family was still living in Gloucester, where railway shunter was 44, Esther was 40, Rosie was 15, and Bertie Holder was six, while ten years after that, George was 54, Esther was 50, Rosa Holder was 24, Nellie Holder was 13, and Lillian Holder was 11. Staying with the family in 1911, was Esther’s stepfather Job Lanchbury who was 68.  Forty years later, and as Hester M Holder, her death was recorded at Gloucester City register office (Ref. 7b 512) during the first three months of 1952, when she was 91

 

Ellen Frances Collett [2O16] was born at Guiting Power, her birth as Ellen F Collett was recorded at Winchcombe (Ref. 6a 319) during the second quarter of 1866.  Using her full name, she was baptised there on 20th May 1866, the last child of George Collett and Ann Butler.  She was two years old when her father died, was four years old in the census of 1871, and was nine years of age when her mother re-married Job Lanchbury near the end of 1875.  No record of her has been found in 1881 and 1891, but by 1901, at the age of 34, she was single and working as a general domestic servant at the home of Margaret Hodges in Gloucester, when her place of birth was said to be Lower Guiting.  That was exactly the same situation in 1911, when she was 45 and continuing to be a servant employed by Margaret Hodges.  Ellen never married and it was in 1932 that the death of Ellen F Collett was recorded at Gloucester register office (Ref. 6a 337) during the last three months of that year, when she was 66 years old.  The Will of Ellen Frances Collett was proved at Gloucester on 22nd December 1932, the paperwork confirming that she had died on 19th November 1932, and that the executor of the Will was Bertie Harold Holder, one of the sons of her older sister Esther Margaret Holder, nee Collett (above).  In the churchyard at Lower Guiting is the flat gravestone with the inscription In Loving Memory of Helen Collett 1867-1932 and Emily Collett 1853-1947 interred at Gloucester daughters of the late George Collett

 

Richard Henry Dunford Collett [2O17] was born at Lower Swell in 1857, the eldest of the four children of Henry Collett and Mary Ann Dunford.  His birth, using his full name, was recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 303) during the third quarter of 1857 ad he was baptised at Lower Swell on 30th August 1857.  In the Lower Swell census of 1861 Richard H Collett was three years old and living at Stone Road with his family.  On the following years his father’s work as a farm bailiff resulted in a move for the whole family to the Romford area of Essex, where they were recorded at Harold Wood in 1871.  By then Richard H Collett was still attending school at the age of 14.  Ten years later Richard was working as a baker when he was a lodger at the home of elderly Sarah Rayner at Barking in Essex, when he was 22 and unmarried.  Prior to 1891 Richard married the younger Caroline Hallows, the daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Hallows.  Caroline was born at Ilford in Essex in 1865 and, in the census of 1891, she was 26 and living at Grove Crescent Road in West Ham with her baker husband Richard H D Collett from Gloucestershire.  According to the next census in 1901, the childless couple was staying with the Hallows family, headed by Caroline’s widowed father, at Sundown Place in Ilford.  His son-in-law Richard Collett from Lower Swell was 44 and still working as a baker, while his daughter, and Richard’s wife, Caroline Collett was 35.  Sadly, four years later, the death of Richard Henry Collett was recorded at Romford register office (Ref. 4a 267) during the third quarter of 1905, when he was 48.  It was also earlier in that same quarter of 1905 that the death of Caroline Collett was recorded at Romford (Ref. 4a 259) when she was only 40 years old

 

George Edward Collett [2O19] was born at Stone Road Lower Swell in 1860, his birth recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 325) during the third quarter of that year.  Just like his sister Sarah (above), he too was baptised at Lower Swell on 25th December, but a year later in 1860, the son of Henry and Mary Ann Collett.  George Edward Collett was around six months old on the day of the census in 1861, when he and his family were residing at Stone Road in Lower Swell.  George E Collett was 10 years old in the next census of 1871, by which time he and his family had left Gloucestershire and were living in Harold Wood, to the north-east of Romford in Essex.  Whilst no record of George or his mother has been identified within the census returns for 1881 and 1891, by 1901 they were living together at Marlborough Road in Cann Hall near Epping Forest in Essex and within the West Ham registration district.  George E Collett from Lower Swell was unmarried at the age of 38 and was working as a clerk with the Great Eastern Railway Company.  It is possible, although not proved, that George E Collett married the much younger Maud E Onslow at West Ham twelve years later, their wedding day recorded there (Ref. 4a 39) during the third quarter of 1923.  Maud was born at Plaistow in West Ham to parents Joseph and Florence Onslow of Alexander Street in West Ham.  Less than two years later, Maud presented George with a son, who was born on 21st January 1925, his birth recorded at West Ham (Ref. 4a 376) during the first quarter of 1925.  His son was only seven years old when George Edward Collett died, his death recorded at West Ham (Ref. 4a 224) during the first three months of 1932 when his age was recorded as being 71

 

Although not proved, or confirmed by any living member of the family, there is a possibility that son Ronald G Collett married Emily Matley, who was born at Stockport in Cheshire on 19th November 1925.  Their wedding was also recorded in Cheshire, at the Hyde register office (Ref. 10a 99) during the third quarter of 1948.  If so, then their son, like his father, was also born in the east end of London, with the birth of Stephen J Collett recorded at Romford register office (Ref. 5a 115) during the third quarter of 1949, when his mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Matley.  Towards the end of their lives, Ronald and Emily moved to Lancashire, where first the death of Emily Collett was recorded at Manchester in 1985, with the death of Ronald G Collett recorded at Oldham register office in 1987, at the age of 62.

 

2P25 – Ronald George Collett was born in 1925 at West Ham; died in 1987 at Oldham, Lancs.

 

Sarah Ann Collett [2O22] was born at Bibury where she was baptised on 27th July 1828, the eldest surviving child of William Collett and Hannah Stockwell.  She was still with her family in Bibury on the day of the census in 1841, but thereafter the next fifty years of her life remain a mystery.  During those five decade she was married, when she became Sarah Ann Ingwell who, by 1891 was a widow from Bibury who was living on her own means at East Hagbourne ‘new town’ in Berkshire.  The reason she has been found that late in her life, when she was 63 years old, is because staying there with her was her niece Nellie Collett from Swindon who was 10 years of age and the surviving twin of her brother William Collett (below) and his wife Caroline Ruth Watts

 

WILLIAM COLLETT [2O26] was born at Bibury and was baptised at Arlington on 13th July 1834 and his age was confirmed as being six years in the Bibury census of 1841.  During the following years, the family left Bibury and moved across the county boundary into Wiltshire, where they settled in the Chelworth and Crudwell area near Malmesbury.  The Crudwell census in 1851 included William and his family, when William Collett from Bibury was 17 and working as a farm labourer.  After a further ten years it is established that William was out of the country and that he was an Able Seaman with the Royal Navy and fought in the China Wars of 1861 on board HMS Chesapeake.  He was awarded the China Medal and later became a merchant sea captain.  He married Caroline Ruth Watts on 19th April 1866 at St Matthews Church in Coates near Cirencester.  The parish register described him as ‘William Collett seaman, son of William Collett labourer’.  Once married the couple headed for Swindon where there was the promise of work and accommodation.  William held the post of Chief Fireman with the Great Western Railway from 1869-1879 and all of the children of his marriage to Caroline Ruth were born in Swindon

 

The Swindon census of 1871 placed William and Caroline as living at 22 Cromwell Street the home of GWR engine fitter William Hardiman 26 and his wife Louisa 25 and their daughter Georgina who was three.  William was described as being 34 and from Bibury, who was working as a labourer with the GWR.  Caroline was 22 and from Minchinhampton, and with the couple was their first-born child William J Collett who was one year old and born at Swindon.  It is possible that shortly after that when William Hardiman and his family moved out of the house, since the GWR Staff Records indicate that the Collett occupied the premises up to 1875, following which William and his growing family moved to 16 Exeter Street.  Five years later in 1880 William’s poor health forced him to give up the Chief Fireman’s job, at which time he became Swimming Baths Manager and was listed as such in the North Wiltshire Kelly’s Directory for 1880.  His change of job also coincided with the family moving to 7 Bath Street in 1880, as confirmed in the Swindon census of 1881.  The census return listed William as 45 and a labourer at the G W R Works E & M.  Caroline his wife was eleven years younger and of Minchinhampton.  All of their children up to that date were listed with them, but tragically three-month old twin daughter Ella Collett died shortly after the census day on the third April that same year

 

Included in the Great Western Railway records at Kew is a document dated 3rd April 1881 that shows the rent for 7 Bath Street, which comprised just four rooms, was £13 a year or five shillings per week.  Despite the cramped living conditions, the family still found space for a lodger.  He was unmarried iron works labourer William Pickett 37 of Hilmarton in Wiltshire who was listed in the 1881 census as a boarder.  And so, it was that just over seven years later, on 24th August 1888, William Collett died at his home at 7 Bath Street in Swindon.  He was 54 and the cause of death was recorded as pneumonia.  With the passing of her husband and some of the older children leaving the family home to make their own way in the world, it would appear that Caroline Ruth Collett was forced to accept another GWR family into her small home, as confirmed by the Swindon census of 1891.  Caroline was 42 and from Stroud and she was making ends meet by working for the GWR as a needle woman.  Living with her at 7 Bath Street were six of her eleven children, plus the new family of GWR general labourer William Harris 28, his wife Sarah 25 and their four months old son William.  Caroline’s children at that time were daughter Caroline R Collett aged 14, and sons Harry J Collett aged 12, Arthur S A Collett who was eight, ‘Morris’ E Collett who was six, Percy E Collett who was four, and Mervyn F M Collett who was three years old.  So far, no trace of her daughter Nellie has been found, even though she would have been 10 years of age, and was back living with the family in 1901

 

Six different children were still living with Caroline ten years later in March 1901, Arthur having been replaced by Nellie.  By that time the widow Caroline Collett of Stroud was 52 and was no longer employed by the Great Western Railway.   However, she was permitted to continue to reside in the tied house due to the fact that three of her sons were then working for the company.  Of the six children still living at 7 Bath Street, only Caroline’s youngest Mervyn was not in employment, he being only 13 and still attending the GWR Institute School.  The other five children on that occasion were Caroline, aged 24, Harry, aged 22, Nellie, aged 20, Maurice who was 16, and Percy who was 14.  Also living with the family was Caroline’s eldest daughter Elizabeth, who was 27, and her husband Frederick H Taylor and their eleven-months old baby William F H Taylor.  7 Bath Street was subsequently renamed 7 Bathampton Street shortly after the census day and the terraced house was eventually taken over in 1909 by William’s and Caroline’s son Harry James Collett and his wife Alice Louisa Collett (Ref. 1P60), ensuring that it stayed with the Collett family until 1959 when the widowed Alice finally moved out.  By April 1911 Bath Street in New Town Swindon, or the Railway Village as it was often called, was listed as Bathampton Street, while Caroline was no longer living at number seven.  Instead, it was occupied by her son Harry, his wife, and their first child who was sixteen months old.  Caroline on the other hand had moved in with her married son Maurice and his young family at 14 Stanier Street in Swindon.  The census return simply listed her as Caroline Collett, mother of Maurice, aged 63 and born at Minchinhampton

 

Three years later, sometime during 1914, Maurice’s work took him to Lancashire, at which time Caroline went to live with her married daughter Elizabeth Taylor at 13 Morse Street in Swindon.  And it was there, six months before her eightieth birthday that Caroline Ruth Collett nee Watts died on 29th January 1929.  A photograph that was taken on the day of her funeral includes all of the nine children of her marriage to William Collett that were still alive on that day.  Caroline Ruth Watts (Ref. 10O3 Watts) was born on 9th August 1848 at Box near Minchinhampton in Gloucestershire.  She was the daughter of John Watts and Mary Ann Pitt.  She married 32-years old William Collett when she was only 17 years of age and against the wishes of her father, her mother having died in childbirth before Caroline had reached her second birthday.  Her father’s objection to Caroline’s marriage to William may not have been on the grounds of the age difference, since John Watt had been twenty years older than his wife.  It was more likely to do with the type of person that William Collett was.  William and Caroline must have lied about her age when they presented themselves to be married at Coates near Cirencester on 19th April 1866 in order for the ceremony to proceed

 

On the marriage certificate Caroline’s age was given as 19 years, when in reality she was still only seventeen.  As a result of her marriage to William, her father subsequently disowned her.  The couple’s marriage certificate described Caroline’s father as a soldier, the witnesses to which were recorded as Henry Harvey, who made a mark, and Hannah Latham.  Hannah was very likely William’s sister Hannah Collett (below) who was known to be married by then.  It is also likely that the wedding would have been attended by William’s parents who were recorded as living in Coates at that time.  Caroline’s mother tragically died giving birth to her sister, Eliza Ann Watts (Ref. 10O4 Watts) on 24th June 1850.  Curiously in the Box census of 1851 Caroline was not listed as living with her father and her sister even though she would have only been three years old.  On 14th October 1851 John Watts was married for a second time when he wed Mrs Mary Burnell.  He died at Minchinhampton on 15th June 1866 aged 67, less than two months after disowning Caroline.  John Watts’ second daughter Eliza Ann Watts married Joseph Henry Gardiner on 22nd September 1873 and the couple emigrated to the United States of America.  As Eliza Ann Gardiner she died at Vernal in Utah on 6th August 1935, and it was Eliza and Joseph who created the family line of Jean Rogers (Ref. 10R2 Watts) of Salt Lake City in Utah.  Further details of the Watts family are provided in Part 10 – Other Branch Lines

 

A story told by Caroline Ruth Collett to her eldest granddaughter Ella Agnes (Nell) Collett (Ref. 1Q12) involved her late husband William Collett, prior to their marriage, when he was in China.  Apparently when he was in Shanghai, he went ashore with a group of ship mates and saw a mandarin with his daughter being paraded through the streets.  It was custom in those days for everyone to lower their heads and not look at the girl.  It was also the custom that the daughter's feet be tightly bound from birth to keep the feet very small and in consequence the daughter would be carried in a sedan-type chair.  Being the man he was, William’s friends dared him to race forward and take one of the shoes off the child, which he did causing a great commotion and angering the locals.  As a result of which, the sailors were then chased back to the safety of their ship by Chinese men waving their swords.  To accompany the story, Caroline produced the said slipper shoe to show the young Ella, which was made of a white material and had many jewels attached to it

 

2P26 – William John Collett was born in1870 at Swindon

2P27 – Albert Henry Collett was born in1872 at Swindon

2P28 – Elizabeth Annie Collett was born in1874 at Swindon

2P29 – Caroline Ruth Collett was born in1876 at Swindon

2P30 – HARRY JAMES Collett was born in1879 at Swindon

2P31 – Ella Agnes Collett was born in1881 at Swindon; died in 1881

2P32 – Nellie Winifred Collett was born in1881 at Swindon

2P33 – Arthur Stephen Alan Collett was born in1882 at Swindon

2P34 – Maurice Edward Collett was born in1885 at Swindon

2P35 – Percy Ethelbert Collett was born in1886 at Swindon

2P36 – Mervyn Fred Matthew Collett was born in1887 at Swindon

 

Hannah Collett [2O27] was born at Bibury, with her birth recorded at Northleach (Ref. xi 318) during the first quarter of 1838.  The first of two other records for her suggests that she was born on 28th January 1838, and that she was baptised at Arlington Baptist Church in Bibury a few days later on 4th February 1838.  Hannah Collett was also three years of age in the Bibury census of 1841, when she was living there with her parents and just three of her six older siblings.  Shortly after 1841, the Collett family left Bibury, when they moved to Crudwell, in Wiltshire, where they were living in 1851, when Hannah Collett from Bibury was 13 and already working as an agricultural labourer.  The marriage of Hannah Collett and William Pitt was recorded at Malmesbury (Ref. 5a 89) during the second quarter of 1858.  Three years later, the couple was residing at Backbridge in Westport St Mary, Malmesbury, where their first child had been born.  The census conducted that year, listed the young family as William Pitt who was 30 and from nearby Brokenborough, an agricultural labourer and local methodist preacher, his wife Hannah Pitt from Bibury who was 23, and their one-year-old Mary Pitt daughter.  Five more children were added to the family during the following decade, some born at Brokenborough, with the later two children born after the family was once again living in Malmesbury, where they were recorded in 1871.  On the census day that year, the family as made up of William Pitt a mariner store keeper, Hannah, Mary, Martha Pitt, Thomas Pitt, Sarah Pitt and Daniel Pitt.  Thirty years later, William Pitt was 70 and a general dealer, Hannah Pitt was 63, and the only child living with them was their daughter Agnes Pitt who was 23.  Completing the household was the couple’s granddaughter Ethel Blunson who was 12 and born in London

 

Ruth Collett [2O29] was born at Bibury and her birth was recorded at Northleach (Ref. xi 24) during the third quarter of 1841.  Ruth was then baptised at Arlington Baptist Church in Bibury on 26th September 1841, another daughter of William Collett and Hannah Stockwell.  She later married Elias Parslow of Newington Bagpath, where their first child was born.  The married was registered at Malmesbury (Ref. 5a 55) during the second quarter of 1861.  Only two children’s details are provided below, but there may have been others.  In 1881 Ruth was visiting her mother Hannah Collett at her home in the High Street in Kemble.  With her was her son William Charles Parslow who was three years old and born at Sherston Magna to the west of Malmesbury.  Ruth’s general labourer husband Elias Parslow was at the family home at Back Street in Sherston Magna, and with him there was their eldest son George Edward Parslow, aged 18, who was born at Newington Bagpath and who was also working as a general labourer.  Boarding with the family was Elias’ unmarried brother Thomas Parslow, aged 38 and also of Newington Bagpath who was also a general labourer like his brother.  By 1891, Elias was a farmer at Gore Lane in Nettleton, where wife Ruth was 49, and their son William Parslow was 13.  Still living with the family was Thomas Parslow 49.  In 1901 Elias was a general haulier at 63, Ruth was 58, and son William was 22.  Elias from Bagpath and Ruth from Bibury, were again living in Nettleton in 1911 when Elias was 74 and a hurdle maker

 

William Collett [2O30] was born in 1842 at Arlington, his birth being recorded at Northleach (Ref. xi 7) during the third quarter of 1842.  He was eight years old in the census of 1851 when he was living with his parents, John and Mary Collett, at the Arlington Row home of his grandparents Thomas and Mary Collett.  He may have been orphaned during the 1850s, since no records of his parents have been discovered after 1851.  However, William Collett of Arlington continued to live in Bibury, where he was 18 years old and working as an agricultural labourer in the census of 1861, when he was described as a lodger at the home of John and Hannah Harvey.  Three years later, and for the only time in his life, William Collett was named as William Henry Collett when he married Hester Mills, their marriage recorded at Cirencester (Ref. 6a 16) during the third quarter of 1864.  It is very likely that the wedding ceremony was conducted as Poulton where Hester Mills was born in 1846.  By 1871 the marriage had produced two children for the couple who were then living at Meysey Hampton, one mile east of Poulton where their first child had also been born.  Between that birth and the census day, the family of three had been at Arlington, where the couple’s second child had been born.  The census return that year listed the family as William Collett from Arlington was 28 and working as a labourer, his wife Hester from Poulton was 24, and their daughters Ann Mary Collett of Poulton was five, and Martha Ellen Collett of Arlington was three years old. 

 

Further moves for the family took place during the following decade, when three more children were added to the family, the first two of them born at Shorncote and Kemble, both just south of Cirencester, and then at Houndscroft in Minchinhampton.  By the day of the next census in 1881, it was within the Stroud registration district that the family was recorded.  It was William’s occupation that would appear to be the reason for the many moves for him and his family.  According to the census of 1881, William Collett from Arlington was 38 years old and carter working with horses, who was residing at Dark Mill in Stroud.  Living there with him were his wife Hester Collett from Poulton who was 34, Ann Collett who was 15 and also born at Poulton, Martha Collett from Arlington who was 13, James Collett from Shorncote who was nine, Sarah Collett from Kemble who was six, and Rose Collett who was three and whose place of birth was stated as being Rodborough.  That is a civil parish within the district of Stroud and includes the villages of Minchinhampton, Brimscombe and Houndscroft.  It would appear shortly after the day of the census in 1881 that the family left Stroud and moved to Gloucester, where the couple’s next child was born within the following nine months. 

 

Sometime within the next couple of years the family moved again, on that occasion to Minchinhampton, where their last child was born, and where the family was living in 1891, curiously at somewhere referred to as ‘Navinhole’ where that youngest child was said to have been born within the census return for 1911.  William was 47 and a labourer at a stick mill, and Hester was 44 and, still living with them were James who was 19, Sarah who was 16, Rose who was 13, plus two new members of the family Kate Collett, who was 10 and Arthur Collett who was five.  Ten years later, just after the start of the next century, the family was still living at Minchinhampton and the unmarried children still living with William and Hester were James who was 29 and a stick worker from Shorncote, Sarah who was 26 and from Kemble, Rosanna who was 23 and from Houndscroft, Kate aged 21, and Arthur who was 15 and born at Brimscombe (sic).  At that time William was 58 and was confirmed as having been born at Bibury, while his wife Hester was 55 who had been born at Poulton.  William’s occupation was given as a factory yard horse-keeper.  It was just eighteen months later, that the death of Hester Collett was recorded at Stroud register office (Ref. 6a 274) during the third quarter of 1902, when she was 56.  William Collett survived his wife by nearly six years, when his death was recorded at Stroud register office (Ref. 6a 152) during the second quarter of 1908, when he was 66

 

The couple’s fifth child, known as Rose, was born at Houndscroft in Minchinhampton, according to the census of 1901, while it was at Stroud that the birth of Rosanna Collett was recorded (Ref. 6a 219) during the last quarter of 1877.  Her death was subsequently recorded at Stroud register office (Ref. 6a 82) during the first three months of 1909, at the age of 31.  The birth of her younger sister Martha Kate Collett was recorded at Gloucester (Ref. 6a 260) during the fourth quarter of 1880, but was later recorded as being Kate M Collett aged 21 and from Gloucester in the Minchinhampton census of 1901, when she was employed as domestic servant and housemaid at the home of Charles and Isabella Bowstead.  No further record of her has been positively identified

 

2P37 – Ann Mary Elizabeth Collett was born in 1865 at Poulton (reg. Cirencester)

2P38 – Martha Ellen Collett was born in 1868 at Arlington (reg. Northleach)

2P39 – James Henry Collett was born in 1872 at Shorncote (reg. Cirencester)

2P40 – Sarah Ann Collett was born in 1874 at Kemble (reg. Cirencester)

2P41 – Rosanna Collett was born in 1877 at Houndscroft, Minchinhampton; died 1909

2P42 – Martha Kate Collett was born in 1880 at Gloucester

2P43 – Arthur John Collett was born in 1886 at Navinhole, Minchinhampton

 

Thomas Collett [2O31] was born at Foxcote (Withington) in 1857, the first-born child of Joseph Collett and Eliza Porter, his birth recorded at Northleach (Ref. 6a 3) during the fourth quarter of the year, his parents’ wedding also recorded at Northleach in the previous quarter of the same year.  On the day of the census in 1861, when Thomas Collett of Withington was three years of age and living with his grandparents William and Elizabeth Porter at Foxcote, his father was also living in Foxcote, but with the Brooks family where he was employed as a servant.  Their separation had been brought about by Thomas’ mother who was serving time in Gloucester Gaol, having been convicted of a crime where, it would appear, she remained until around 1863, judging by the birth of Thomas’ brother William (below).  At the age of 13, Thomas had completed his schooling and was working as a plough, most likely with his father, when the family was recorded at Sevenhampton, near Foxcote, within the census of 1871.  After that day, his age in subsequent census returns was incorrectly recorded until 1911, when it was correct for the first in forty years.  During the next decade Thomas travelled to London, mostly likely for reasons of work, where he entered into a relationship with Berkshire born Emily Banning, and it was at Brentford that their marriage was recorded (Ref. 3a 30) during the last three months of 1880.  Curiously, no obvious record of the newly married couple has been discovered within the national census the following year, whereas the first of their Ealing-born children, arrived towards the end of 1882, and she was followed by a further six children.  In 1891, the family was residing at Alfred Road, off the Twyford Abbey Road in Ealing, where Thomas Collett was 40 (sic) and a labourer, his wife was 30 (sic), and their first four children were Mary who was ten, Emily who was seven, Alice who was four, and Henry T Collett who was one year old.

 

Three more children were added to the family at Ealing, two of them prior to the next census day at the end of March in 1901 and the last one not long after.  However, the couple had to suffer the loss of their eldest children, when the death of Mary Ann Collett was recorded at Brentford (Ref. 3a 270) during the last three months of 1897.  The family’s home was still in Ealing on that day, where Thomas Collett from Gloucestershire was a builder’s labourer 46 (sic) and Emily Collett from Cold Ash, near Thatcham, in Berkshire was 42.  So, having lost a child, and with Emily close to giving birth to the couple’s last child, there were five children living at Ealing with Thomas and Emily and they were Emily Collett who was 16, Alice Collett who was 12, Henry Collett who was 10, Bertie Collett who was eight and William Collett who was four years of age

 

Hanwell is a town in Middlesex that lies within the London Borough of Ealing, and it was there that the family of Thomas Collett from Foxcote in Gloucestershire, was living in 1911.  Thomas was 56 when he was employed as a labourer within the building industry.  His wife of thirty years was Emily who was 53 and from Cold Ash near Thatcham, Berkshire.  All five of their children were stated as having been born in Ealing, perhaps even at Hanwell, and they were Alice Collett who was 23 and working at a laundry, Henry Collett who was 21 and a van boy for a laundry, Bert Collett who was 18 and also a laundry van boy, William Collett who was 15, and Nellie Collett who was 11.  Also included in the census return, with the family, was four-year-old grandson George Collett and born at Ealing, who must have been the base-born child of daughter Alice Louisa Collett who later married Walter F Jones, their wedding recorded at Brentford register office (Ref. 3a 63) during the third quarter of 1913.  The birth of George Collett was recorded at Brentford register office (Ref. 3a 335) during the first quarter of 1907.  The birth details of the seven children of Thomas and his wife were recorded at Brentford, as follows: Mary Ann Collett (Ref. 3a 38) during the last quarter of 1882; Emily Ann Collett (Ref. 3a 294) during the last quarter of 1884; Alice Louisa Collett (Ref. 3a 288) during the second quarter of 1887; Henry Thomas Collett (Ref. 3a 324) during the third quarter of 1890; Bertie Collett (Ref. 3a 257) during the second quarter of 1893;  William Thomas Collett (Ref. 3a 117) during the fourth quarter of 1896; and Nellie Collett (Ref. 3a 214) during the third quarter of 1901

 

2P44 – Mary Ann Collett was born at Ealing in 1882

2P45 – Emily Ann Collett was born at Ealing in 1884

2P46 – Alice Louisa Collett was born at Ealing in 1887

2P47 – Henry Thomas Collett was born at Ealing in 1890; died in 1961 at Ealing

2P48 – Bertie Collett was born at Ealing in 1893

2P49 – William Thomas Collett was born at Ealing in 1896

2P50 – Nellie Collett was born at Ealing in 1901

 

William Collett [2O32] was born at Foxcote, near Dowdeswell in 1864, the second son of Joseph Collett and his wife Eliza Porter, and his birth was recorded at Northleach register office (Ref. 6a 376) during the first quarter of that year.  It would appear that he lived for the majority of his life in the hamlet of Foxcote within the parish of Withington, not far from Dowdeswell and Kilkenny where he later lived.  In 1871 he was seven years old when the family was living for a short while at Sevenhampton north-east of Foxcote, before returning to Foxcote where he was 16 and a farmer’s boy in 1881, by which time his father had died.  William was twenty-two when he married Emma Eliza Messenger in 1886, the event being recorded at Northleach (Ref. 6a 683) during the June quarter of the year.  Emma, who was twenty years of age, had presented William with four children by 1891.  The census that year listed the family at Upper Dowdeswell as William who was 26 and an agricultural labourer, Emma Elizabeth who was 24, Ellen Louisa Collett who was six, Emily Jane Collett who was four, Ernest William Collett who was two, and Constance Beatrice who was not yet one year old.  Living with the family was William’s widowed mother Eliza Collett.  All members of the household were confirmed as having been born within the parish of Withington.  It was a similar situation ten years later, although by then William Collett was a farmer at Cranham village near Coopers Hill within the Stroud registration district.  The census of 1901 provided an indication that, after 1891, William and his family first moved the short distance Dowdeswell, where the couple’s last child was born at Kilkenny, before they arrived at Cranham.  Also, by 1901 the couple’s two eldest daughters were not living with the family which comprised William aged 37 and Emma Elizabeth aged 35, born of Withington, Ernest William aged 12 of Foxcote, Constance Beatrice aged 10 of Dowdeswell, and Horace F C Collett who was four of Kilkenny.  The two eldest daughters were absent from the family home on the day of the census in 1901, the elder daughter not being positively identified.  However, Emily Collett from Withington, was 14 and was a general servant at a home within the Brockworth area, near Coopers Hill, and so not very far away from her parents

 

Three and a half years later, during the first ten days of October in 1904 Emma Elizabeth Collett of Eddles Mill (Cranham) aged 39, suffered a premature death, and it was at Cranham where she was buried on 11th October 1904.  As a result of his loss, it would appear that William was unable to continue to look after his children, some of whom have not been located thereafter.  Instead, widower William subsequently moved in with the family of his brother-in-law Charles Messenger at Withington, where he was recorded in the April census of 1911.  William Collett from Withington was 47 and a farmer labourer, staying with Charles and Florence Messenger and their baby daughter Annie Elizabeth Messenger aged one year.  Also staying at that same address with William’s mother Eliza Collett aged 77.  On that same day William’s eldest daughter Ellen was married and living in Charlton Kings, second daughter Emily unmarried and was living and working in Cardiff, while unmarried daughter Constance was working in a hospital in Cheltenham.  It was over twenty years later that William Collett died in 1931 at the age of 68, his death being recorded at Northleach (Ref. 6a 457) during the second quarter of that year.  His widow Emma had been born in Gloucestershire in 1867, her birth being recorded at Northleach during the June quarter of that year (Ref. 6a 376).  She survived William by just over eleven years, when she died during the last three months of 1942 at Bromley in Kent (Ref. 2a 929) at the age of 75

 

2P51 – Ellen Louisa Messenger Collett was born in 1885 at Foxcote, near Dowdeswell

2P52 – Emily Jane Collett was born in 1887 at Foxcote, near Dowdeswell

2P53 – Ernest William Collett was born in 1889 at Foxcote, near Dowdeswell

2P54 – Constance Beatrice Collett was born in 1891 at Foxcote, near Dowdeswell; died in 1958

2P55 – Horace Frank C Collett was born in 1896 at Kilkenny, Dowdeswell

 

Samuel George Collett [2O36] was born at Guiting Power in 1844, the eldest known child of baker John Collett and his wife Elizabeth Smith, his birth being recorded at Winchcombe during the last three months of 1844 under the name of Samuel George Collett.  He was recorded simply as Samuel Collett age six years within the Winchcombe & Guiting census of 1851, and ten years later in the census of 1861 he was recorded as Samuel George Collett who was 16.  By 1871 Samuel and his parents had moved to Naunton and were living at The Mill.  Samuel was unmarried at the age of 26 and was still a bachelor ten years later in 1881.  By that time his mother had died and Samuel, at the age of 36, was still living at The Mill with his widowed father when his occupation was that of an assistant overseer working for the local municipal council.  Following the death of his father during the 1880s, Samuel was the only member of the family to remain living in Naunton, where he took over the family baker business.  In the census of 1891 Samuel G Collett of Guiting was 46, and ten years after that, in 1901 he was listed as Samuel George Collett aged 56 of Guiting Power who was a bachelor and a baker by trade.  Samuel George Collett died at Dale House in Naunton on 13th August 1905 and on 22nd September 1905 his Will was proved at Gloucester.  That event described him as a baker and a flour dealer, while it was his son Otto John Collett, a miller, and Joseph Thomas Wilkins, a mealman, who were named as the executors of his estate valued at £2,182 17 Shillings 10 Pence.  Otto’s wife was Mary Ann Wilkins, so Joseph was more than likely her brother

 

Mary Ann Collett [2O38] was born at Guiting Power in 1848 and her birth was recorded at the Winchcombe register office (Ref. xi 500) during the third quarter of that year, when her parents were named as John and Elizabeth Collett.  She was three years old in 1851 and it was as Mary Ann Collett that she was recorded in the Guiting census of 1861 when she was living there with her family at the age of 12.  Within the next few months, the family moved to Naunton where Mary was 22 in 1871.  It was just over four years later that she married John Fisher, the marriage being recorded at the register office in Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 836) during the last three months of 1875.  John was an ironmonger and had been born on the Isle of Wight during the second quarter of 1842 and he may have been related to Walter Chesney Fisher who married Mary Ann’s youngest sister Ada Collett (below).  Another, later marriage of a member of this family line and someone from the Isle of Wight, can be found under Edwin Collett [2P124].  By the time of the census in 1881 Mary Ann had given birth to three children and all of them born after the couple had settled in Cheltenham.  Their address in the town on that occasion was 34 Winchcombe Street, when John Fisher was 39, Mary Ann Fisher from Lower Guiting was 32, and their three children were John C Fisher, who was four, Ethel A Fisher, who was two, and Frank L Fisher who was one year old.  Living with the family was a distant relative of Mary Ann Fisher, he being Thomas Collett, aged 19 and from Lower Slaughter, who was working with her husband as an apprentice ironmonger.  In addition to a visitor, spinster Elizabeth Pullen aged 27 and from Bristol, the household was supported by two general domestic servants.  They were Mary Ann Smith from Corsham in Wiltshire who was 23, and Caroline Morris from Cheltenham who was 14.  The birth of Thomas Collett (Ref. 33O30) was recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 155) during the first quarter of 1862, who was nine years old and living at the Stow-on-the-Wold home of his uncle William Walton and his wife, the former Anne Collett [2N19] in 1871.  Also living there was Emily Collett [2O41] who was 16 and a draper’s assistant, the draper being her uncle William Walton

 

In total Mary Ann presented John with seven children while they were living in Cheltenham, of which six of them were recorded with the couple in the Cheltenham census of 1891.  By that time the family comprised John Fisher, aged 49, Mary A Fisher, aged 42, John C Fisher, aged 14, Ethel A Fisher, aged 12, Frank L Fisher, aged 11, Harold C Fisher, who was six, Bernard N Fisher, who was four, and Edgar Fisher who was two years old.  Tragically, John senior died just twelve months later when Mary Ann was expecting their seventh child, which was born a few months later.  John Fisher was 50 and his death was recorded at the Cheltenham register office (Ref. 6a 370) during the first three months of 1892.  The Cheltenham census return for 1901 confirmed that Mary Ann Fisher was a widow of 52 from Naunton, and that she and her two eldest sons had taken over her late husband’s ironmonger business.  Her eldest daughter had no named occupation and was therefore most likely looking after the younger children.  The children were recorded as John, Ethel, Frank, Harold, Bernard V Fisher, Edgar R Fisher, and Mary E Fisher who was eight.  After a further ten years only three of her children were still living with Mary Ann, aged 62, in April 1911 and they were Harold who was 26, Bernard who was 24, and Mary E Fisher who was 18.  It was nearly seven years later that Mary Ann Fisher nee Collett died at Cheltenham at the age of 69, where her death was recorded during the last three months of 1917 (Ref. 6a 492)

 

The details of the first three Cheltenham born children of Mary Ann Collett and John Fisher are as follows.  The birth of John Charles Fisher was recorded during the last quarter of 1876 (Ref. 6a 439), and it was there also that his death was recorded in the 1944 (Ref. 6a 494) at the age of 67.  It seems likely that he married Dora Berriman from Swindon at Northleach in 1906, hence his absence from the family home in 1911.  Dora passed away at Cheltenham in 1972 (Ref. 7a 688).  Their marriage produced just one child, Kenneth John Fisher who was born at Cheltenham in the 1908, who also died there in 1996.  It was during the third quarter of 1938 that he married Beryl D Pearman at Cheltenham.  The birth of Ethel Alberta Fisher was recorded during the second quarter of 1878 (Ref. 6a 458), where she also died in 1951 (Ref. 7b 329) when she was 73.  It was in 1902 at Cheltenham that she married John Moffat Robb (Ref. 6a 917) an electrical engineer who had been born at Dunoon in Argyllshire, Scotland in 1877.  John died at Cheltenham in 1925 (Ref. 6a 572) at the age of 48.  Their marriage produced three children, William A Robb, and twins James Moffat Robb and Agnes Moffat Robb.  The birth of Frank Lionel Fisher was recorded during the first three months of 1880 (Ref. 6a 452).  He was a traveller and he died at Bath in 1950 (Ref. 7c 23) at the age of 70.  It is understood that he married Rosina Margaret J Keen who was born in Cheltenham in 1879 and who died in Bristol during 1952 (Ref. 7b 89) when she was 75.  They had one son, Hubert Lyndon Fisher who was born at Croydon in Surrey (Ref. 2a 245) in the last three months of 1905

 

Elizabeth Collett [2O39] was born at Guiting Power in 1850, the daughter John and Elizabeth Collett, whose birth was registered at Winchcombe (Ref. xi 514) during the last quarter of the year.  In the census of 1851, she was still under one year old.  It is curious that in 1861 Elizabeth Collett, aged 10 years and from Guiting, was living with a family in the Chipping Norton area of Oxfordshire.  No record of her at all has been found within the census of 1871, although it is known that she returned home to Naunton to look after her father, following the death of her mother at the start of that year.  That situation was confirmed in the census of 1881, when she was living with him at The Mill in Naunton, together with other members of her family.  Unmarried housekeeper Elizabeth Collett was 30 and her place of birth was given as Guiting.  No record of Elizabeth Collett has been found after that time, so it is possible that she was married during the 1880s

 

Otto John Collett [2O40] was born at Guiting Power in 1852, the son of John and Elizabeth Collett, and was eight years old in 1861.  During the next decade his family left Guiting when they took over residency of The Mill in Naunton, where in 1871 Otto Collett was 18.  Ten years later, and after the death of his mother, Otto was a bachelor of 28 years when he was still living at The Mill with his father and his other siblings.  His occupation at that time was that of a cattle dealer.  Just prior to the next census in 1891, Otto married Mary Ann Wilkins during the third quarter of 1890, the event being recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold.  Mary Ann was more commonly known as Ann, but was named as May Ann Wilkins in the marriage register.  She was the daughter of Sarah Wilkins who, in 1881 was described as a widow and a retired grocer and baker at the grocer’s shop on the High Street in Bourton-on-the-Water.  Living there with her was her daughter Ann Wilkins who was 29, who was working as a clerk and a tradesman on that occasion.  According to the census in 1891, Otto and Ann were living at Nether (Lower) Swell, near Stow-on-the-Wold.  Otto John Collett from Guiting was 38, while his wife Ann M Collett from Bourton-on-the-Water was 39.  Just less than a year later, the first of their two children was born at Lower Swell and recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold.  Ann’s younger brother, miller and baker Joseph Thomas Wilkins, married Otto’s younger sister Eliza Matilda Collett (below) in 1881

 

The couple was still living at Hyde Mill in Nether Swell when their second child was born two years later, but sometime after that, the family moved to Maugersbury just south of Stow.  And it was there that the family was living in March 1901.  The Maugersbury census that year recorded the family as Otto John Collett, who was 48 and a miller and a farmer, his wife Ann Mary who was 49 and their two children Kathleen Ellen Collett who was nine, and George Otto Collett who was seven years old.  At the time of the proving of the Will of his brother Samuel George Collett (above) in September 1905, Otto John Collett, executor, was described as a miller.  The second executor was named as Joseph Thomas Wilkins, a mealman, who was Samuel and Otto’s brother-in-law, the husband of their sister Eliza Matilda Collett (below).  Otto John Collett died on 15th February 1910, at the age of 57, with his Will proved at Gloucester on 15th March 1910, when the main beneficiaries were his wife and their nephew Thomas Collett Wilkins.  As a result of his passing, by 1911 his widow was still living at Maugersbury with her two children.  The census return listed the three of them as Ann Mary Collett of Bourton who was 59 and a miller and a farmer – having taken over the role from her late husband, support by her daughter Kathleen Helen Wilkins Collett who was 19, and her son George Otto Wilkins Collett who was 17, both working on the family.  In error, both children were recorded as having been born at Maugersbury, to where they moved when they were both very young.  In addition, to help the family, Ann Mary employed two servants, Alice Gardner 22 and Thomas Hanton 21.  It was five years after that, when Ann Mary Collett nee Wilkins died on 27th June 1917, following which her Will was proved in Gloucester of 14th September 1917, the two main beneficiaries being Thomas Collett Wilkins, her nephew and her brother’s eldest son Joseph Thomas Wilkins and Eliza Matilda Collett, and George Otto Wilkins Collett, her own son

 

2P56 – Kathleen Helen Wilkins Collett was born in 1891 at Hyde Mill, Lower Swell

2P57 – George Otto Wilkins Collett was born in 1893 at Hyde Mill, Lower Swell

 

Emily Collett [2O41] was born at Guiting Power on 29th October 1854, the daughter John Collett and Elizabeth Smith, whose birth was registered to Winchcombe (Ref. 6a 317) during the last three months of the year.  Just after 1859 the family moved to Naunton where they were living in 1861 at Summer Hill, where Emily Collett from Guiting Power was six years old.  Ten years later Emily Collett, aged 16 and from Guiting, was working as an assistant in a tailor’s shop in the Market Place at Stow-on-the-Wold in 1871.  That was not just any tailor’s shop, but the premises of master tailor and draper William Walton of Longborough and his wife Anne Walton, formerly Anne Collett [2N19] of Somerford Keynes, the sister of Emily’s father John Collett.  Emily was therefore described as the niece to the head of the house William Walton.  Also living with the Walton family at that time was Thomas Collett (Ref. 33O30), who was nine and from Lower Slaughter, the eldest child of Joseph and Eliza Collett.  Thomas was very likely attending the school in Stow and was described as nephew to head of the household William Walton.  See Part 33 – The Bourton-on-the-Water Line for more details of their family.  Less than four years after the census day in 1871, Emily Collett married Richard Blizard Strong (born 1850), their wedding recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 557) during the first quarter of 1875.  According to the census in 1881, the young couple and their first two children were residing at a dwelling on the High Street in Moreton-in-Marsh where Richard B Strong from Stow-on-the-Wold was 31 and a tailor and an outfitter.  His shop on the High Street had the shop sign of Strong Bros.  Emily Strong was 26 and gave her place of birth as Naunton where she grew up, while their two children were Robert William Strong who was three and Percy Collett Strong who was one year old, both of them born after the couple settled in Moreton-on-Marsh.  Completing the household was 15-year-old apprentice Charles Heath and domestic servant Mary Fletcher who was 16

 

Four more children were added to the family during the following decade, all of them also born at Moreton-in-Marsh, where the family was still living in 1891 on the High Street, when Richard was again working as a tailor and an outfitter at the age of 41.  Emily was 36, son Robert and Percy were 13 and 11, and the four new arrivals were Otto John Strong aged nine, Henry Richard Strong aged six, Margaret Emily Strong aged five, and Arnold Thomas Strong who was two years of age.  On that day, the family was employing a different domestic servant, 16-year-old Sarah A Gillett.  It was exactly the same situation in 1901, except that Emily’s place of birth that year was recorded as Guiting Power with Farmcote, when she was 46 and Richard was 51.  Still living with the couple was Percy Strong 21, a tailor’s cutter, Otto Strong 19, an ironmonger’s assistant, Tom Strong 12, and latest addition Edgar V Strong who was seven years old.  A visitor at the High Street house/shop that day was Thomas Wilkins who was 18 and from Lower Slaughter, a miller and a baker.  On that census day, the couple’s eldest son was living and working at Tottenham Court Road in London as a clothier’s assistant, when Robert William Strong from Moreton-in-Marsh was 23 and single.  Less than two years after that census day, the death of Richard Blizard Strong at the age of 53, was recorded at Shipston-on-Stour, to the north of Moreton-in-Marsh, during the last three months of 1903 (Ref. 6d 438).  After six years as a widow, the death of Emily Strong aged 54, was recorded at Shipston-on-Stour register office (Ref. 6d 393) during the last three months of 1909

 

Although there was eight years between them, the wedding days of the two brothers Percy Collett Strong and Edgar V Strong in 1914 and 1922 respectively, their brides in each case were Mabel E Pye and May W Pye, who were very likely sisters from the same family.  Both events were recorded at Shipston-on-Stour register office, the first of them during the fourth quarter of 1914 (Ref. 6d 1825), the second also recorded there (Ref. 6d 1941) during the third quarter of 1922

 

By 1911, her eldest son Robert William Strong was still a bachelor at the age of 33, but had returned to Moreton-in-Marsh, where he was a master tailor and outfitter.  Living there with him was his unmarried brother Percy Collett Strong, aged 31 who was a cutter for a master tailor, and their sister Margaret Emily Strong, aged 25 who was a Post Office sorter and telegraphist.  The final person with the three siblings was 24-year-old William Kurrell Lee, a boarder employed by the brothers as a tailor’s assistant cutter and trimmer.  Another son Arnold Thomas Strong from Moreton-in-Marsh was 22 and an assistant pharmacist, working alongside Robert Randall Roberts at Chester in Cheshire, and living at the Roberts’ family home there.  Robert William Strong was the grandfather of Liz Clegg, nee Strong, who in 2021, confirmed that Emily Collett had married Richard Blizard Strong, which then enabled her family to be developed into what is displayed here now.  Robert and Percy Collett Strong managed the family business right up until Robert died on 13th July 1929 with heart problems connected to diabetes.  His Will was proved in London on 27th August 1929, when the two main beneficiaries were his wife Olive Nicholson Strong (nee Jesty) and brother Percy Collett Strong

 

The marriage of Robert William Strong and Olive Nicholson Jesty (from Moreton-in-Marsh) was recorded in London at Brentford register office (Ref. 3a 443), during the third quarter of 1912.  They had three children, two born before the First World War, and one a few years after.  The eldest child was Ethel M Strong who was born in 1913, followed by Robert Edmund Strong, known as Edmund, who born near the end of 1915, and David J Strong who was born in 1921.  All three births were recorded at Shipston-on-Stour register office, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Jesty.  In the case of son Edmund, he was an electrical engineer and left Moreton-in-Marsh, but often returned there to visit his widowed mother until she died in 1960, he being the father of Liz Strong, later Clegg.  Edmund’s brother David, like his uncle Percy, was also given the second forename of Collett.  It is also interesting that the younger sister of Emily Strong, nee Collett, Eva Alberta Collett (below) had a daughter, Emily Martha Eva Mills, who also married a member of the Strong family, her husband being Dick Strong, aka Henry Richard Strong, Emily’s son

 

Eva Alberta Collett [2O42] was born at Guiting Power in 1857, the daughter John and Elizabeth Collett, with her birth registered at Winchcombe (Ref. 6a 328) during the second quarter of that year.  Whenever happened to her after she was born has not been discovered, except that she and two of her sisters, Elizabeth and Eliza, were missing from the family home at Naunton in 1861, but by 1871 Eva Collett, aged 14, was working with a family at Shipston-on-Stour in Warwickshire.  After that, it is established that the marriage of Eva Alberta Collett and Joseph William Mills was recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 661) during the second quarter of 1880, Joseph having been born at Bristol in 1858.  So, by the time of the census in April of the following year, the childless couple was living on Holyhead Road in the St Michael district of Coventry, when Eva A Mills of Guiting was 24 and her husband Joseph W Mills from Bristol was 22.  Joseph Mills would appear to have come from a wealthy family, since he was a printer and stationer, employing eight hands at his printing works.  At the couple’s home, they also employed a general domestic servant, that being Mary Bull who was 17 and from Coventry.  Further confirmation that Eva Mills was the daughter of John and Elizabeth Collett was the fact that living with them in 1881 was Eva’s sister Henrietta Collett (below) from Naunton, who was described as sister-in-law to head of the household Joseph Mills.  It is highly likely that Eva Mills was with-child on the day of the census in 1881 because, with the third quarter of that same year she gave birth to the first of the couple’s two known children.  The birth of Emily Martha Eva Mills was registered at Coventry (Ref. 6d 495) and she later married her mother’s sister’s son Dick Strong, as explained above

 

Two years later Eva Mills presented her husband with a son George Tom Mills, but rather strangely no record of Eva, Joseph or George Tom has been located in 1891.  By March 1901, Joseph and his son were both recorded as living in Coventry.  Joseph Williams Mills was 42 and from Bristol, and his occupation was that of an advertising contractor.  Possibly working with him as a clerk was his son George Tom Mills of Coventry who was 18.  Why Eva was not listed with her husband and son in Coventry was because she was visiting her younger married sister Eliza (below) and her family at Lower Slaughter.  According to the Lower Slaughter census in 1901, Eva Alberta Mills, aged 43 and from Naunton (sic), was described as a printer and a visitor at the home of Joseph Thomas Wilkins, a miller and a baker, his wife Eliza Matilda Wilkins being the former Eliza Matilda Collett, who also said that she had been born at Naunton.  After her trip to Gloucestershire, Eva returned to Coventry, where she died during the third quarter of 1907 (Ref. 6d 199).  As a result of the death of his wife at the age of 50, widower Joseph Williams Mills, aged 52, and his son George Tom Mills, who was 28, were still living in Coventry in April 1911.  Just over twenty years later Joseph William Mills died at Coventry, where his death was recorded (Ref. 6d 63) during the last three months of 1932 when he was 74

 

Eliza Matilda Collett [2O43] was born at Guiting Power at the end of 1858, her birth registered at Winchcombe (Ref. 6a 364) during the first quarter of 1859.  She was the last child of John and Elizabeth Collett to be born at Guiting Power, before the family moved to Naunton.  Although missing from the family in 1861 and 1871 like her sisters Elizabeth and Eva (above), Eliza M Collett of Guiting was living at The Mill in Naunton with her widowed father in 1881 when she was 22.  It was later that same year, that Eliza Matilda Collett married Joseph Thomas Wilkins with the event recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 357) during the last three months of 1881.  Once married they settled in Lower Slaughter where three children were born and where the family of five was residing in 1891.  Joseph T Wilkins was 33 and a miller and a baker, Eliza M Wilkins was 32, Thomas Collett Wilkins was eight, Beatrice Emily Wilkins was seven and George E Wilkins was two years of age.  No more children were added to the family which, ten years later, was still living in Lower Slaughter when miller and baker Joseph was 43, having been born there, Eliza was 40, and the only child still living there with them was their daughter Beatrice who was 17 and also born at Lower Slaughter, who had no stated occupation.  Visiting the family was Eliza’s married sister Eva Alberta Mills (above), the sisters both saying that they had been born in Naunton.  No member of the family has been found in 1911.  The later death of Joseph T Wilkins, 4th February 1924, was recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold register office (Ref. 6a 89) during the first quarter of 1924, when he was 65.  Eliza lived the remaining ten years of her life as a widow when she died on 23rd August 1934, her death also recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 109) at the age of 75.  Upon being buried at St Mary’s Church in Lower Slaughter, she was recorded as Eliza Matilda Collett Wilkins

 

In 1909 Joseph Thomas Wilkins, a mealman, was the second executor for the 1905 Will of Samuel George Collett (above), Eliza’s older brother, with the first executor being Otto John Collett (above), a miller.  The name of Joseph’s eldest son was listed as a beneficiary in a number of Wills within the family.  Thomas Collett Wilkins was born at Lower Slaughter on 23rd October 1882 and was buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s Church in Lower Slaughter, following his death on 29th June 1962.  In 1910 Thomas Collett Wilkins was the main beneficiary under the terms of the Will of Otto John Collett whose Will was proved at Gloucester on 15th March 1910, when the second named beneficiary was Ann Mary Collett, nee Wilkins.  Seven years later, following the death of the aforementioned Ann Mary Collett her Will was proved in Gloucester of 14th September 1917, when the two main beneficiaries were Thomas Collett Wilkins, her nephew, and her son George Otto Wilkins Collett.  After a further seven years, it was his father’s Will, proved at Gloucester on 6th May 1924, which named Thomas Collett Wilkins as the main beneficiary, the second named being his married sister Beatrice Emily Gilbert, with her husband Ernest Sidney Gilbert being described as an additional named person. Next was the 1930 Will of John Watson Crosse, proved at Gloucester on 18th December 1930, for which the main beneficiary was Thomas Collett Wilkins and second Oliver Avery.  Again, at Gloucester, the Will of his mother Eliza Matilda Wilkins was proved on 22nd November 1934, when Thomas Collett Wilkins and his sister Beatrice Emily Gilbert were the two named beneficiaries.  The last of the Wills was that of William Morris, proved at Cheltenham on 15th September 1937, when the main beneficiary was his widow Elsie Jane Morris, the other being Thomas Collett Wilkins.  The death of Thomas Collett Wilkins was recorded at North Cotswold register office (Ref. 7b 49) during the third quarter of 1962, when he was 79

 

Henrietta Collett [2O44] was born at The Mill in Naunton early in 1861, with her birth registered at Stow-on-the Wold (Ref. 6a 337) during the first three months of that year.  She was therefore another daughter of John Collett and Elizabeth Smith, who was absent from the family home in Naunton on the day of the census that year.  The census ten years later in 1871 confirmed the family was still living at The Mill in Naunton where Henrietta was 10 years old.  Upon leaving school, it would appear that Henrietta left Gloucestershire to join her married sister Eva (above) in Coventry.  The 1881 Census for Coventry listed Henrietta Collett from Naunton as being 20 years old, with no occupation, and living at Holyhead Road with her married sister Eva Mills and her husband Joseph

 

Ada Collett [2O45] was born at Naunton in 1863, the youngest daughter of John and Elizabeth Collett, when her birth was registered at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 329) during the third quarter of the year.  She was just a few years old when her mother died, leaving her to be looked after by her father and her older sister Elizabeth at The Mill in Naunton where she was 17 years old in 1881.  Six years later, during 1887, she married Walter Chesney Fisher who was born at Quinton in 1858, the son of farmer William Wadams Fisher and his wife Mary Ann Marshall.  It is interesting that Ada’s eldest sister Mary Ann Collett (above) married John Fisher in 1875.  By 1891 Ada and Walter had two children who were both born at Quinton in Gloucestershire.  No further children were added to the family over the following decade, and by March 1901 the family had settled in the Grafton district of Stratford-on-Avon.  Walter Fisher, aged 42, was a farmer, his wife Ada from Naunton was 37, and their two children were Edith Ada Fisher, who was 12, and Walter Chesney Fisher who was 11.  The same family of four was still living in Grafton ten years later in April 1911 when Walter was 52, Ada was 47, Edith was 22, and Walter was 21.  Sometime later Ada died following which Walter married Mary Ashby.  Walter Fisher eventually passed away on 4th August 1945 at the age of 87

 

Henry John Richard Collett [2O52 & 51O1] was born on 17th November 1838 at King Street in Westminster but was baptised at Meysey Hampton near Fairford nearly three years later on 3rd October 1841.  He married Jane Johnson Thomas at Hanover Chapel in Peckham on 23rd December 1862.  For the continuation of this family go to Part 51 – Descendants of The Gloucestershire Line

 

Arthur James Collett [2O54] was born on 13th April 1842 at 17 Nelson Square in Southwark, his birth recorded at St Saviours Southwark (Ref. iv 5).  He became a chartered accountant and served as a member of Collett & Company (Camden Town), the company established by his youngest brother Mawbey Ernest Collett in 1879.  It was on 9th March 1868 that Arthur James Collett married (1) Harriet Amelia Brittain at the Claremont Chapel in Pentonville Road in Barnsbury, the event recorded at Clerkenwell (Ref. 1b 153).  Harriet was described as residing at Carlton Square on the Old Kent Road.  Harriet Euphemia Amelia Brittain was born on 15th July 1845 at Deptford in Kent and was baptised there at the Church of St Paul on 11th August 1845, the daughter of Frederick William and Harriet Euphemia Brittain, her father an officer who had served with Admiral Lord Nelson at the time he was killed.  Prior to his wedding day Arthur was living at 10 Sidmouth Street, Grays Inn Road in London.  Living just a few doors along Sidmouth Street, at No. 6, were Arthur’s parents Henry and Amelia Collett.  On the occasion of the birth of the couple’s first child, Arthur was working as a grocer and tea dealer, while living with Harriet Amelia at 28 Compton Street in Islington.  Shortly after the birth of the child, Arthur and Harriet sailed to Canada, followed five years later by his younger brother Alfred (below).  The 1871 Census for Ontario confirmed that Arthur and Harriet were living at Parry Sound with their two sons William and Francis (born there), and that Arthur was a farmer by then.  The extended family was still living at Parry Sound ten years later where their next four children had been born.  However, whether it was the result of the death of daughter Grace in 1882, or for some other reason, but the farmland owned and worked by Arthur was subsequently passed to his brother Alfred when the family returned to England in 1883

 

Upon their return to England, Arthur and Harriet had two further children who were born at St Pancras.  According to the next census in 1891, six members of the family was residing at 70 Carlton Road, within the Grafton polling district of St Pancras.  Arthur J Collett was 48 and a commercial book-keeper, his wife Harriet A Collett was 45 and described as having been born at Old Kent Road, their two Canadian-born children were Francis E Collett aged 20, and Eleanor M Collett aged 13, while the two latest arrivals were Rose Collett and Cecil J Collett, aged seven and five years respectively.  Carlton Road is situated between Belsize and Kentish Town and the property at No. 70, the family was living in, was owned by Charles Hutchinson who also lived on the premises.  Arthur and his family rented one room on the first floor overlooking the road and another two rooms on the second floor, both unfurnished, for seven shillings per week, where the family was still living in 1897.  After that the family moved to 70 Constantine Road in Belsize, close to Hampstead Heath, where they lived until after 1912.  It was there that the family was settled when Arthur’s wife died, the death of Harriet Euphemia Amelia Collett, nee Brittain, recorded at Hampstead register office (Ref. 1a 138) during the third quarter of 1899, when she was 54.  How he met his second wife is not known, but she may have been employed as a servant, as she was in 1891

 

After almost a year as a widower, Arthur James Collett married (2) Harriet Treadgold, the marriage recorded at Rugby register office (Ref. 6d 2781) during the third quarter of 1900.  Harriet was born at Daventry in Northamptonshire, and was baptised there on 16th November 1872, the daughter of John and Sarah Treadgold, making her thirty years younger than Arthur.  That new arrangement was confirmed in the Hampstead census of 1901, by which time Arthur J Collett from Southwark had retired and was living on his own means at the age of 58.  His much younger wife from Daventry was 28-year-old Harriet Collett, and the two children still living with Arthur were Rose Collett aged 17 and Cecil J Collett who was 15, both of them born at nearby St Pancras.  After a further ten years, only one of Arthur’s children was still living at 70 Constantine Road, Belsize in Hampstead, with him and Harriet, although completing the family group was Arthur’s granddaughter Ethel Collett who was nine years of age.  On that day Arthur Collett was 68 and was described as a retired accounts clerk and book-keeper from Blackfriars in London, Blackfriars being north of the River Thames, as opposed to Southwark on the South Bank.  His wife of ten years, Harriet Collett of Daventry, was 38 and his daughter Rose Collett was 27 and from Kentish Town, rather than St Pancras as recorded in 1901.  The census return also confirmed that Harriet had not given birth to any children

 

Between 1903 and 1906, Arthur James Collett was elected to serve Hampstead Borough Council, representing the Belsize Ward.  The story behind his granddaughter, Ethel Maud Collett, who was raised by Arthur and Harriet, reads as follows.  She was born at Hampstead on 8th January 1902, where her birth was recorded (Ref. 1a 226).  At the time of her birth, her unmarried mother Eleanor Maud Collett was an inmate at the Hampstead Workhouse but, immediately following the birth, the child was taken under the care of her grandfather Arthur James Collett, who later officially adopted Ethel.  The birth certificate for Ethel Maud Collett gave her home address as 70 Constantine Road, whilst also acknowledging the Hampstead Union Workhouse, where her mother remained after the birth.  Sadly, Ethel Maud Collett was sixteen years old when she died, her premature death recorded at Hampstead register office (Ref. 1a 72) during the fourth quarter of 1918, two years after her grandfather had passed away

 

Five years after the census day in 1911, and at the age of 73, Arthur James Collett died from acute pneumonia and heart failure on 31st March 1916, while he was living at 70 Constantine Road.  His death was recorded at Hampstead register office (Ref. 1a 90) by his daughter-in-law ‘E E Collett of 58 Southampton Road’ on 1st April 1916, while it was his widow Harriet Collett who was named during the probate process for his personal effects of £953.  E E Collett was the wife of Arthur’s youngest son Cecil James Collett.  Constantine Road and Southampton Road are only 200 yards from each other, and are just around the corner from Lawn Road, where the Collett family also lived

 

2P58 – William Henry Collett was born in 1869 at Islington, London

2P59 – Francis Ernest Collett was born in 1870 at Parry Sound, Canada

2P60 – Edmund Alfred Collett was born in 1872 at Parry Sound, Canada

2P61 – Herbert Edward Collett was born in 1875 at Parry Sound, Canada

2P62 – Eleanor Maud Collett was born in 1877 at Parry Sound, Canada

2P63 – Grace Collett was born in 1879 at Parry Sound, Canada; died on 7th May 1882

2P64 – Rose Collett was born in 1883 at St Pancras, London

2P65 – Cecil James Collett was born in 1885 at St Pancras, London

 

Alfred George Thomas Mawbey Collett [2O57] was born on 27th May 1848 at 30 Penton Place in Camberwell, although his birth was recorded at nearby Newington (Ref. iv 32).  Just after he was born, his family moved to 47 Amwell Street in Clerkenwell, where they were living in 1851, when Alfred was two years of age.  Twenty years later, he and the family were living at Gray’s Inn Lane within the St Pancras area of London, where Alfred was described as an unemployed draper aged 22.  Around six years later, when he was 28, Alfred left England when he sailed to Canada where he met and married Harriet Hersey of Southampton on 4th October 1876.  The couple made their home at Parry Sound in Ontario where their five children were born and where the family was living in 1881.  The census that year, recorded the family as Alfred G T M Collett who was 32 and a salesman, his wife Harriet Collett who was 23, both from England, and their two sons Alfred E Collett who was three and Ernest H Collett who was one-year-old.  Residing in the adjacent property was Harriet’s parents, John and Sarah Hersey

 

Ten years earlier, Alfred’s older brother Arthur had moved to Parry Sound and, when that family returned to England in 1883, the land owned and farmed by Arthur passed to Alfred.  However, three years later Alfred sold the land and placed the family’s furniture and belongings in storage at Parry Sound and then made their way to England.  The family arrived back in London in November 1886 and were living at 7 Myrtle Street in Highbury, when Alfred died of bronchitis on 26th December 1886 and was buried at Finchley.  Harriet and the children returned to Parry Sound one month after Alfred had passed away, only to find that their furniture and possessions had been destroyed by fire.  Two of her sons later returned to England and lived in Dartford.  However, in the Parry Sound census returns for 1891 and 1901, the family was altogether when, for the latter, widow Harriet was 43, Alfred was 23, Ernest was 21, Bertrand was 19, Lillian was 17, and Rosalie was 16.  That day, Harriet’s parents John and Sarah Hersey completed the family group.  Ten years later, the Nipissing (North Bay, Ontario) census of 1911, recorded Harriet Collett and her mother Sarah Hersey staying at the home of Harriet’s eldest son Alfred Collett, when Harriet was 54 and Sarah was 76 years old

 

2P66 – Alfred Edward Hersey Collett was born in 1877 at Parry Sound, Canada

2P67 – Ernest Henry John Collett was born in 1879 at Parry Sound, Canada

2P68 – Bertrand Oswald Mawbey Collett was born in 1881 at Parry Sound, Canada

2P69 – Lillian Hattie Amelia Collett was born in 1883 at Parry Sound, Canada

2P70 – Rosalie Helena Gertrude Collett was born in 1885 at Parry Sound, Canada

 

Mawbey Ernest Collett [2O58] was born at 47 Anwell Street in Clerkenwell on 29th July 1850 and was baptised at St Mark’s Church on Myddelton Square in Finsbury on 6th October 1850, the youngest child of Henry John Collett and his wife Amelia Sophia Mawbey.  On leaving school he was an apprentice to Elliot’s Book Publishers in Paternoster Row.  It was not until he was in his twenties that he was baptised on 24th September 1873.  Three years later he married (1) Elizabeth Alice Stare, the daughter of John and Arenea Stare who was born at Southampton on 26th May 1854, the event recorded at Islington register office.  On the occasion of the birth of their first child, the couple was living at 8 Pembroke Street in Islington while, eighteen months late, that same child died when the home address was 14 Pembroke Street in Islington.  In between those two events, in 1877, Mawbey is believed to have taken over the management of W H Callow, wholesale ironmongers of Pembroke Street in Islington, which very likely was the cause of the change of address.  Two years later he established the coachbuilders and ironmonger company Collett & Co.  The marriage produced six children for the couple, but just eleven days after the birth of the last child, Elizabeth died on 17th October 1884 at 59 Willies Road, the home of her brother-in-law Arthur Collett.  At the earlier time of the census in 1881, Mawbey was 30 and his place of birth was confirmed as Clerkenwell.  His occupation on that occasion was that of a coachbuilder and ironmonger, employing seven men and two boys.  It was Mawbey Collett who founded the company of coachbuilders Collett & Co, which had premises in Kentish Town Road.  Mawbey, and his wife Elizabeth, aged 26 and from St Mary’s in Hampshire, were living at 1 Hawley Road in St Pancras with their two children, Ernest who was two years old and born at Islington, and Herbert who was one year old and born at St Pancras.  Supporting the family was 18 years old servant Elizabeth Wested of St Pancras

 

Following the death of his wife, Mawbey married (2) the widow Ann Pinfold on 2nd April 1885 at St Pancras in London.  Ann had been born Ann Casely at Halstead in Essex on 6th April 1849 and from her first marriage she had one son.  According to the census in 1881 Frederick Penfold was born at Reading around September 1880 and was living at 146 Southampton Street in the town with his mother Ann Penfold who was 31 and from Halstead.  Ann was already a widow by then and was the housekeeper at a lodging house.  That second marriage for Mawbey presented him with a further five children and, by the time of the next census in 1891, Mawbey E Collett, was 40 and was living within the Pancras & Kentish Town district of London with his wife Ann, aged 41, and nine of his children.  The children were recorded as Ernest H Collett aged 12, Herbert V Collett aged 11, William M Collet, who was nine, Harold J Collett who was eight, Percy A Collett who was seven, Thomas A F Collett who was five, Sydney C S Collett who was three, Violet A Collett who was two, and Daisy A Collett who was six weeks old.  Ten years later, according to the March census of 1901, Mawbey was visiting Cornwall, but on his own and without his wife Ann or any of his children.  It may well have been a business trip in view of the tin mine industry and the fact that he was a coach ironmonger.  The census details simply described him as Mawbey E Collett, aged 50 and from London, who was a coach ironmonger residing at Callington in Cornwall.  There were no other Colletts living anywhere else within that area at that time.  Mawbey’s third child Herbert Victor Collett was born at 10 Kentish Town Road on 18th July 1879 and was baptised on 4th December 1879, when he was living with his family at 76 Beaverbrook Road in Tufnell Park.  Tragically, when he was only 17 years old and working a cheesemonger’s assistant, Herbert died on 5th November 1896 and was buried at Finchley

 

Back home in London, according to the census in 1901, Mawbey’s wife Ann Collett, aged 50, was an employer and the wife of a coach ironmonger living at 68 St Johns Road, Islington, in part of Upper Holloway.  Living at the house with her were just her own five children, Mawbey’s earlier off-spring having gone their separate ways by then. Thomas Collett was 15 and a clerk employed most likely in the family business, Sidney Collett was 13, Violet Collett was 12, Daisy Collett was 10, and Lilly Collett was eight years old.  Curiously, the birthplace for all five children was given as Gospel Oak, which was an inner urban area of north London in the London Borough of Camden, south of Hampstead Heath.  It was bordered by the more affluent areas of Belsize Park to the west, Kentish Town to the south, Eastern Hampstead to the North, and Dartmouth Park and Tufnell Park to the east.  Seven years later, having already lost two of his first four children, Mawbey then had to deal with the death of his fourth child.  His son William Melville Collett was born at Hawley Villa, 1 Hawley Road in Kentish Town on 4th December 1881.  It was just over sixteen years later, and three months after his birthday, that William Melville Collett died at 68 St John Road in Upper Holloway on 13th March 1908 and was then buried at Finchley Cemetery.  In his short life, since leaving school, he had worked as a designer and a painter on silk.  It was in early 1910, at the age of 60, that Mawbey sold the family business at 10 Kentish Town Road, following which he and Ann emigrated to America to be reunited with some of his own children who had made the journey in the preceding years.  They sailed from Southampton to New York on 22nd June 1910 on board the Steam Ship SS Teutonic.  Two years later his son Sidney made the same journey, but on the fateful maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic, although he fortunately survived

 

During his life in London, when he was not working, Mawbey was a preacher of the Gospel, an activity that he continued in New York state where they settled at Port Byron, where the Reverend M E Collett opened the very first Baptist church in the town shortly after his arrival there in 1910.  He eventually died in 1922 at the Rochester home of his daughter Violet Amelia.  It was at Rochester, Monroe in New York State, that his widow Ann Collett was living when she died there on 25th April 1939. Following which she was buried two days later at the Riverside Cemetery in Rochester.  Rather curiously in an account written about the family just after the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 - see [2P78], there is reference to another son of Mawbey Collett, Frederick P Collett, who worked for the General Electric Company in Shanghai, China when, according to the records so far assembled, there was no mention of a son named Frederick

 

2P71 – Alice Mawbey Collett was born on 4th December 1876 at Islington; died on 7th March 1878

2P72 – Ernest Henry Collett was born in 1878 at Islington, London

2P73 – Herbert Victor Collett was born on 18th July 1879 at St Pancras; died 5th November 1896

2P74 – William Melville Collett was born on 4th Dec. 1881 at Kentish Town; died 13th Mar. 1908

2P75 – Harold John Collett was born in 1883 at St Pancras, London

2P76 – Percy Alexander Collett was born in 1884 at St Pancras, London

The following are the children of Mawbey Collett and his second wife Ann Pinfold:

2P77 – Thomas Alfred Fletcher Collett was born in 1886 at St Pancras, London

2P78 – Sidney Clarence Stuart Collett was born in 1887 at St Pancras, London

2P79 – Violet Amelia Collett was born in 1888 at St Pancras, London

2P80 – Daisy Ann Collett was born in 1891 at St Pancras, London

2P81 – Lily Elizabeth Collett was born in 1892 at St Pancras, London

 

2O59 – Ellen Collett was born in 1852 at Princes Street, Hanover Square in London where her parents Richard John Collett and Elizabeth Yapp set up home after they were married in 1851.  Ellen was their first child, her birth recorded at Hanover Square (Ref. 1a 20) during the second quarter of 1852. When reaching school age, Ellen was placed in a boarding school at Sheep Street in Stow-on-the-Wold where, in the census of 1861, she was recorded as a nine-year-old pupil from Middlesex.  Upon completing her education, Ellen returned to her family in London, with whom she was living at Marylebone in 1871 at the age of 19, by which time her occupation was that of an artist.  Following the death of her father in 1878, Ellen’s mother left London for Hastings on the south coast, taking Ellen’s two youngest sisters with her, where the three on them were recorded in 1881.  On that census day, Ellen Collett from London was 29 and a visitor at the Worthing home of Thomas Buckley from Croydon and his wife Jane from Ireland.  Worthing is in West Sussex, around forty miles from Hastings in East Sussex.  However, it seems very likely that Ellen’s home residence was still in London, since that was where she was recorded in the next census of 1891.  It was at Lithos Road in Hampstead that head of the household, unmarried Ellen Collett aged 39 and from Middlesex, was living on her own means, employing one domestic servant, Annie L Vicary from Devon who was fifteen.  Sometime after then, Ellen returned to work, possibly taking a part-time position at a local library.  That was indicated in the census of 1901, when Ellen Collett from St George’s Hanover Square was visiting elderly Elizabeth Otter from Cheltenham and her daughter Amy Otter at their home in the Marylebone district of London.  Ellen was 48 years old and, in addition to continuing to live on her own means, she was credited with undertaking library work.  Where Ellen was in 1901, has still to be discovered, while she passed away twenty-five years later on 13th February 1936, her Will proved in London on 12th March 1936, the main beneficiary named as Rosa Edith Fogg.

 

Walter Collett [2O62] was born at Marylebone in London in 1856, the four child and eldest surviving son of Richard and Elizabeth Collett.  His birth was recorded at Marylebone (Ref. 1a 34) during the third quarter of the year.  It was at Vere Street in Marylebone that Walter was four years of age, who was 14 in 1871 when he and his family were still residing within the Marylebone area of London.  His father passed away seven years later, when the female members of his family moved to the south coast of England, with Walter continuing to live in Marylebone, where he was married in 1879.  His marriage to Amelia Jane Sprunt was recorded at Marylebone (Ref. 1a 350) during the first three months of that year.  Amelia Jane Sprunt was born on 10th November 1854, and was baptised at Barony in Lanarkshire on 10th December 1854, the daughter of Thomas Sprunt and Mary Ann Ballantyne.  After two years of being together, the childless couple and their domestic servant were recorded in the 1881 at Coverdale Road in Hammersmith, where 24-year-old Walter Collett of London was a costume manufacturer.  His wife Amelia J Collett from Glasgow was 26 and with no occupation, and their servant was Fanny Hutchings from Essex who was 20.  Where they were living in 1891 remains a mystery, but by 1898 the electoral roll for the Borough of Hammersmith recorded them as residing at 14 Brook Green.  As far as can be determined, the marriage produced just one daughter and one son and although both of them were described as having been born at St John Hampstead in 1901 and 1911, the birth of daughter Kathleen was recorded at Kensington

 

On the occasion of the first of those two census days, the family of four may have been on holiday in Devon, as they were described as boarders in the ancient parish of Tormoham (today Torquay), where Walter Collett from Marylebone in London was 45 and a merchant, wife Amelia Jane Collett from Glasgow was also 45, and their two children were Kathleen Collett aged 16 and Ronald Leslie Collett aged 14, from of them said to have been born at Hampstead.  Also living nearby in Tormoham that day, was Florence Agnes Collett from Brentford in Middlesex who was 46 and working there as a governess, who was Walter’s cousin, a daughter of his father’s younger brother Nathaniel George Collett.  At the end of the next decade the whole family was again living together, but at Hayes in Middlesex.  Walter Collett from St Marylebone was 54 and again working as a costume manufacturer, Amelia Jane was 54, Kathleen was 26 with no job of work, and Ronald Leslie was 24.  The census return in 1911, confirmed that the couple had married in 1879 and employed two middle-aged domestic servants, sisters Bertha and Susannah Barwick from Holborn in London.  Just less than seven years later, the death of Walter Collett was recorded at register office (Ref. 1a 21) during the first quarter of 1918, when he was 61 years of age.  His Will was proved in London on 23rd February 1918, which confirmed the date he died as 5th February 1918 and that the beneficiary of the Will was his widow Amelia Jane Collett.  Almost exactly nineteen years later, Amelia Jane Collett died on 1st February 1937, and her Will was passed through probate on 12th March that same year, when the three beneficiaries were her two children and her son-in-law Sheldon Arthur Stewart Bunting

 

2P82 – Kathleen Collett was born in 1884 at Kensington, London

2P83 – Ronald Leslie Collett was born in 1886 at Hampstead, London

 

Eliza Walwyn Collett [2O66] was born in 1845 at Cheltenham, where her birth was recorded (Ref. xi 37) during the third quarter of the year, the eldest child of Nathaniel G Collett and Eliza S Walwyn.  She was five years old in the census of 1851, by which time her father’s work had taken the family to River Street in Clerkenwell, London.  Eliza was 15 in 1861 when she was still living with her family at the High Street in Ealing, London.  Around five years later, Eliza fell pregnant when she was not married and, as a result of her condition, she left the family home in Ealing and returned to Cheltenham, where her base-born daughter was born and where the pair of them were living in 1871.  Eliza Collett from Chelten was 25 and employed as an upholstress, and Laura Collett was five years of age.  Curiously, the pair of them were staying with Mary Collett who was 68 and a widow, who had been born in Worcestershire.  So far, it has not been determined who she was.  Under the terms of the 1891 Will of her aunt Mary Jane Cowle, Eliza was bequeathed articles of wearing apparel of the late Mary Jane, the total number of garments being divided equally between three nieces, including Eliza’s sister Frances A Collett (below).  Eliza Walwyn Collett never married and was still living in the Middlesex area of London when she died on 10th May 1936, following which probate was proved there on 17th June 1936, when the main beneficiary was named as Sidney Collett her brother (below)

 

The birth of Laura Collett was recorded at Cheltenham (Ref. 6a 146) during the last quarter of 1865.  At the age of 15, Laura Collett from Cheltenham was attending school, while residing at Springfield Villas in the Hampstead area of London.  After a further ten years, Laura from Cheltenham was 25 and working as an assistant nurse and an inmate, when she was recorded in the Hampstead census of 1891, as head of the household at 3 Goldsmith’s Place in Kilburn.  That was also the address for her in the electoral rolls of 1898 through to 1901, by which time she was still not married and recorded in the Hampstead census that year as 36 and a chair caner from Cheltenham

 

2P84 – Laura Collett was born in 1865 at Cheltenham

 

Frances Alice Collett [2O67) was born at Cheltenham, the second of the eight children of Nathaniel and Eliza Collett.  Her born was recorded at Cheltenham (2nd Quarter – (Ref. xi 35) during the second quarter of 1848.  By 1851, her parents and older sister Eliza (above) were living at River Street in Clerkenwell when Frances was two years old.  In 1861, the family’s home was on Ealing High Street, where Frances was 13.  It is unclear what happened to her after 1861 since no record of her or her family has been unearthed in 1871 while, by 1881, Frances was no longer living with her family.  However, we do know that she was still alive and not marriage by 1891 as, in the Will made that year by her aunt Mary Jane Cowle nee Collett, Frances A Collett, a daughter of Nathaniel George Collett, was to receive one third of the Mary’s wearing apparel, under the terms of her Will, another third bequeathed to Frances’ older sister Eliza (above)

 

Edward Charles Collett [2O68] was born at River Street Clerkenwell in 1851, the third child of Nathaniel George Collett and his wife Eliza, his birth recorded at Clerkenwell (Ref. 3a 40) during the third quarter of the year.  He was nine years old in 1861, by which time he was a pupil attending a boarding school on the High Road in Edmonton.  It was at Fulham in London (Ref. 1a 256), during the third quarter of 1876 that he married (1) Charlotte Wadham Hill, who was born at Barnstaple in the last three months of 1857.  By 1881 Edward C Collett was an auctioneer, like his father Nathaniel, when he was 29 and was living at 40 Oxford Gardens in North Kensington with his wife Charlotte who was 23.  Living nearby at 32 Oxford Gardens was Edward’s brother Percy Collett (below).  At that time, the marriage had produced the couple’s first two children, their son Denbigh Collett who was two years old, and their daughter Eveline Collett who was just one year old.  Both children were recorded as having been born at Kensington, whereas it is known that the first child was born at Bayswater and that the birth of their second child was registered at Barnstaple.  On that same occasion the household was support by domestic servant Eleanor P Green, aged 18 and of Camden Town.  Over the next ten years a further four children were added to the family, as reflected in the Kensington census of 1891, by which time the family was living at 139 Ladbroke Place, off Ladbroke Grove Road, not far from Oxford Gardens.  According to the electoral roll, the family was listed as living at 27 Oxford Gardens in 1890 and at the start of 1891, with the electoral roll from 1891 to 1893 placing them at 139 Ladbroke Grove Road.  Edward C Collett was 39 and an auctioneer from Islington, Charlotte Collett from Barnstaple was 33, Denbigh Collett from Bayswater was 12 and still attending school, Eveline Collett was 11, Maud Collett was nine, Ormond Collett was four and had been born at Shepherd’s Bush, George Collett was three and Frank Collett was one year old.  The couple’s two daughters, together with their two youngest sons, had been born at Kensington

 

It was also during that same year when Edward Charles was named as a nephew owing three hundred pounds in the 1891 Will of his aunt Mary Jane Cowle nee Collett.  That money had been loaned to Edward by Mary’s late husband and the Will required it to be repaid.  If not repaid, then Edward would not be entitled to any share of the Cowle estate.  Whether it was repaid or not is not known, but it is possible the money was used to pay off his wife, because in 1892 the second marriage of Edward Charles Collett and (2) Annie Elizabeth Scott was recorded at Islington register office (Ref. 1b 102) during the second quarter of the year.  In March of the previous years, unmarried Annie Elizabeth Scott was 26 and a dressmaker who was living at Golden Mews in Kensington with her parents Nathaniel and Charlotte Scott.  Their marriage only endured for a few months, when the death of Edward Charles Collett was recorded at Marylebone (Ref. 1a 327) during the first three months of 1893, when he was said to be 41 years old.  From the time of his passing, his much younger wife reverted to her maiden name, when she was recorded in the electoral rolls, up to 1908, as Miss Annie Elizabeth Scott of at 271 Portobello Road in Kensington, where the couple had set up home in 1892.  According to the next census at the end of March in 1901, Edward’s former wife Charlotte Collett, aged 43 and from Barnstaple in Devon, was residing at an institution in the Kensington district of London, while her children were recorded at other locations in the city.  No obvious record of Charlotte Collett has been found in the subsequent census of 1911

 

2P85 – Denbigh Collett was born in 1878 at Bayswater, London

2P86 – Evaline Margaret Collett was born in 1880 at Kensington, London

2P87 – Maud Collett was born in 1881 at Kensington, London

2P88 – Ormonde Collett was born in 1886 at Shepherd’s Bush, London

2P89 – George Collett was born in 1887 at Kensington, London

2P90 – Frank Barry Collett was born in 1890 at Kensington, London

 

Florence Agnes Collett [2O69] was born at Brentford in Middlesex during 1853, the fourth child of Nathaniel and Eliza Collett, whose birth was recorded at Brentford (Ref. 3a 30) during the second quarter of the year.  She was seven years of ae in the Ealing census of 1861, when the family was living at the High Street in Ealing.  In 1881 she was unmarried at 26 and was still living at home with her parents at 70 Ladbroke Road in Kensington.  The census details for that year did not indicate that she had any occupation, nor did it state she was unemployed.  During the following decade she travelled to Gloucestershire and it was there at Berkeley Road in Horfield, Bristol, that she was recorded in 1891 when, at the age of 37, unmarried Florence A Collett from Middlesex was staying at the home of her younger married brother Walwyn Collett (below) and his wife Florence.  After a further ten years, according to the next census in 1901, Florence Agnes Collett from Brentford in Middlesex was 46 when she was employed as a governess (a domestic servant) by Charles William Priestley and his wife Annie at their home in the parish of Tormoham and Torquay in Devon.  She later returned to London where the census conducted in 1911 described her as Florence Collett from Brentford who was 57, single, and with no stated occupation, who was staying with her younger brother Sidney Collett (below) and his wife and family at 11 Parsifal Road in West Hampstead, while it was just over thirty years later that Florence Agnes Collett died on 17th November 1941 when she was living at 8 Marine Avenue in Westcliffe-on-Sea in Southend-on-Sea.  Probate of her personal effects valued at £1,113 18 Shillings 7 Pence was granted to Edward Joshua Poole- Conner, a minister of the Gospel, and Isaac Newton Golden, a retired civil servant

 

Percy Collett [2O70] was born at Brentford in 1854, his birth being registered there (Ref. 3a 39) in the last three months of the year.  Just like his father and his older brother Edward (above), Percy was also an auctioneer during his working life and later became an estate agent like his father.  He married (1) Elizabeth Berridge at Christ Church in St Pancras on 13th August 1878 and register there (Ref. 1b 180).  Elizabeth was born at St Pancras in 1858 and was the daughter of John Berridge who was a music publisher of 179 Stanhope Street in St Pancras.  The witnesses at their wedding were Percy’s brother Sidney Collett (below) and his father Nathaniel Collett.  The marriage produced a total of eight children for Percy and Elizabeth, although only six of them appear to have survived.  According to the census of 1881, auctioneer Percy, who was 26, and his wife Elizabeth, aged 22, were living at 32 Oxford Gardens in Kensington with their daughter Elizabeth who was one year old and born at Hammersmith.  It also seems very likely that Percy’s wife was pregnant with the couple’s second child at the time of the census, their son being born later that same year.  Employed by the young family on that occasion was seventeen-year-old general servant Hannah Tarrant of Greenford in Middlesex

 

A further seven children were added to the family after 1881, when they were still living in the Kensington area of London.  It is interesting that in the electoral rolls for Kensington in 1890 and 1891, Percy Collett and his family were residing at 44 Chesterton Road, while at 40 Chesterton Road was George Cowle, from whom Percy borrowed a considerable sum of money.  In the census the following year, Percy Collett from Brentford was residing 44 Chesterton Road in Notting Hill, where his occupation was still that of an auctioneer.  By then his wife Elizabeth was 32, and living with the couple were all of their six children.  They were Elizabeth Collett who was 11, Algernon Collett who was nine, Hubert J Collett and May P Collett who were both seven and very likely twins, Stanley Collett who was three and Adelaide R Collett who was one year old.  Employed by the family was general domestic servant Robert Curdy who was 17.  Once again Elizabeth may have been with-child on that census day, since the couple’s seventh child was born during the summer of 1891, after which the family of Percy Collett was recorded at 98 Ladbroke Grove Road in Kensington, according to the electoral roll in 1892.  Two years later, it was at 26 Chesterton Road that the family was living in 1894.  Tragically their eighth child, their son John Collett, died shortly after he was born and then, a couple of years later, Elizabeth presented Percy with their last child, whose birth was recorded at St Pancras.  It was also at St Pancras register office (Ref. 1b 14) that the death of Elizabeth Collett, need Berridge, was recorded during the first three months of 1898, when she was 39

 

Perhaps it was those sad events and the change of circumstances, that forced Percy to change career, and to take his family to live at 86 Leathwaite Road in Clapham within the Wandsworth & Clapham district of South London.  At that time, his work as an auctioneer had ceased, when he became an estate agent.  Either way, by that time in his life, he had already started to amass some considerable debts.  His poor financial state was highlighted within the 1891 Will of his aunt Mary Jane Cowle, nee Collett, when Percy Collett was described as her nephew, who owed her three hundred pounds.  That sum of money had been loaned to Percy by Mary’s late husband, George Cowle, and the Will required that it had to be repaid.  If not repaid, then Percy would not be entitled to any share of the Cowle estate.  By the time of the next census in 1901, Percy Collett, a widower from Brentford, was 46 and an estate agent, residing at Nightingale Lane in Battersea.  Still living with Percy at that address were seven of his eight surviving children.  They were Elizabeth Collett who was 21, Algernon P Collett who was 19, May Blossom Collett who was 17, Stanley Collett who was 13, Adelaide R Collett who was 11, Bryan Collett who was nine, and Frances Collett who was seven (sic).  At that same time, Percy’s absent son Hubert Collett, was 17 and was living in St Pancras, where he had followed in his father’s footsteps by being an auctioneer’s clerk.  Tragically for his children, Percy Collett died just less than twelve months later, when his death was recorded at Wandsworth register office (Ref. 1d 331) during the first three months of 1902 when he was still only 46

 

2P91 – Elizabeth Collett was born in 1879 at Hammersmith, London

2P92 – Algernon Percy Collett was born in 1881 at Kensington, London

2P93 – Hubert J Collett was born in 1883 at Kensington; died 1910 at Bethnal Green, London

2P94 – May Blossom Collett was born in 1883 at Kensington, London

2P95 – Stanley Collett was born in 1887 at Kensington, London

2P96 – Adelaide Rose Collett was born in 1889 at Kensington, London

2P97 – Bryan Collett was born in 1891 at Kensington, London

2P98 – John Collett was born in 1893 at Kensington, London; died in 1893

2P99 – Frances Collett was born in 1895 at Kensington, London

 

Sidney Collett [2O71] was born in 1857 at Norwood.  According to the Census of 1881 he was 23, unmarried and was an electrician living at the family home at 70 Ladbroke Road in Kensington.  It was during the summer of 1889 that the marriage of Sidney Collett and Annie Lizzie Finch was recorded at Kensington (Ref. 1a 236) during the third quarter of the year.  The census in 1891 recorded the couple at Hampstead in London, by which time the first of their three known children had just been born.  Sidney Collett from Norwood was 33 and employed as an assistant secretary with the Eastern Telephone Company, his wife Annie L Collett from Leicester was 30, their daughter Muriel R Collett was under one year old, and completing the census return for that property was 16-year-old servant Constance Beard.  Two more children were added to the family which was living at 191 Belsize Road in Hampstead from 1899 until 1907.  Sidney was 43 and a secretary with a public company, Annie L Collett was 40, Muriel R Collett was 10, Sidney G Collett was eight and Irene C Collett was four years of age.  Sidney’s place of birth was confirmed as Norwood in Middlesex, Annie had been born in Leicester, Muriel in Notting Hill and the two younger children at Kilburn in London.  Supporting the family was general domestic servant Miriam Fisher who was 20 and from Sheffield

 

Sidney followed in his father’s footsteps as a writer and wrote many religious books including ‘The Scripture of Truth’ which was published in 1906.  Two years later, the family moved to 11 Parisfal Road, their home in the longer term.  In the following census of 1911 Sidney Collett, aged 53 and from Norwood, was residing at 11 Parsifal Road in West Hampstead when his occupation was that of a secretary for a public company.  His wife Annie Collett was 50 and the two children living there with them were Sidney Collett who was 18 and Irene Collett who was 14.  Also living with the family was Sidney’s older sister Florence Collett (above) from Brentford, and two employees, Ernest Frederick Finch, aged 26, Sidney’s brother-in-law, and Clara Emma Shaw who was 21.  On that same day in 1911 their daughter Muriel Collett from Notting Hill was 20 years old and working as a nurse at the Children’s Hospital for Sick Children within the Holborn area of London.  It would appear that Sidney was widowed sometime after that, and that he subsequently married (2) Ruth who was named as his wife at the time of his death thirty years later

 

Upon the death of his eldest sibling, Eliza Walwyn in 1936, it was Sidney Collett who was named as the main beneficiary.  Five years later, Sidney and his sister Florence both died within a few months of each other, with the death of Sidney Collett recorded at Hendon register office (Ref. 3a 145) during the second quarter of 1941 when he was 83.  The probate process also confirmed that it was same executors of his personal estate that were used by his sister and named in her probate papers.  That confirmed the home address of Sidney Collett as Brent Cottage on Wickliffe Avenue off Hendon Lane in Finchley, while it was at 31 Woodhouse Road in North Finchley that Sidney died on 8th May 1941.  Probate for his estate of £12,817 6 Shillings 6 Pence was granted to Edward Joshua Poole-Conner, a minister of the Gospel, and Isaac Newton Golden, a retired civil servant, in London on 7th August 1941.  It was also at Hendon Cemetery where he was buried on 13th May, although no headstone marks the grave, but a notice in The Times on 10th May read as follows.  “On May 8, 1941. Sidney Collett beloved husband of Ruth Collett passed peacefully away.  Memorial service at Talbot Tabernacle in Bayswater, London on May 13 at 2.30.  Interment Hendon Cemetery at 3.30.”

 

The birth of Sidney’s first children was recorded at Kensington (Ref. 1a 74) during the second quarter of 1890, and it was in 1914 that the marriage of Muriel Ruth Collett and Wilfred F Ramsey was recorded at Hampstead register office (Ref. 1a 105) during the second quarter of that year.  The births of Sidney’s two younger children were also recorded at Hampstead register office, Sidney George Collett (Ref. 1a 152) during the third quarter of 1892 and Irene Chesterton Collett (Ref. 1a 195) during the first three months of 1897.  She was around twenty-eight years old when her marriage to Herman R Napp was recorded at Marylebone register office (Ref. 1a 142) during the first quarter of 1925.

 

2P100 – Muriel Ruth Collett was born in 1890 at Notting Hill, London

2P101 – Sidney Gordon Collett was born in 1892 at Kilburn, London

2P102 – Irene Chesterton Collett was born in 1896 at Kilburn, London

 

Walwyn Collett [2O72] was born in 1859 at Norwood, another son of Nathaniel George Collett and Susanna Walwyn, his birth recorded at Brentford (Ref. 3a 29) during the third quarter of that year.  He was one year old in 1861 at the family home on the High Street in Ealing, although record of him or his parents in 1871 has been found.  In 1881 he was 21 and, although listed as being a warehouseman working in Manchester, he was living at the family home at 70 Ladbroke Grove Road in Kensington.  Five years after that day, the marriage of Walwyn Collett and Florence E Powell was recorded at Paddington (Ref. 1a 192) during the final quarter of 1886. Walwyn was a commercial traveller and in 1891, he and Florence were recorded at Berkeley Road in the Horfield district of Bristol.  That census day Walwyn Collett from Middlesex was 31 and Florence E Collett from Kent was 27.  The couple had a servant girl, 13-years-old Adella Bowers, and visiting the couple that day was Walwyn’s older unmarried sister Florence A Collett.  By the time of the next census in 1901, Walwyn was living in Bristol where he was listed as being 41 years old and he gave his place of birth as being Brentford in Middlesex which is close to Norwood Green.  It would appear too, that like his poet father Nathaniel Collett and his writer brother Sidney Collett (above), he was also involved with the written word as he gave his occupation as a ‘hantle traveller’.  Hantle is a Scottish term and has a connection with poetry.  It therefore seems very likely that, the story handed down through the family, about one of them being a poet and a wastrel who eventually travelled to China, may actually relate to Walwyn Collett.  On that census day in 1901, his wife Florence E Collett from Lewisham in Kent was 31, and their domestic servant was Emily Moore who 18 and from Bristol.  Visiting the couple that day were mother and daughter Hannah Addison aged 53 and from Woolwich in Kent, and Charlotte E Addison 29 and from Godalming. Five years later Walwyn was in Somerset when, during the second quarter of 1906, the death of Walwyn Collett was recorded at Axminster (Ref. 5c 114) at the age of 46

 

Rose Collett [2O73] may have been born at Ealing High Street, where her parents had been living at the end of the first quarter of 1861, having moved there from Norwood. However, in the later census records her place of birth was stated to be Norwood, as for some of her older siblings.  The birth of Rose Collett was recorded at Brentford (Ref. 3a 33) during the last three months of that year and was the last and eighth child of Nathaniel George Collett and Eliza Susanna Walwyn. No record of the family has been found in 1871 but by 1881, Rose was 19 years old when living with her family 70 Ladbroke Grove Road in Kensington, where her father was a retired estate agent.  She never married and was living with her parents at Tavistock Crescent in Paddington in 1891 and again in 1901, by which time Rose Collett was 30.  Two years her father passed away, so in 1911, it was just Rose who was living with her widowed mother at Paddington.  After her mother died in 1913 it is not known what happened to Rose, except that it was at Hampstead register office that the death of Rose Collett was recorded (Ref. 1a 90) during the third quarter of 1924, when she was 63.  The Will of Rose Collett was proved at London on 8th September 1924, the process confirming that she died on 6th July 1924, the main beneficiary being her brother Sidney Collett (above)

 

Ada Lily Collett [2O74] was born at Islington in 1853, her birth being registered there (Ref. 1b 24) during the second quarter of the year, the first of the two children of Richard Collett married Mary Ann Dunn.  Her father was an electrical engineer who often worked abroad, with the family not recorded in Great Britain in 1861.  By 1871 the family of four was residing in the St Pancras area of London where Ada Lily Collett was 17.  Ten years after that, in 1881, Ada L Collett from Islington was 27 and unmarried, when she was living at 23 St Mary’s Road in Willesden in Middlesex with her parents.  Later that same year she married Edward Bennett Calvert, the son of Canon Calvert of St Paul's Cathedral, with the marriage recorded at Hendon during third quarter of the year.  Edward Bennett Calvert was also born around 1851 and it was at Hammersmith, in London, where his death was recorded during the third quarter of 1930 when he was 79.  Ada Lily Calvert nee Collett did not survive as a widow for very long, when she passed away during the following year, her death recorded at Chelsea register office during the second quarter of 1931.  Forty years earlier, Ada Lily Calvert was referred to in the 1891 Will of her aunt Mary Jane Cowle.  That stated she owed one hundred pounds, such sum of money having been loaned to her by Mary’s husband George Cowle, prior to his death.  The Will stipulated that the money should be re-paid into her estate.  Non-compliance with the edict meant that Ada would not be entitled to any share of the considerable Cowle estate.  Under the terms of the Will, Ada was the third niece to be bequeathed articles of wearing apparel of the late Mary Jane, the total number of garments being divided equally between three nieces, Ada’s two older cousins being sisters Eliza Walwyn Collett and Frances Alice Collett (above)

 

Fanny Collett [2O76] was born at Chedworth on 31st December 1842, the base-born daughter of unmarried Elizabeth Collett.  Her birth was recorded at Northleach (Ref. xi 371) during the first quarter of 1843.  Two years later her mother married her cousin Henry Collett (Ref. 3N3) with whom she had twelve children.  However, it might appear that Fanny was in some way rejected by her mother’s new family as in 1851 she was living with her widowed grandfather Robert Collett when she was eight years old and, ten years later in 1861, she was living at the home of 83 years old widow and fund holder Elizabeth Wilson of Chedworth.  Elizabeth was a ‘venerable widow and owner of Fields Farm’ and the mother of Robert Collett’s late wife Sarah Wilson.  Fanny never really had the opportunity to marry as she died four months before her twenty-first birthday on 24th August 1863.  She was buried in the family grave in the graveyard of Chedworth Congregational Chapel with her mother Elizabeth Collett, her husband Henry Collett and his daughters (Fanny’s half-sisters below) Mary Ann Collett and Sophia Collett (see Headstone Epitaphs)

 

Amelia Ann Collett [2O77] was born at Broadway in 1846, and was the daughter of Francis and Mary Ann Collett, her birth being recorded at Evesham (Ref. xviii 17) during the first three months of that year.  At the time of the Broadway census in 1841 Amelia Collett was five years old and by 1861, as Amelia A Collett, she was 15.  On both occasions she was living with her parents and her younger brother George (below) at the High Street in Broadway.  On the day of the census in 1871, Amelia Collett from Broadway was described as being 23 and a general servant at the Cheltenham home of octogenarian Elizabeth Sperry from Chipping Camden. Immediately prior to the census in 1871 Amelia’s brother died and just seven years later, unmarried Amelia Ann Collett gave birth to a daughter, Anne, who was raised by Amelia’s parents.  According to the next census in 1881, Amelia A Collett from Broadway was 33 and an unmarried nurse and the eldest of the four servants who were living and working at The Vicarage in Childswickham, the home of the Reverend Robert H Barlow from Canterbury, the Vicar of Childswickham, when her base-born daughter was being looked after by her parents in Broadway.  After a further twenty years, Amelia was still a spinster.  The census return for March 1901, revealed that Amelia A Collett of Broadway in Worcestershire was 54 and that she was living in Llanigon in Brecon, where she was still working as a domestic nurse, one of seven servants employed by the Tomas family.  During the next couple of years, she returned to Broadway where she spent her last few years, and it was there that she died at the age of 60, the death of Amelia Ann Collett being recorded at Evesham (Ref. 6c 96) during the second quarter of 1906

 

2P103 – Anne Collett was born in 1878 at Broadway

 

Edwin Collett [2O79] was born during 1832 at Aston Blank, later known as Cold Aston, to the west of Bourton-on-the-Water, the eldest child of Joseph Collett and his wife Elizabeth from Aston Blank.  Not long after he was born the family settled in Little Rissington to the east of Bourton, where all of his siblings were born.  According to the Little Rissington census of 1841, Edwin Collett was nine years old and was living there with his parents and his brother Albert (below).  By the time of the next census in 1851 Edwin would have been 19 but was no longer living with his family at Little Rissington, nor has any record of him been found in the British census that year.  By the time of the next census in 1861 Edwin Collett was married with a wife and they had their first child living with them at New Barn Pike in Farmington, just south of Aston Blank and Little Rissington and east of Northleach.  New Barn Pike was a toll gate where Maria Collett from Little Rissington was the toll collector at the age of 26.  Her husband Edwin Collett from Aston Blank was 28 and a carpenter, while their son William R Collett was one year old and had been born at nearby Northleach.  Maria was very likely with-child on the day of the census because the couple’s second son was born at Farmington later that year and prior to the family moving to Great Rissington.  A total of five children were added to their family during that decade and by 1871 the family, less their eldest child, was residing in Great Rissington.  On the day of the census that year William R Collett aged 11 years and from Northleach was staying with his paternal grandmother, the widow Elizabeth Collett, at her home (described as a private house) in Little Rissington, where the only other occupant was Edwin’s youngest brother Henry Collett, a blacksmith.  The remainder of Edwin’s family was living in a dwelling right next door to the inn at Great Rissington, and they were listed in the census return as Edwin Collett from Cold Aston who was 38 and still a carpenter, Maria Collett from Little Rissington who was 36, and their children Charles H Collett who was nine, Emily Collett who was seven, Alfred J Collett who was five, Elizabeth Annie Collett who was three and Agnes Eliza Collett who was eleven months old

 

Over the next five or six years the family continued to live at Great Rissington where a further two children were born into the family.  It was then around 1877 that the family left Gloucestershire and moved north to County Durham and the town of Sedgefield, where Edwin’s last child was born shortly after their arrival.  By 1881, the family was confirmed as living at North End in Sedgefield and comprised Edwin Collett from Aston in Gloucestershire who was 48 and a joiner, Maria Collett who was 46, Charles H Collett who was 19, Alfred Collett who 15, Elizabeth Collett who was 13, Agnes Collett who was 10, Alwyn Collett who was seven, Marion E Collett who was five and Ellen M Collett who was three years old.  Missing from the family was the couple’s eldest daughter Emily who was 17 and who had already left home by then.  Nine years later, the Kelly’s Directory for Durham, produced in 1890, included an entry for carpenter Edwin Collett, of Front Street in Sedgefield.  Front Street is still there today and runs in front of St Edmund’s Parish Church, and was most likely the address of his business premises and workshop

 

No further family moves appear to have taken place and once again they were included in the next census of 1891 for Sedgefield when the family was at High Row in a dwelling between the Manor House, the home of William Connor a Clerk in Holy Orders, and Four Farm the home of farmer John McMorris.  The Collett family was recorded as Edwin Collett who was 58 and a joiner from Aston Blank, Maria Collett who was 55 and from Little Rissington, Charles Collett who was 29 and a joiner from Farmington, Elizabeth A Collett who was 23 and a dressmaker from Rissington, Alwyn Collett who was 17 and a domestic gardener from Rissington, Maria (Marion) E Collett who was 15 and an apprenticed dressmaker from Rissington, while Ellen M Collett who was born at Sedgefield was 13 and still at school

 

Just over five years later, Edwin’s wife passed away, when the death of Maria Collett was recorded at Sedgefield register office (Ref. 10a 59) during the third quarter of 1896, when her age was stated as being 62.  That was also confirmed by Edwin’s marital status in the next census of 1901, by which time he and his family were still residing at High Row in Sedgefield within the parish of St Edmund.  Edwin Collett from Aston in Gloucestershire and a widower, was still working as a joiner and a carpenter at the age of 68, as was his son Charles H Collett from Farmington who was 39.  Edwin’s eldest daughter Emily Collett from Rissington had returned to the family home to look after her father and, at the age of 37, was acting as housekeeper for the family.  Just two more of Edwin’s children were still living there with him, and they were his son Alfred J Collett from Rissington who was 35 and a domestic coachman and unmarried daughter Marion E Collett, also from Rissington who was 25 and with no stated occupation.  There was one other individual recorded at the address and that was Reginald Ashton from Tudhoe near Spennymoor in County Durham who was two years old and described as the grandson of Edwin Collett.  He was the son of Edwin’s married daughter Elizabeth Annie Ashton of Tudhoe

 

Ten years later, according to the census in April 1911, Edwin Collett was residing at The Square in Sedgefield with two of his children.  Edwin was described as having been born in Gloucestershire, was 78 and a retired joiner and a pensioner (D C Asylum) which seems to indicate he had some connection with Durham County Asylum, perhaps where he worked prior to his retirement.  His son Charles Collett from Farmington was 49 and a joiner working at a Durham County coalmine.  Completing the family was his daughter Marion Collett from Great Rissington who was 34 and the housekeeper for her father and her brother.  It was just two years after that census day, that the death of Edwin Collett was recorded at Sedgefield register office (Ref. 10a 200) during the second quarter of 1913, when he was 80 years of age.  Sixteen years earlier, Edwin Collett was named as the father of Elizabeth Annie Collett on her marriage certificate at St Edmund’s Church in Sedgefield in 1897

 

2P104 – William Reuben Collett was born in 1859 at Northleach

2P105 – Charles H Collett was born in 1861 at Farmington

2P106 – Emily Collett was born in 1863 at Great Rissington

2P107 – Alfred J Collett was born in 1865 at Great Rissington

2P108 – Elizabeth Annie Collett was born in 1867 at Great Rissington

2P109 – Agnes Eliza Collett was born in 1870 at Great Rissington

2P110 – Alwyn Albert Collett was born in 1874 at Great Rissington

2P111 – Marion E Collett was born in 1876 at Great Rissington

2P112 – Ellen Maria Collett was born in 1878 at Sedgefield, County Durham

 

Albert Collett [2O81] was born at Little Rissington in 1840 and was one year old in the June census of 1841.  He appeared in the 1851 Census for that village with his family at the age of 10.  By the time of the census in 1861, when Albert was 20, he was still living with his parents and younger brothers James and Henry, but by that time the family was living at Cold Aston (Aston Blank).  It was on that occasion that all three of them were described as shoemakers.  It was during the next few years that Albert married Caroline Clifford, the daughter of George Clifford and his wife Harriet Slatter.  She was born at Bourton-on-the-Water on 24th December 1834, so it seems highly likely that it was also at Bourton that she married Albert Collett.  Once they were married the couple initially settled in Upper Slaughter, and while they were living there, their first three children were born.  However, around 1870 the family moved to Bourton-on-the-Water, where they were living at the time of the census in 1871.  The census that year recorded the family as Albert Collett, aged 30, his wife Caroline, aged 35, and their three sons, Frank Collett who was five years old, Ernest A Collett who was three, and Archibald Collett who was only one year old.  Over the next six years two more children were added to the family whilst they continued to live in Bourton

 

By 1881 the enlarged family was still living at Bourton-on-the-Water, at a location called The Bank.  Albert Collett, aged 40, was once again a shoemaker, Caroline Collett was 45, and their children were listed as Frank C Collett, who was 15 and another shoemaker, Archibald Collett who was 11, James Collett who was six, and Annie Collett who was three years old.  The two eldest children had been born at Upper Slaughter, while the two younger one had been born at Bourton.  The couple’s missing son Ernest Austin Collett was living and working in the Lambeth district of London by then.  A neighbour of the Collett family, also living at The Bank in Bourton in 1881, was Paris Collett (Ref. 33O1) who was 56.  See Part 33 – The Bourton-on-the-Water Line for further details of Paris and his family.  According to the census of 1891 Albert Collett, aged 50 and a shoemaker of Little Rissington, was still living at Bourton with his wife Caroline, who was 55, and just two of their children.  They were Archibald Collett who was 21 and also a shoemaker like his father and his older brother Frank, and Annie M Collett who was 13.  However, by the time of the March census for Bourton-on-the-Water in 1901 Albert Collett, aged 61 and from Little Rissington, and his wife Caroline Collett, aged 66 and from Bourton, only had their youngest child, their daughter Annie M Collett, still living with them in their old age.  Both ladies were listed in the census as being dressmakers, while Albert was described as a retired shoemaker.  Caroline died during the first decade of the new century so, by the time of the next census in April 1911, Albert recorded as a widower.  The census return confirmed that he was seventy years old, had been born at Little Rissington, and was a retired shoemaker, living alone in Bourton-on-the-Water

 

2P113 – Frank Charles Collett was born in 1865 at Upper Slaughter 

2P114 – Ernest Austin Collett was born in 1867 at Upper Slaughter

2P115 – Archibald Collett was born in 1869 at Upper Slaughter

2P116 – James Collett was born in 1874 at Bourton-on-the-Water

2P117 – Annie M Collett was born in 1877 at Bourton-on-the-Water

 

Herbert Reuben Collett [2O82], was sometimes referred to as Reuben or Hubert, was born at Little Rissington in 1842 where he was baptised on 25th December 1842, the son of Joseph and Elizabeth Collett.  He was listed in the census of 1851 for Little Rissington when he was nine years old.  In 1871 Reuben, aged 28 and a labourer of Little Rissington, was still living in that village.  With him was his wife Eliza who was 34 and from Burchett’s Green, near Maidenhead in Berkshire, and their first four children, all of whom were born at Little Rissington.  They were Frederick who was six, Louis who was four, Alfred who was two, and Harold who was under one year old.  The family was supported by a nursemaid Louisa Mitchell who was 14 from Cold Aston.  By 1881 the census listed Herbert R Collett as 38 when he was working in a livery stable, and by which time his eldest son had left home.  Living with him at Little Rissington was his wife Eliza 43 and the following children.  Louis aged 14, Alfred aged 12, Harold aged 11 and labelled ‘idiot’, Edith who was eight, Kate who was six, Edwin who was four, and Algernon who was two, for which the census return indicated that all of them had been born at Little Rissington

 

By 1891, Herbert R Collett was 48 and a farmer, his place of birth confirmed as Little Rissington, while his wife Eliza Collett was 53 and from Burchetts Green in Berkshire.  They were living in the village of Little Rissington that year, together with sons Harold Collett who was 21, Edwin Collett who was 14, and Algernon Collett who was 12.  Ten years later the family still together and living at Little Rissington was made up of Herbert R Collett who was 58 and a job proprietor (?), his wife Eliza who was 62, and their son Harold who was 30.  Over the next few years Herbert Reuben Collett passed away, leaving Eliza as a widow, although no record of his death has been found.  Eliza Collett was still alive in April 1911 when she was seventy-five and acting as housekeeper for two of her sons at Little Rissington in a six-roomed dwelling.  On that occasion the census recorded that her place of birth was Reading in Berkshire and that she had given birth to eight children, with seven of them still alive. The two unmarried sons still living with her were Harold Collett and Edwin Collett.  The final member of the household was Eliza’s granddaughter Dorothy Collett who was 10 years old who had been born at Cheltenham.  Having effectively eliminated her sons as being the father of Dorothy Collett, it now seems very likely that she was the base-born daughter of one of Eliza’s two daughters, although neither of them has a known connection with Cheltenham, but nor has any other member of her family

 

2P118 – Frederick Collett was born in 1864 at Little Rissington

2P119 – Louis (Lewis) Collett was born in 1866 at Little Rissington

2P120 – Alfred Collett was born in 1868 at Little Rissington

2P121 – Harold Collett was born in 1870 at Little Rissington

2P122 – Edith Collett was born in 1872 at Little Rissington

2P123 – Kate Collett was born in 1874 at Little Rissington

2P124 – Edwin Collett was born in 1876 at Little Rissington

2P125 – Algernon Collett was born in 1878 at Little Rissington

 

James Collett [2O83] was born at Little Rissington in 1845, with the birth recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. xi 5) during fourth quarter of the year.  In 1851 he was five years old, and ten years later James was 15 and a shoemaker who was still living at Little Rissington with his family, where he was working with his shoemaker father.  It was four years later, at Elham in Kent, that the marriage of James Collett and Ruth Pegrum was recorded (Ref. 2a 28) during the second quarter of 1865.  By the time of the next census in 1871 James Collett, aged 25 and from Gloucestershire, was a married missionary who was visiting Henry and Mary Rutherford at their home in the Paddington district of London.  His wife Ruth Collett was 34 and, with the couple that day were their first two children, Albert J Collett who was three years of age and George H Collett who was one year old, both of them born at Sandgate, near Folkestone, in Kent.  In all, a total of five children were born into the family and, curiously according to the next census in 1881, all of them were born while James and Ruth were living at Sevenoaks in Kent, which is now known to be incorrect.  With James’ father Joseph Collett having died in the late 1860s, his elderly mother Elizabeth, aged 73 from Aston (Blank), was living with the family at 2 Cedar Terrace in Sevenoaks in 1881.  The full census return listed the family as James who was 35 and an evangelist from Rissington, his wife Ruth who was 44 and from Waltham Abbey in Essex, and their five children.  They were Albert J Collett, aged 13, George H Collett, aged 11, Walter E Collett, who was eight, Herbert E Collett, who was six, and Edwin H Collett who was three, all of Sevenoaks

 

During the next decade, and upon leaving school, the couple’s eldest son left home to become an apprentice to a London dental surgeon living with his family in Exeter.  So, by the time of the next census in 1891, the remainder of the family was still residing at 2 Cedar Terrace in Sevenoaks.  The census return that year confirmed the family as James Collett from Little Rissington who was 45 and an unorthodox evangelist preacher, his wife Ruth from Waltham Abbey was 54, Walter E Collett was 18 and had already started work as an apprentice whitesmith, while Edwin H Collett was 13 and still attending school.  Both sons had been born at Sevenoaks.  Living with the family was James’ niece Florence M Collett from Little Rissington who was 18 and a domestic servant.  Sometime prior to the following census in March 1901 James Collett from Little Rissington passed away.  On that occasion his widow Ruth Collett, aged 64 and from Waltham Abbey, was living at Lewisham with her two sons Albert J Collett and Edwin H Collett.  All of the other members of her family have been located in the census that year, whilst no record of her second son George has been after 1881.  Over the following years Ruth’s eldest son Albert became a married man, so in the census conducted in April 1911 it was just Ruth, aged 74, who was still living in Lewisham with her youngest son Edwin Howard Collett

 

2P126 – Albert James Collett was born in 1867 at Sandgate, Folkestone

2P127 – George H Collett was born in 1869 at Sandgate, Folkestone

2P128 – Walter Ebenezer Collett was born in 1872 at Sevenoaks, Kent

2P129 – Herbert Edgar Collett was born in 1874 at Sevenoaks, Kent

2P130 – Edwin Howard Collett was born in 1878 at Sevenoaks, Kent

 

Henry Collett [2O84] was born at Little Rissington in January 1851 since he was only two months old on the day of the 1851 Census for Little Rissington.  It was also there that he was living with his family in 1861 at the age of 10 years, and again in 1871 when he was 20.  It seems highly likely that not long after April 1871, Henry followed his brother James Collett (above) to Kent to seek work, and it was there that he met his future wife.  Henry married Annie and shortly after the first of their three known children was born.  By 1881 Henry and Annie and their daughter were residing at 8 Thornhill Place in Maidstone.  Henry Collett was 30, but his place of birth was simply stated as Gloucester(shire).  On that occasion he was a blacksmith living with his wife Annie who was 33 and from Hollingbourne in Kent, and their daughter Florence M Collett who was eight years old and also born at Gloucester(shire).  Annie may well have been anticipating the birth of the couple’s second child who was born either later that same year or early in the following year.  Also lodging with the family in 1881 was the Hughesman family from Maidstone, Robert Hughesman, aged 26, a railway porter, his wife Mary Ann Hughesman who was 25, and their son Sydney Hughesman who was nine months old

 

Sometime during the next few years Henry left Maidstone and settled at Islington in London.  It was there that he was recorded in April 1891 and again March 1901.  Interestingly on both occasion the family’s place of residence was stated in the census returns for both years as being Her Majesty’s Prison Holloway.  In the census return for the first of them Henry Collett from Little Rissington was 40 and his wife Annie was 42.  Recorded with the couple that day were just their two youngest children, Alice Mary Collett who was eight and Henry James Collett who was four.  During the intervening years Annie died, leaving Henry a widower at the age of 50 in 1901.  Once again, his place of birth was confirmed as Little Rissington, when his occupation was that of an artisan warder (prison officer).  Still living with him that day were all three of his children.  Eldest daughter Florence, from Little Rissington, was 28 and was acting as the housekeeper for the family, while Alice was a book-keeper aged 18 and Henry was 14 and working as a commercial clerk.  Ten years later in April 1911 Henry Collett from Little Rissington was 60, by which time he had retired from the prison service and had returned to Kent, where he was living alone in Canterbury

 

2P131 - Florence M Collett was born in 1872 at Little Rissington

2P132 – Alice Mary Collett was born in 1882 at Maidstone, Kent

2P133 – Henry James Allington Collett was born in 1886 at Maidstone, Kent

 

Caroline Collett [2O87] was baptised on 14th April 1844 at Aston Blank, the second child of Henry Collett and his wife Rhoda Acock.  She married Paul Beckley of Notgrove at Stow-on-the-Wold during the last three months of 1865, Paul having been born at Notgrove during the second quarter of 1843.  For whatever reason their first-born child and son Jesse Beckley lived most of his young life with Caroline’s parents at Aston Blank, as confirmed by the 1871 and 1881 census returns.  In total, Caroline and Paul had twelve children, and they were: Jesse Beckley born at Aston Blank in 1866, Sidney Beckley whose birth was recorded at Northleach in the March quarter of 1868, Edwin Beckley whose birth was recorded at Aston in Birmingham during the last three months of 1869, Minnie Beckley whose birth was recorded at Chipping Sodbury in the March quarter of 1872, Arthur Beckley whose birth was recorded at Wheatenhurst in the June quarter of 1873, where the birth of Flora Beckley was also registered in the March quarter of 1875, all before the family settled in Stroud where the next five children’s birth were registered.  They were Edith Beckley (in 3rd Qtr of 1876), Ernest Beckley (in 4th Qtr of 1878), Emily Beckley (in 2nd Qtr of 1880), Annie Beckley (in 1st Qtr of 1882), and Albert Beckley (in 1st Qtr of 1883).  The last child was added to the family six years later, when the birth of Lily Rose Beckley was recorded at Bishops Cleeve during the second quarter of 1888

 

By 1881 the incomplete family was living at Bartletts Green in Randwick near Stroud, and that might tie in with the fact that Paul was listed as a railway signalman, with the main Great Western Railway line passing close to Randwick.  On that occasion only eight of their nine children were living there with them, with their eldest son still living with his grandparents.  The birth places of those eight children included four different locations as Paul’s work on the railway moved him around the country, and they were Birmingham, Pucklechurch in Bristol, Standish and Randwick.  According to the next census in 1891 Caroline and Paul and only five of their twelve children were living a 5 Railway Terrace in Dodenhall near Droitwich, where the couple was still living in March 1901.  By that time in their lives the only children still living with them were their daughters Annie and Lily, and their son Albert.  It was just over seven years later that Caroline Beckley nee Collett died at Droitwich in Worcestershire during the second quarter of 1908 when she was 65.  Curiously the death of her husband Paul Beckley also occurred during the June quarter of 1908 and had the same Droitwich registration reference number as Caroline, that being Ref 6c 185

 

Joseph Collett [2O88] was born at Aston Blank in 1847, his birth being recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold during the June quarter of that year, the eldest surviving son of Henry and Rhoda Collett.  However, it was just over a year later that he was baptised there on 30th July 1848.  After leaving school Joseph was working as a servant at a house in Chedworth in 1861 when he was 14 years old.  It was six months after the next census that he married (1) Jane Elizabeth Lewis at Hereford during the September quarter of 1871.  Jane had been born at Hereford in the second quarter of 1851.  By the time of the 1881 Census the marriage had produced two children for Joseph and Jane, who was referred to as Jane Eliza Collett aged 34 and from Hereford.  According to the census return the family was living at The Lamb Inn at 2 St Mary’s Square in the St Mary de Lode district of the city of Gloucester where Joseph Collett, aged 34, was the inn keeper.  The two children living with Joseph and Jane were Mary Jane Collett who was eight, and Chas Collett who was six, both of them born at Gloucester

 

Also living and working with the family was servant Mary Ann Philpotts, aged 44, who was also from Hereford.  There were two others at the inn and they were lodger Henry Cox of Gloucester, an ostler of 35, who was also described as a servant at the inn, and boarder Walter Edward Squire who was only four months old and from London.  Ten years later and the enlarged family was still at the same address, with the addition of a further two children.  Sadly, Jane had died in Gloucester during the first three months of 1891, when she was only 41, perhaps during the birth of the couple’s last child who also did not survive.  The census that year listed widower Joseph, aged 44, as a publican and fruiterer, while his four children were recorded as Mary J Collett, aged 18, Charles E L Collett, aged 16, Frank Collett, who was eight, and Ethel M Collett who was six years old.  Lodging with the family was equilibrist Nello Wilhelm from Denmark

 

Joseph survived as a widower for two and a half years before he married (2) Emily Milverton at Bridport in Dorset during the third quarter of 1893.  By the time of the census in 1901 Joseph and his second wife were residing at 3 Worcester Street in Gloucester, where Joseph was working as a fruiterer and greengrocer at the age of 54.  He and Emily, aged 60 and from Bridport, had living with them Joseph’s youngest daughter Ethel M Collett.  Sadly, for Joseph, it was just over two years later that Emily died during the second quarter of 1903, leaving Joseph a widower for the second time in his life.  In April 1911, Joseph Collett, aged 64, was being looked after by his unmarried daughter Ethel Maud Collett, while they were still living in Gloucester.  Joseph Collett was in Hereford area of the country ten years later when he died in 1922, his death recorded there during the second quarter of that year

 

2P134 – Mary Jane Collett was born in 1873 at Gloucester

2P135 – Charles Ernest Lewis Collett was born in 1875 at Gloucester

2P136 – Frank Collett was born in 1883 at Gloucester

2P137 – Ethel Maud Collett was born in 1884 at Gloucester

 

George Collett [2O90] was born at Aston Blank on 4th February 1851, where he was baptised on 2nd March 1851, his birth being recorded at Northleach during that first quarter of the year.  He married Annie Lyes on 20th March 1869, as recorded at Cheltenham.  Annie was a dressmaker and the daughter of Samuel Lyes and was born in 1848 at Evesham in Worcestershire.  At the time of their wedding George was a police constable and was living at the Cheltenham Police Station while Annie was living at Edward Parade in Leckhampton.  The witnesses at the marriage were James and Mary Lyes.  In 1873 George was working as a railway-points man and was living with his wife and two sons at Allen’s Row in Glascote near Tamworth in Staffordshire.  Eight years later in 1881 George was 30 when he was working as a gardener while living at Tamworth Road in Bolehall & Glascote.  However, on that occasion he gave his place of birth as Northleach, the registration district for Aston Blank.  Living with him was his wife Annie Collett of Evesham, who was 33, and their five children, all of whom were born at Glascote.  They were George Henry Collett, who was eight, Joseph Collett, who was seven, Walter Collett, who was six, Lennard (Leonard) Collett, who was three, and Wm Alfred Collett who was only nine months old

 

Just two more children were added to their family while they were still living at Glascote during the 1880s, although in 1891 the family was recorded within the Tamworth & Fazeley registration district.  George Collett was 40, Annie Collett was 42, and their seven children were George Collett, aged 20, Joseph Collett, aged 18, Walter Collett, aged 16, Leonard Collett, aged 14, William Collett, aged 11, Samuel Collett who was eight, and Rhoda Collett who was two years old.  By the time of the marriage of his son Joseph in 1899 George was working as a coal merchant and a carting contractor.  Two years after that George Collett, aged 49, was confirmed as a coal dealer, and his wife Annie, who was 52, were still living at Main Road in Glascote in 1901.  Annie gave her place of birth as Evesham, while it is curious that George’s place of birth was stated as being Birmingham.  Living with the couple on that occasion were their four youngest children, Leonard Collett, William A Collett, Ernest who was named in error as Elijah S Collett, and Rhoda Collett

 

Ten years later in 1911 the couple had just two of their children still living with them at ‘Glenthorne’ on Glascote Road in Tamworth.  George was 60, Annie was 62, Leonard was 33, and Rhoda was 22.  Also living with the family on that occasion was George’s granddaughter Annie Collett who was 10 years old and the eldest daughter of George’s son Walter Collett.  The same census confirmed that George and Annie had been married for forty-two years during which time they had given birth to eight children, of whom one had obviously not survived as there are only seven known children listed below.  One other person was recorded living at the same address, and she was Emily Griffiths who was 27.  It was sixteen years later, at the age of 76 that George Collett died, his death being registered at Tamworth during the first three months of 1927.  It would appear that Annie died of a broken heart, because only a short time after losing her husband the death of Annie Collett nee Lyes was recorded at Tamworth during the second quarter of 1927

 

2P138 – George Henry Collett was born in 1871 at Glascote, Tamworth

2P139 – Joseph Collett was born in 1873 at Glascote, Tamworth

2P140 – Walter Collett was born in 1875 at Glascote, Tamworth

2P141 – Leonard Collett was born in 1877 at Glascote, Tamworth

2P142 – William Alfred Collett was born in 1880 at Glascote, Tamworth

2P143 – Ernest Samuel Collett was born in 1882 at Glascote, Tamworth

2P144 – Rhoda Collett was born in 1889 at Glascote, Tamworth

 

John Brain Collett [2P2] was born in 1878 at Bledington close to the Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire county boundary.  His birth recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 405) during the last three months of that year.  John was the second child and eldest son of John Brain Collett and his wife Annie and, by 1881, he and his family were living in Upper Slaughter.  The census return confirmed that he was two years of age and had been born at Bledington in Gloucestershire, the son of a farmer of ninety acres.  The family remained living at Upper Slaughter until around the middle of the decade, when they moved to Fulbrook to the north of Burford in Oxfordshire.  According to the Fulbrook census in 1891 John B Collett from Bledington was 12 years of age and a plough boy, most likely working alongside his father.  During the 1890s something happened to the family which is currently unknown.  What is known is that John Brain Collett separated from his family at that time and by 1901 he was living and working in the Ladywood district of Birmingham.  The census return confirmed that he had been born at Bledington, was 22, and a carter working on the railway, when he was a boarder at the home of the Turner family

 

It was nearly eighteen months later, when John Brain Collett, aged 23 and the son of John Brain Collett, married (1) Annie Marie Carter, also 23 and the daughter of George Carter, at All Saints Church in Birmingham on 16th August 1902.  Once married, the couple settled down to live in the Ladywood district of Birmingham, where all of their five children were born, and where the family was residing in 1911.  The census return that year, recorded the family as John Brain Collett who was 32 and from Bledington, who was employed by the Public Works Department as a corporation carter, his wife Annie Marie Collett from Newbury was 31, John Brain Collett junior was seven, Leonard George Collett was five, Albert Edward Collett was three, Hilda Annie Collett was two, and Beatrice Ethel Collett was just six weeks old.  After a gap of eight years, perhaps caused by the First World War, Annie gave birth to a sixth child and, within only a few weeks of the birth of Frank Collett (Q1 1919 Ref. 6d 5), the death of Annie M Collett was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6d 167) during the second quarter of 1919, when she was approaching her fortieth birthday.  The death of Frank Collett was also recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6d 120) during the first quarter of 1919.  Tragically he was the second of John’s children to suffer a premature death; having been born during the first quarter of 1911 (Ref. 6d 84), the death of Beatrice E Collett was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6d 143) during the third quarter of 1915 at the age of four years

 

One year after the death of his wife, widower John B Collett married (2) spinster Ruth H Woodall during the second quarter of 1920, the event recorded at Kings Norton register office (Ref. 6d 70).  The only Ruth H Woodall so far found was born at Sculcoates in 1899, was Ruth Hannah Woodall the daughter of George and Anne Woodhall of Sculcoates.  With Ruth being twenty years younger than John, it is not surprising that she presented her husband with a further three children, they being Arthur Collett, Walter Collett, and Estelle Collett.  It is understood, during 1921 or just thereafter, that John’s younger brother Arthur (below), together with other members of the Collett family, emigrated to New Zealand.  Included in the party was John’s eldest son, John Brain Collett junior, aged 18, a move that may have been prompted by the death of his mother and the fact that his stepmother was due to give birth to the first of his three half-siblings

 

Three more of John’s children subsequently emigrated to New Zealand, where they were reunited with their older brother, and they were his son Leonard Collett and daughter Hilda Collett who travelled there together.  John’s youngest child, his daughter Estelle Collett, also travelled to New Zealand many years later in 1951.  John Brain Collett senior and his second wife Ruth remained living in Birmingham for some years, before the couple later moved to Ludlow in Shropshire, when John eventually retired.  And it was at Ludlow that John Brain Collett died and was buried during 1976 at the age of 98.  Walter, the youngest member of John’s family also lived at Ludlow and was still living there in 2008, while another son (either Albert or Arthur) remained living in the Birmingham area, but had passed away by then.  The other son (Albert or Arthur) was thought to have moved to live within the London area, but he too had also died by 2008

 

The following are the six children of John Brain Collett and Annie Marie Carter:

2Q1 – John Brain Collett was in 1903 at Ladywood, Birmingham

2Q2 – Leonard George Collett was in 1905 at Ladywood, Birmingham

2Q3 – Albert Edward Collett was in 1907 at Ladywood, Birmingham

2Q4 – Hilda Annie Collett was in 1909 at Ladywood, Birmingham

2Q5 – Beatrice Ethel Collett was in 1911 at Ladywood, Birmingham; died in 1915

2Q6 – Frank Collett was in 1919 at Ladywood, Birmingham; died in 1919

The following are the children of John Brain Collett by his second wife Ruth Hannah Woodall:

2Q7 – Arthur Collett was in 1921 at Birmingham

2Q8 – Walter R Collett was in 1923 at Birmingham

2Q9 – Estelle E M Collett was in 1926 at Birmingham

 

Walter Raymond Collett [2P4] was born at Upper Slaughter in 1883, the son of John Brain Collett and his wife Annie. The birth of Walter Raymond Collett was recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 399) during the second quarter of that year.  Walter would only have been around two or three years old when his family settled in the village of Fulbrook, near Burford in Oxfordshire where, as Walter R Collett he was living with his family in 1891 at the age of eight years.  No obvious record for Walter’s parents has been found in 1901, while on the day of the census that year, Walter Collett aged 18 and from Upper Slaughter, was a boarder at the Oxfordshire Charlbury home of the widow Sarah Drinkwater and her large family in Paul Street.  At that time in his life his occupation was that of a domestic gardener.  The small town of Charlbury lies just a few miles north-east of Fulbrook.  Perhaps it was his need to seek for future employment, that eventually took Walter to Birmingham, where the marriage of Walter R Collett and Bertha Levy was recorded at Kings Norton, near Birmingham, during the third quarter of 1918 (Ref. 6d 62).  Two and a half years later, their daughter Edna was born, her birth also recorded at Kings Norton register office.  The later death of Walter R Collett, was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 9c 76) during the last three months of 1968, when he was 85 years of age

 

2Q10 – Edna Collett was born in 1921 at Kings Norton, Birmingham

 

Arthur Frederick Collett [2P6] was born at Fulbrook in Oxfordshire on 12th April 1893, the youngest of the six children of John Brain Collett and his wife Annie.  No record of him or his parents has been found within the census of 1901, although it is known that his much older brother John had already moved to Birmingham by then, while his sister Margaret was recorded in Surrey.  Ten years later in April 1911 Arthur Collett aged 17 and from Fulbrook was living at Burford in Oxfordshire with his father John Brain Collett [the first] and his mother Annie, who were both in their late fifties.  What is known is that after the death of his father and before the start of the First World War, Arthur emigrated to New Zealand.  On 10th January 1916 at Masterton, he enlisted with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and took up his duties on the following day.  It is established from his military records, as supplied by Susan Jenkins at the New Zealand Archives Office, that he was already married to Ella Mary by then.  Furthermore, his entry papers confirmed he was the son of Mrs Annie Collett of Burford in Oxfordshire, and that he had been born in that county of England on 12th April 1893.  He was 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighed 168 pounds, had brown hair, bluish grey eyes, and a fair complexion

 

The same records show that he was a shepherd at the time of his entry into military service, and that he was employed by John Clulow of Alfredton.  As Private A F Collett, service number 10316, he served with the 2nd Battalion of the Wellington Infantry Regiment for a total of two years and three hundred days, of which all bar 160 days were spent overseas.  His discharged came on 6th November 1918 when he was declared no longer physically fit for service on account of wounds received in action, following which he was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.  The injury he had sustained at Rouen in France was noted as affecting his face with the loss of a bone in his lower jaw.  His address immediately after the war was Bushgrove Pori, Pahiatua.  On 6th May 1916 Arthur sailed from New Zealand and arrived at Suez in Egypt on 23rd June, where he spent the next 33 days.  On 26th July he left Egypt and arrived at Southampton in England on 7th August, and was there in London for 21 days, after which he landed on French soil on 29th August.  Two and a half months later on 12th November 1916 he was seriously wounded during the fighting at Rouen, but it was not until 2nd December that he was taken to a military hospital in Boulogne.  Two day later he was on a boat back to England where he was admitted into King Georges Hospital at Shelford Street in London

 

How long he was there is not clear, while the next entry states that he was transferred to the A M Hospital in Sidcup, Kent on 25th April 1918.  From there, two days later, he was transferred to the General Hospital in Walton, where two weeks later he was declared unfit by the Medical Board.  There then followed a period of some months convalescence in Torquay before he was placed on board the troopship Marama which sailed out of Southampton on 31st July 1918 bound for New Zealand.  Arthur Frederick Collett married Ella Mary Meads in 1925, Ella having been born in New Zealand during 1903, the daughter of Thomas Harmon Meads and Mary Morrissey who were married in 1896 in New Zealand.  Once married Arthur and Ella lived at Pahiatua in New Zealand, although it is also known that the marriage produced no children for the couple in the relatively short time that they were together.  That was because Arthur Frederick Collett died on 2nd September 1927 at the age of 34 while in Wellington Hospital, the details of his passing being published in the Pahiatua Herald.  His military records state that his death had nothing to do with the injuries he had sustained during the war

 

Francis George Brain Collett [2P9] was born at Upper Slaughter in 1895 and it was there he was living with his family in the 1901 at the age of six years.  The only clues so far to his life can be found in the words on his headstone in the graveyard of St Peter’s Church in Upper Slaughter.  They simply read “In Loving Memory of Francis George Brain Collett a dear husband and father who died on 8th June 1977 aged 82”.  However, it is now known that at the outbreak of The Great War, George, as he was known, enlisted at the age of 19 and was sent to Mesopotamia [now Iraq], where 92,000 of the 410,000 Commonwealth troops died.  In addition to that, at the age of 44, and as a member of the Territorial Army, Sergeant Collett was one of the first to be called up in 1939 and came under fire before long as an anti-aircraft gunner with the Royal Artillery on the home front.  Upper Slaughter carries the rare distinction of being only one of a handful of settlements within the UK who welcomed home all 36 of their brave men and women after WW2 and, to commemorate that achievement, it was George Collett who carved a wooden plaque on which his son Tony Collett, from his first married, painted the names of all of those fortunate men and women.  The plaque is placed alongside one commemorating the returning soldier from WW1, with George’s name appearing on both.  After the First World War, and upon George’s return to Upper Slaughter, he continued working his father’s business of F W Collett & Son, as well being the village's odd-job man, while also being the church sexton and an occasional undertaker.  It was also during the first three months of 1926 that Francis George Brain Collett married (1) Margaret E Long, their wedding recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 551).  Five years later, their only son was born in 1931, and also a year after that the death of Margaret E Collett was recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 457) during the second quarter of 1932, at the age of 27

 

Within the written history of Upper Slaughter, there are two references to Mrs F G B Collett.  The first of them talks about the remodelling of the whole of Bagehott's Square in the village to accommodate eight cottages, the details of which were recorded by Mrs Collett of the Woman’s Institute.  The second related to the village school, and was written by Mrs Collett, the school correspondent, as follows: “In 1874 it was enlarged and placed under a management committee appointed in vestry.  A certificated mistress taught about 33 children who paid fees of 2 pence or 3 pence.  Attendance rose to 43 in 1904 but fell immediately after reorganisation to 19 in 1932.  The older children then went to Bourton-on-the-Water.  In 1961 the school, an 'aided' school with two teachers, drew some of its 30-odd children from neighbouring parishes.”  Following the death of his first wife, Francis George Brain Collett married (2) Phyllis N Parr, a spinster, with whom he had another son George William Collett who was born at Upper Slaughter during 1951.  It had been three years earlier when the marriage of Francis and Phyllis was recorded at North Cotswold register office (Ref. 7b 1149) during the second quarter of 1948.  Following the death of her first husband in 1977, Phyllis N Collett married James M Tyler, the event recorded at North Cotswold register office (Ref. 22 1513) during the last quarter of 1977, after which she was known as Phyllis Collett Tyler.  She attended the Collett Reunion at Shepton Mallet in 2006 with her son George, when she was living at Dickler Close in Bourton-on-the Water.  In 2012 their son George contacted the Collett website to announce that his mother Phyllis N Collett Tyler, nee Parr, had passed away during 2011

 

Five years earlier, in 2001, Phyllis Collett Tyler wrote a booklet entitled ‘Cotswold Romance’ the 17th Century story of John Collett of Upper Slaughter who first married his cousin Anne Collett and, when she died in 1675, he then married her sister Mary.  In doing so John committed “the most vile and detestable sin of incest”.  His marriage to Anne produced no children, but with Mary he had nine children.  So upset were the authorities by that, the sentence of divorce between John and Mary was pronounced in the parish of Upper Slaughter on 1st November 1685, the sentence confirmed by the Dean of the Archbishops Court of Delegates.  The three individuals referred to in that little tale can be found in Part 14 – The John Kyte Collett Line at references 14H6, 14H7, and 14H8.  It may be of interest that there was another connection with the name of Tyler, when Francis’ sister Violet Mary Collett (below) married into that family

 

This is the only known child of Francis George Brain Collett and Margaret E Long:

2Q11 – Anthony John Brain Collett was born in 1931 at Upper Slaughter

The following is the only child of Francis George Brain Collett by his second wife Phyllis N Parr

2Q12 – George William Collett was born in 1951 at Upper Slaughter

 

Frederick Holt Collett [2P11] was born at Upper Slaughter in 1898 and was the youngest son of Francis William Collett.  This is based on the inscription on a headstone in the churchyard of St Peter’s Church at Upper Slaughter which reads “In Loving Memory of Fred Holt younger son of Francis W and Margaret E Collett entered into rest February 13th 1931 aged 33 years”.  It seems unlikely that he was married, particularly since it was his father Francis William Collett, a carpenter, who was named as the administrator of his personal effects valued at £478 13 Shilling 10 Pence at Gloucester on 25th November 1931.  The probate office record referred to him as Fred Holt Collett

 

Violet Mary Collett [2P12] was one half of a set of twins born at Upper Slaughter in the autumn of 1900, her birth recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold register office (Ref. 6a 304) during the last three months of the year.  She and her twin sister Dorothy (1900-1928) were seven months old in the census of 1901, when they and their family were living at Eyford, three miles from Stow-on-the-Wold.  By 1911, 10-year-old Dorothy and the family was again residing in Upper Slaughter.  Twenty-four years after that census day, the marriage of Violet Mary Collett and James M Tyler was recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold register office (Ref. 6a 54) during the third quarter of 1935.  It is likely that their wedding ceremony was conducted in St Peter’s Church at Upper Slaughter where, forty years later, Violet was buried where her headstone reads “In Loving Memory of my wife Violet Mary Tyler nee Collett who died on 18th September 1975 aged 75”

 

Harriet May Collett [2P14] was born at 291 Moseley Road in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, on 5th June 1879, the eldest of the nine children of George Edward Collett and Eliza Breakwell, her birth recorded at Kings Norton (Ref. 6c 97) during the third quarter of the year.  No record of her or her parents has been positively identified within the census of 1881, but by 1891 the family was living at Russell Street in Kings Norton, where Harriet’s father had a butcher’s shop.  Harriet M Collett was 11 years old, and shortly after the family moved to Coughton in the parish of Sambourne.  It was there also that she was still living with her family in 1901, when she was recorded as Harriet May Collett from Birmingham who was 21.  Three months later, on 1st June 1901, Harriet May Collett married Ernest Johnson at Coughton Court, when May Collett from Sambourne was 21 and confirmed as the daughter of George Edward Collett.  Ernest was 29 and the son of Solomon Johnson, who was also named as one of the executors of Harriet’s father’s Will in 1920.  Harriet May Johnson died in 1972, having given birth to twelve children.  Her death, as Harriet May Johnson aged 92, was recorded at Bromsgrove register office (Ref. 9d 43) during the spring of that year.  One of those children, known as Aunty Trix – Beatrice Maud Johnson, researched the Collett family and knew genealogist Phyllis Collett Tyler [2P9]

 

Eva Reletta Collett [2P15] was born in 1881 at 291 Moseley Road in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, her birth recorded at Kings Norton (Ref. 6c 372) during the second quarter of 1881, another daughter of George and Eliza Collett.  It was at Russell Street in Kings Norton that she was living with her large family in 1891, when Eva was ten years of age.  Not long after that day, her father became the tenant farmer at Parkfield House Farm, in Coughton, with his family recorded at nearby Sambourne, where Eva R Collett was 19 in 1901.  After a further ten years, Eva and her younger unmarried brother Jesse Collett (below), a farmer, were living together at Beckford, on the Worcestershire/Gloucestershire County boundary, between Tewkesbury and Evesham.  According to the census for 1911. Eva was 29 and both she and her brother gave their place of birth as Moseley (sic).  Eva never married and lived a long life, with the death of Eva R Collett recorded at the Worcestershire Bromsgrove register office (Ref. 9d 24) during the first three months of 1968

 

Una Marie Collett [2P16] was born at Balsall Heath on 17th May 1884, her birth recorded at Kings Norton (Ref. 6c 287) during the third quarter of that year.  She was living at 291 Moseley Road in 1891 when she was named as Una M Collett aged six years.  By 1901 Una M Collett was 16 when she was still living with her family which had moved to Parkfield House Farm in Coughton nine years earlier.  On leaving school Una was a nurse who, in 1911, was working at Guys Hospital in the Southwark area of south London, when she was described as being 26, single, and from Moseley (Birmingham).  Seven years later, Una Marie Collett married Charles Martin Oldaker, with whom she had two daughters.  Their wedding took place at Coughton Court on 23rd April 1919, when Una of Coughton was confirmed as the daughter of George Edward Collett and Charles was named as the son of Charles Oldaker.  It was as Una Marie Oldaker nee Collett that she died in 1983, her passing at the age of 98, was recorded at Ross-on-Wye early in that year

 

Jesse Collett [2P17] was born at 291 Moseley Road in Balsall Heath on 29th December 1885, one of the two sons from the seven children of George Edward Collett and Eliza Breakwell.  His birth was recorded at Kings Norton (Ref. 6c 244) during the first three months of 1886.  He was five years of age in the Kings Norton census of 1891 when he was living at Russell Street with his family, while ten years later Jesse Collett from Birmingham was 15 and a student being educated at a boarding school in Wolverley near Kidderminster.  After a further ten years, the census in 1911 revealed Jesse Collett aged 25 and from Moseley (sic) was a farmer at Beckford (near Bengrove) within the Winchcombe registration district of Gloucestershire.  Staying there with him, as his housekeeper, was his older sister Eva Collett for was 29.  Jesse, or Jessie as he was known, farmed at Bengrove from 1910 until 1913.  From 1913 up until 1935 Jessie managed Larford Farm, just south of Stourport, on land adjacent to the River Severn.  Upon the death of his father in 1920, Jesse Collett, a farmer, was named as one of the four executors of his estate.  From Larford Farm, Jessie returned to Parkfield House Farm in Coughton, which his brother and his mother had worked after the death of Jessie’s father.  By that time in 1935 the farmland at Throckmorton had been acquired by the Crown Estates during the previous year, with Jessie being taken on as a tenant farmer.  Jesse Collett died at Coughton during 1964.  It was during 1914 that Jesse Collett married Jane Robb Thomson, with whom he had the three children listed below, for each of whom the mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Thomson.  Jessie and Jane’s second child, Dorothy Jean Collett (her birth recorded at Worcester Ref. 6c 169 in Qrt1) married Neil Corbett much later in her life, as a result of which there was no issue.  Dorothy Jean Corbett nee Collett died in 2003

 

2Q13 – Christian McLaren Thomson Collett was born in 1915 at Astley, near Stourport

2Q14 – Dorothy Jean Collett was born in 1918 at Astley, near Stourport; died in 2003

2Q15 – George Robert Thomson Collett was born in 1923 at Astley, near Stourport

 

Flora Dorothy Collett [2P20], who was known as Dolly, was born at 291 Moseley Road, Balsall Heath, her birth recorded at Kings Norton (Ref. 6c 317) during the third quarter of 1890.  She was one year old in the census of 1891 when she and her family were living at Russell Street in Kings Norton.  Flora D Collett was 10 in 1901 and Flora Dorothy Collett was 20 in 1911 when she was assisting her mother with housework, on both occasions she was with her family at Parkfield House in Coughton.  She later married local farmer William Green who was a distant relative of Hubert Green who married Flora’s sister Winifred (below).  In 1920, following the death of Flora’s father, it was William Green, a farmer, who was one of the four executors of his considerable estate.  Flora Dorothy Green nee Collett died in 1955

 

Winifred Collett [2P21], who was known as Winnie, was born at Sambourne in Warwickshire on 12th April 1893, youngest daughter of George Edward Collett and Eliza Breakwell. Her birth was recorded at nearby Alcester register office (Ref. 6d 291) during the second quarter of the year. She was baptised at Coughton Court, near Alcester, on 2nd July 1893, when the church register confirmed that her family was residing at nearby Sambourne.  Winifred was seven years old in the Sambourne census of 1901 and was 17 years of age in the Coughton census return for 1911.  Perhaps it was through the marriage of her older sister Dolly (above) to William Green that Winnie may have been introduced to Hubert Green, to whom she was later married, the wedding taking place at Coughton Court on 25th February 1922, when Winifred from Sambourne was 28 and the daughter of George Edward Collett and Hubert George Green, who was 34 and from Studley, the son of William Green.  Winifred Green nee Collett died in 1981, her death recorded at Bromsgrove register office (Ref. 29 58)

 

Otto Collett [2P22] was born at Sambourne in 1894, the last of the nine children of George Edward Collett and Eliza Breakwell.  His birth was recorded at Alcester (Ref. 6d 256) during the last quarter of that year, following which he was baptised at Coughton Court on 21st November 1894.  Otto was six years of age in 1901, when he and his family were still residing in Sambourne and was 16 and a farmer’s assistant in 1911 when living he was helping his father on their farm at Sambourne.  It was eight years later when Otto Collett married Dorothy G Gibbs, the wedding recorded at Alcester register office (Ref. 6d 7) during the first quarter of 1920.  Dorothy Gwendoline Gibbs was born in Warwickshire and baptised at Studley on 29th May 1898, the daughter of John and Rebecca Gibbs.  On their wedding day Dorothy was well advanced in bearing her first child, whose birth was recorded at Alcester (Ref. 6d 125) during the second quarter of 1920.  Like his father, Otto Collett was also a farmer and was one of the four executors of his father’s Will which was proved in 1920.  Fifteen years later Otto left Warwickshire to farm in Kent.  That was during 1935, when his mother went to live the remainder of her life with her eldest daughter Harriet May Johnson

 

The marriage of Otto and Dorothy Collett produced two sons and five daughters, as listed below when, in each case, the birth was recorded at Alcester and the mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Gibbs.  It is worth highlighting, to avoid any confusion, that the births of the two children of George Otto Wilkins Collett [2P57] and Florence M Hopkins were also recorded at Alcester in 1922 and 1925.  It is understood that Otto and Dorothy’s eldest son, George Otto Collett, lived in Worcestershire, where he had two sons, while Otto’s youngest son John lived in Norfolk.  Towards the end of their life together, Otto and Dorothy retired to Birmingham, where the death of Dorothy Collett was recorded (Ref. 9c 379) during the third quarter of 1964 when she was 67.  Her husband only lasted around six months on his own, when the death of Otto Collett was also record at Birmingham (Ref. 9c 143) during the second quarter of 1965, when he was 70

 

In addition to Otto Collett being a husband and a father, he would also appear to be a bit of a lad, according to numerous items published in his local newspapers, as detailed here.  The first of them was reported in the Warwick & Warwickshire Advertiser on 26th July 1930, and read as follows: “Otto Collett fined £5 and £1-3s riding motorcycle into herd of cows”.  A spell of staying within the law endured for five years, during which time the family had left Alcester and had settled in Sevenoaks.  The next newspaper to feature the exploits of Otto Collett was the Sevenoaks Chronicle & Kentish Advertiser.  On 4th December 1935, the paper reported that Otto Collett had been drunk when involved in an incident, when the van he was driving overturned.  One week later, on 11th December, he was pulled up for speeding in a van between Ivy House Farm and Sundridge Farm in the village of Knockholt, just north-west of Sevenoaks.  Eleven months later, on 20th November 1936, Otto has charged with being drunk and after a further eight months, on 15th July 1937 he was found not guilty of drink driving.  Earlier that same year, the newspaper included an advertisement in which Otto Collett was seeking to appoint a cowman on his farm.

 

On 13th May 1938, it was reported that, under distress for rent, Otto Collett of Ivy Farmhouse was forced to sell the property by auction.  Four years later, in 1942, Ivy Farm was sold by Sir Waldron Smithers (Tory MP) to the Ministry of Defence, after which the farm was used as a secret Government Communications Wireless Station.  It was that station which intercepted a fax being sent to the Japanese about USA flying formations, the result of which allowed the USA to change planned flying formations

 

2Q16 – Rita Gwendoline Collett was born in 1920 at Alcester, Warwickshire

2Q17 – George Otto Collett was born in 1921 at Alcester, Warwickshire

2Q18 – Ina Margaret Collett was born in 1924 at Alcester, Warwickshire

2Q19 – Gladys Monica Collett was born in 1926 at Alcester, Warwickshire

2Q20 – Mavis Dorothy Collett was born in 1928 at Alcester, Warwickshire

2Q21 – Patricia M Collett was born in 1930 at Alcester, Warwickshire

2Q22 – John Malcolm Collett was born in 1932 at Alcester, Warwickshire

 

William John Collett [2P26] was born at 22 Cromwell Street in Swindon on 17th January 1870.  By the time of the census on the second of April in 1871 William’s parents were sharing a terraced house at 22 Cromwell Street in Swindon with the Hardiman family.  William’s father was employed by the GWR as was William Hardiman.  The census simply recorded that William J Collett was born in Swindon and that he was one year old.  Ten years later his family had moved and was then living at 7 Bath Street in April 1881, where William was eleven and attending the GWR School in the railway village, as that area of Swindon was called.  He later attended the New Swindon Mechanics Institution Evening Classes and was awarded a prize in December 1884 presented by W. Dean.  That was a leather-bound Webster’s Dictionary which was handed down through the generations to Brian Collett born in 1946 and the compiler of this family history website.  William’s occupation was that of carpenter with the Great Western Railway prior to his death three months before he reached his twentieth birthday.  He died at 7 Bath Street in Swindon on 29th October 1889, the cause of death being recorded as typhoid.  New information has come to light that may suggest William followed in his father’s footsteps by joining the navy and served on board HMS Endeavour in the years between 1885 and 1889.  It may therefore be that on a trip overseas he contracted the illness which eventually killed him

 

Albert Henry Collett [2P27] was born at 22 Cromwell Street in Swindon on 3rd September 1872.  At the start of the next decade his family moved into new accommodation at 7 Bath Street in Swindon which was provided by the GWR with whom his father was employed.  The census in 1881 confirmed that Albert was eight years old and that he was living with his family at 7 Bath Street.  No record of Albert has been found anywhere in the census of 1891 and that may coincide with the stories within the family that he was a sailor like his father.  In 1900 Albert married Rosina A Lewis (pictured right below), the event being recorded at the Gloucester register office during the third quarter of the year.  Rosina was born at Stroud during the first three months of 1877 and was the daughter of brewer’s labourer John Lewis and his wife Sarah A Lewis, both of Stroud.  The couple initially lived in the Kingsholm district of Gloucester St Marks, and it was there at 49 Sherborne Street that they were recorded as visitors in the March census of 1901.  That was the home of twenty-six years old widow Emily Newman who was a labeller in jam making.  Albert was described as 28 and a blacksmith from Swindon.  His wife Rosina was 23 from Gloucester, and also staying at the house with them was the widow Ann Daniels who was 43 and from Nantiglow in Monmouthshire

 

Over the next ten years Rosina (pictured here) presented her husband with five children, the first three of which were born while the couple was still living in Gloucester.  By 1907 the family had moved to Wales and it was at 23 Dolphin Street in Newport in Monmouthshire that William and Rosina were living in April 1911.  The census return recorded that the couple had been married for eleven years and that Albert Henry Collett from Swindon was 38 and a dock warehouseman employed by a dock company.  Rosina was 33, and their five children were Violet who was 10, Ella who was eight, Mervyn who was six, William who was four, and Arthur who was two years old.  Whilst no date is known for the passing of Albert Henry Collett, he wife Rosina Collett nee Lewis died at Newport during the last three months of 1962 when she was 85.  In August 2000 Donna Collett provided the following information.  Her grandfather was Bertie Collett who, as Bertram H F Collett, was married to Pearl Davies.  Her father was Paul Collett and he had siblings Bertie, Georgie, Anna, Cathy and Christine, all of whom were from Newport.  An attempt to make contact with Donna’s father in 2000 failed, as he did not wish to discuss any aspect of his family’s past life.  However, thanks to new information received in June 2006 from Andrew (Andy) Collett in England and his cousin Karen Rowan (daughter of Patricia Collett) of Australia, a clearer picture of the family has emerged.  That was followed up by more information on this branch of the family from Terence Prescott during 2012/2013 which validated much of what had been written before

 

Albert Henry Collett (above) was a sailor at some time in his life, possibly during the Great War.  The photograph is an extract from a larger photograph in which Albert was flanked by his mother Caroline Ruth Collett and his wife Rosina Collett.  Albert is known to have spent some time in Gloucester Gaol and that most likely happened around 1906, six years after he had married Rosina.  The story within the family suggests that he made his escape from the prison and fled to South Wales.  The family story also includes the fact that Rosina, and her three children at that time, walked the entire journey from Gloucester to Newport, to be with her fugitive husband.  No record of his later death has so far been found.  It was perhaps that episode in his life that resulted in Albert severing all ties with his Swindon-based family, and it was also that separation which made it so difficult to trace him and his family, that is until this new information about his life came to light

 

2Q23 – Violet Winifred E C Collett was born in 1901 at Gloucester

2Q24 – Ella Agnes Collett was born in 1903 at Gloucester

2Q25 – Mervyn Stephen A Collett was born in 1905 at Gloucester

2Q26 – William Collett was born in 1907 at Newport, South Wales

2Q27 – Arthur Stephen Collett was born in 1909 at Newport, South Wales

2Q28 – Lewis George Collett was born in 1911 at Newport, South Wales

2Q29 – Nora L Collett was born in 1913 at Newport, South Wales

2Q30 – Bertram Henry F Collett was born in 1915 at Newport, South Wales

 

Elizabeth Annie Collett [2P28], who was referred to as Lizzie by the family, was born at 22 Cromwell Street in Swindon between January and March 1874.  By 1881 the family was living at 7 Bath Street in New Town Swindon where Elizabeth was seven years old.  In between, the family had lived for five years at 16 Exeter Street.  Ten years later Elizabeth A Collett from Swindon was living and working in the Edmonton district of London, although she gave her age as being eighteen.  Three years after that Elizabeth had returned to Swindon where she married Frederick Henry Taylor during the first three months of 1894.  Fred, as he was known, was also born at Swindon towards the end of 1873.  Their marriage produced three children who were all born at Swindon, where Lizzie and Fred spent all their married life.  The children’s details are included below.  Initially the couple initially lived with Elizabeth’s widowed mother Caroline Collett at 7 Bath Street, and it was very likely there that their first child was born, and where the three of them were listed in the March census of 1901.  Elizabeth Taylor was 27, as was her husband Frederick, who was employed by the GWR as a railway carriage fitter, while their son William F H Taylor who was only eleven months old.  Within the next ten years a further two children were added to the family which, by April 1911, had moved from 7 Bath Street to 13 Morse Street in Swindon.  The census that year recorded the family as Frederick Henry Taylor, aged 36, Elizabeth Annie Taylor, also 36, William Frederick Henry Taylor, who was 11, Frederick Maurice Taylor who was eight, and Arthur George Taylor who was three.  At that same time Elizabeth’s mother Caroline was living with Lizzie’s brother Maurice but, shortly after, he and his family moved to Lancashire, following which Caroline moved in with the Taylor family, where she remained until her death in 1929.  Fred Taylor senior died in Swindon, where his death was recorded during the first three months of 1933.  His widow Elizabeth Anne Taylor, nee Collett, died in Swindon in late 1937, her passing also registered there during the fourth quarter of that year, when she was 63 years of age

 

William Frederick Henry Taylor was born during the second quarter of 1900.  He married Olive May Phillips in Swindon when he was 25, Olive having been born there in the first three months of 1901.  However, they were only married for just eight years when William died at Swindon in 1933, aged 33, coincidentally the same year that his father also passed away.  Olive survived her husband by forty-eight years, when she died at Salisbury in 1981 at the age of 80.  It would appear that their marriage resulted in the birth of two children, the records giving the mother’s maiden name as Phillips.  And they were Barbara O Taylor, born at Swindon in 1926, Gerald W M Taylor, born at Swindon in 1931.  Frederick Maurice Taylor was born towards the end of 1902.  He married Ethel Mason at Swindon in 1929 when he was 27, Ethel having been born during the last three months of 1903.  Frederick Taylor later became the Headmaster of Gorse Hill Junior School in Swindon sometime during the middle of the twentieth century.  It was also in Swindon that he died in April 1987, his wife having already passed away by then, with Ethel’s death recorded in Swindon during the December quarter of 1980.  Their daughter Janet M Taylor was born in Swindon in early 1933, when her mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Mason.  Arthur George Taylor was born between April and June in 1907.  It was during the final months of 1930 that he married Muriel Saunders, who may have been the Muriel Amy Saunders who was born at Malmesbury in 1906.  The marriage produced one son, Ronald F Taylor who was born in Swindon during the second quarter of 1934, when his mother’s maiden name was verified as Saunders.  The couple was married for almost twenty years when Arthur died in Swindon during the spring of 1950.  It is possible that Muriel remarried, since no record of the later death of Muriel Collett has been found

 

Caroline Ruth Collett [2P29], referred to as Carrie by the family, was born at 16 Exeter Street in Swindon between July and September 1876, although by April 1881 the family was living at 7 Bath Street where Caroline was four years old.  Ten years later, when Caroline was fourteen, she was the oldest of the eleven children of William Collett and Caroline Ruth Watts still living in the family home at 7 Bath Street in Swindon.  By that time her father had died two years earlier, so Caroline was supporting her widowed mother looking after the younger members of the family.  According to the Swindon census of 1901, Caroline was 24 and was still unmarried and was still living with her mother at 7 Bath Street.  Her occupation at that time was recorded as being a tailoress like her younger sister Nellie with whom she probably worked.  It would appear that she married Frederick Hood about seven years later, sometime around 1908.  Once married the couple initially appear to have been in the Chippenham area of Wiltshire, where the birth of their only child was registered, although by 1911 the family of three was residing at 14 Southbrook Street in Swindon, when the child’s place of birth was given as Swindon.  On that occasion the Swindon family comprised Frederick J Hood, who was 39, his wife Caroline R Hood, who was 34, and their one-year-old daughter Edith M Hood.  Their daughter, who was known as Eddy, may or may not have been born in Swindon, but her birth was recorded at Chippenham during the third quarter of 1909.  She married Ernest Rex Franklyn at Swindon in 1934 and they lived in the house next door to her parents in Southbrook Street.  Rex, as he was known, was born at Cirencester in 1909.  Caroline and Frederick later moved to Box near Minchinhampton which, curiously enough, was where her mother Caroline Ruth Collett nee Watts was born.  Edith died at Havering in Essex in 1990, while her husband died there in July 2001

 

HARRY JAMES COLLETT [2P30] was born at 16 Exeter Street in Swindon on 9th January 1879.  Shortly after he was born his father William Collett changed his job and the family moved into a terraced house provided by the Great Western Railway at 7 Bath Street in the Railway Village of Swindon New Town.  That was confirmed by the census of 1881 when Harry was incorrectly listed as Henry Collett aged two years.  Seven years later when Harry when nine years old his father died, so by 1891 Harry was 12 and was still living at 7 Bath Street with his widowed mother and his some of his brothers and sisters.  His two older brothers had left home by then leaving Harry as the eldest male.  In order to retain the GWR living accommodation Harry’s mother Caroline was working for the GWR in 1891.  However, with her advancing years it was incumbent on Harry to secure employment with the company when he left school a few years later in order to retain their home.  By March 1901 he had completed his apprenticeship and the census that year listed him as Harry J Collett, aged 22, who was working for the GWR as a railway engine boiler-smith.  On that occasion he was living with his mother and his family at 7 Bath Street.  Also, by that time, two of his younger brothers were serving their apprenticeships with the railway company

 

Towards the end of the next decade Harry met his future wife Alice Louisa Collett of Siddington near Cirencester who was working in domestic service in Swindon.  He married ALICE LOUISA COLLETT (Ref. 1P60) on 13th March 1909 at St Mark's Church in Swindon.  Their wedding was recorded at Swindon register office (Ref. 5a 23) during the month of March that year.  Almost exactly one year later the April census of 1911 placed Harry and Alice living at 7 Bathampton Street (formerly 7 Bath Street), his mother having moved out to live with Harry’s younger brother Maurice in Swindon.  The census return confirmed that the couple had been married for two years, while living with them was the first of their eight children.  Harry James Collett was 32 and a boiler-maker working in the GWR Locomotive Department of the GWR, Alice Louisa was 30 and from Siddington, and their son William Henry John was one year old.  The photograph above was taken before he became a married man, but for the occasion of his wedding he took to having a moustache which he retained for the rest of his life.  For more details about Harry and his family with Alice, go to Part 1 – The Main Line 1880 to 2008 starting with his wife Alice Louisa Collett (Ref. 1P60)

 

Nellie Winifred Collett [2P32], who was referred to as Nell by the family, was one half of a set of twins born at 7 Bath Street in Swindon in January 1881, her twin sister Ellen Agnes sadly died later that same year.  In the census that year she was recorded as Nellie W Collett aged three months.  Her father William Collett died when she was just seven years old, following which she continued to live at 7 Bath Street with the rest of her family for the next eighteen years.  However, rather strangely, when she was ten, she was absent from her family home in Swindon, and instead was living with her elderly widowed aunt, Sarah Ann Ingwell from Bibury, her father’s eldest surviving sister at East Hagbourne in Berkshire, between Wantage and Didcot, today part of Oxfordshire.  How long she was away from her family is not known, but by 1901, Nellie W Collett from Swindon and 20 years of age, was again living with her family at 7 Bath Street on the day of the census.  At that time in her life, she was unmarried and was working with her older sister Caroline as a tailoress.  It was just over five years later that Nellie Winifred Collett was married in Swindon to housepainter Edward Bizley, their wedding recorded there (Ref. 5a 103) during the last three months of 1906.  Edward was born in Swindon during 1876 and was the son of William Bizley of South Marston and his wife Elizabeth of Bampton in Oxfordshire.  In 1881 Edward, who was later more commonly known as Duke Bizley, was five years old and was living at Hyde Cottages in Highworth with his agricultural labourer father and the rest of his family

 

Over the next few years, the marriage produced three children for the couple, with the photograph (above) taken shortly after the birth of their son.  All three of their children were previously thought to have been born before the census of 1911.  However, the Swindon census return completed in early April that year disproves the theory, since the only child living with the couple was their daughter Ella, who was named after Nellie’s departed twin sister.  The census confirmed that Nellie Winifred Bizley was 30, her husband Edward Bizley was 34, and their daughter Ella Winifred Bizley was two years old.  It therefore seems highly likely that Nellie was with-child on that day and, that shortly after, she presented her husband with the couple’s second child.  Just prior to the start of the Great War, Nellie gave birth to the couple’s third and last child after which Edward became involved in the conflict, service number 101489.  It is established from his military records that he served in France, was demobbed in 1919, and overstayed his leave by twenty-three hours in 1918, for which he lost two-days’ pay.  Edward Bizley died on 5th July 1956 when he and Nellie were living at 16 Evelyn Street in Swindon, his death recorded there (Ref. 7c 436) when he was 79.  Administration of his estate of £3,024 14 Shillings 3 Pence was granted to his widow Nellie Collett.  Three years later widow Nellie Winifred Bizley nee Collett died on 29th September 1959 when she was still living at 16 Evelyn Street.  Her Will, valued at £2,285 3 Shillings 6 Pence, was proved at Gloucester on 20th October 1959 in favour of her two surviving children Ella Winifred Bizley and Norah Joan Bizley, both of them spinsters.  Tragically her son Edward had lost his life during the Second World War

 

2O31 – Ella Winifred Bizley was born in 1909 at Swindon

2O32 – Edward Bizley was born in 1911 at Swindon

2O33 – Nora Bizley was born in 1914 at Swindon

 

Arthur Stephen Alan Collett was born at 7 Bath Street in Swindon on 2nd October 1882 where he was still living in 1891 at the age of eight with his mother following the death of his father William Collett when Arthur was five.  By 1901, when he was nineteen, Arthur was a sapper with the Royal Engineers and was in barracks in Kent.  Shortly after March 1901 it is understood that Arthur sailed to South Africa where he took part in the final phase of the Boer War, during which he obtained the rank of staff sergeant.  The Treaty of Vereeniging was signed in 1902 and that put an end to the unpopular ‘scorched earth’ policy employed by Lord Kitchener which was used to destroy Boer farms and move the civilian occupants into concentration camps

 

Arthur continued to live in Pretoria for a few years after the end of the hostilities, perhaps in a peace-keeping capacity, and returned to England around 1906.  He was still in the army by April 1911 and was once again billeted in the Elham area of Kent.  It seems very likely that he was de-mobbed just after 1911 when he returned to Swindon, where he took up employment with the Great Western Railway as a boiler-smith, like many of his brothers.  He continued to work for the GWR until 1916 when he became a married man at the age of thirty-four.  Around that time Arthur was offered a new job with the Vickers Aircraft Company in Sheffield, having already met his future wife Mary Maud Bigwood of Devizes.  The couple then moved to Sheffield where they were married on 2nd February 1916.  Mary was born at Devizes on 9th October 1889 and the couple’s first child was born at Devizes almost exactly one year after their wedding, even though they had made a permanent move to Sheffield by that time.  It can perhaps be assumed that Mary was either just visiting her mother or that she was unwell nearing the end of her pregnancy and was being cared for by her mother.  All of the remaining children were born at Sheffield, where Arthur died on 5th December 1949, followed by Mary fifteen years later, who died there on 6th October 1964

 

2Q34 – Ruby Lillian Maud Collett was born in 1917 at Devizes, Wiltshire

2Q35 – Nellie Louise Collett was born on 18th November 1919 at Sheffield; died on 8th March 1928

2Q36 – Arthur William Henry Collett was born in 1921 at Sheffield, Yorkshire

2Q37 – Charles Frederick Collett was born in 1923 at Sheffield, Yorkshire

2Q38 – Glenna Collett was born in 1925 at Sheffield, Yorkshire

2Q39 – Mervyn Collett was born in 1928 at Sheffield, Yorkshire

2Q40 – Patricia Mary Collett was born in 1930 at Sheffield, Yorkshire

 

Maurice Edward Collett [2P34] was born at 7 Bath Street in Swindon on 8th January 1885 and was only three and a half years old when his father died during the summer of 1888.  By the time of the census of 1891 Maurice and his family were still living at the house at 7 Bath Street which was rented to them by the Great Western Railway.  The census that year recorded him in error as Morris E Collett aged six years.  Ten years later in March 1901 he was still living there aged sixteen, but by then he was employed by the GWR as an apprenticed boiler-smith.  The photograph of Maurice (below) was taken on the day of his brother Harry’s wedding in March 1909, while it was towards the end of the previous year when the marriage of Maurice Edward Collett and Florence Beatrice White from Frome in Somerset, was recorded at Swindon register office (Ref. 5a 145) during the last quarter of 1908.  Their marriage produced a total of eight children with the first three of them born when Maurice and Florence were living at 14 Stanier Street in Swindon, where they were recorded in the census of 1911.  The census that year stated that the couple had been married for two years, with their third anniversary happening towards the end of that same year.

 

The full census return in 1911, recorded the family as Maurice Edward Collett, aged 26 and from Swindon, who was by then a fully-fledged boiler-smith with the GWR, his wife Florence, aged 27 and from Frome, and their first two children, Ella Collett who said to be two years old, although she was still to celebrate her second birthday, having been born nine months after her parents were married, and Edward Collett who was just two weeks old.  It seems very likely that the birth of the couple’s two-week-old son had not been registered by the time of the census, since it was subsequently changed to Reginald Maurice Collett.  Also living with the family at that time on second April 1911, was Maurice’s widowed mother Caroline Collett who had given up her GWR supplied family home at 7 Bathampton Street to Maurice’s older brother Harry James Collett (a GWR employee) and his young family.  Almost exactly two years later, Florence presented Maurice with the couple’s third child while they were still living at 14 Stanier Street.  However, sometime after, either in 1914 or early in 1915, Maurice’s work took him from Swindon to Lancashire, where the family took up residence at 1 London Row, Vulcan Village, in Newton-le-Willows, where a further five children were born

 

In 1931 Maurice and his family made their final move when they went to live at 426 Wargrave Road in Newton-le-Willows, and it was there twenty-three years later that Maurice Edward Collett died on 24th March 1954.  Florence had died nineteen months before Maurice, when she passed away at Newton-le-Willows on 29th August 1952.  Florence had been born at Innox Hill in Frome on 19th November 1883, the daughter of Frank and Martha White who were also born in Frome.  By 1891 they had left the Somerset town and moved to Swindon where, in 1901, Martha White was 49 and Frank, who was 45, was working for the Great Western Railway as an engine painter.  At that time 17 years old Florence B White was employed as a cloth machinist

 

2Q41 – Ella Florence Collett was born in 1909 at Swindon

2Q42 – Reginald Maurice Collett was born in 1911 at Swindon

2Q43 – Frederick Arthur Collett was born in 1913 at Swindon

2Q44 – Percival Francis Collett was born in 1915 at Newton-le-Williams, Lancashire

2Q45 – Bertram William Collett was born in 1918 at Newton-le-Williams, Lancashire

2Q46 – Ethel May Collett was born in 1920 at Newton-le-Williams, Lancashire

2Q47 – Lily Cecilia Collett was born in 1923 at Newton-le-Williams, Lancashire

2Q48 – Mervyn Albert Collett was born in 1926 at Newton-le-Williams, Lancashire

 

Percy Ethelbert Collett [2P35] was born at 7 Bath Street in Swindon on 2nd June 1886.  By the time of the census of 1891 his father had been dead for almost three years, although Percy who was four and his family continued to live at 7 Bath Street which was provided by the Great Western Railway for whom his father had worked.  Ten years later, when Percy was 14, he had left school and was employed by the GWR with whom he was an apprenticed iron moulder.  On completion of his apprenticeship Percy left Swindon and joined the army and by April 1911 he was billeted at Plymouth.  The census that year simply recorded him as Percy Collett, aged 24 and from Swindon, who was unmarried and was serving with the military in Plymouth.  The move to Plymouth became a permanent one, as it was there that Percy lived for the rest of his life.  Just less than eight years later he married Florence May Gabriel of South View, Seymour Road, Mannamead in Plymouth on 18th January 1919, the marriage being registered at Launceston in Cornwall.  In their early years together, the couple lived at 4 Penny-cum-Quick in Plymouth, where their only son was born, before moving to 6 Central Park Drive in Plymouth

 

Percy Ethelbert Collett died at the City Hospital in Plymouth on 5th August 1952.  His Will was proved in London on 3rd September 1952 when his widow Florence May Collett was named as the executor of his estate of £494 2 Shillings.  It was seventeen years later that Florence died there on 9th July 1969.  Florence May Gabriel was born at Child Okeford, near Blandford Forum in Dorset, on 10th April 1892, her birth being recorded at Sturminster.  She was the daughter of Stephen and Annie Gabriel and in 1901 Florence, who was eight years old, and her family were living at Chard, just over the Dorset border in Somerset

 

2Q49 - Stephen Peter Marshall Collett was born in 1920 at Plymouth

 

Mervyn Fred Matthew Collett [2P36] was born at 7 Bath Street in Swindon on 29th September 1887, the youngest child of William Collett and his wife Caroline Ruth watts.  Mervyn was barely one year old when his father William Collett died.  Mervyn was three years old in 1891 while still living with his family at 7 Bath Street, while ten years later he was still attending school in Swindon at the age of thirteen.  During the next ten years, he met Lily Thrush of 3 Hinton Road in Swindon and, on 16th July 1910, they were married in Swindon.  Just over three months after they were married, Lily presented her husband with the first of their two children.  The photograph of Mervyn (below) was taken in 1910, on the occasion of the wedding of his older brother Harry Collett (above).  The couple initially settled in Swindon for perhaps just the first year of the marriage, and it was there that their first child was born.  That was confirmed by the April census of 1911 when the family of three was recorded as living at 14 Handel Street in Swindon.  The census return recorded that Mervyn and Lily had been married for less than one year and that both of them, and their five months old son, had been born in Swindon.  That would perhaps indicate that their son Frederick was a slightly premature ‘honeymoon baby’

 

Mervyn was listed as being 23 and his occupation was that of a boiler-smith working for the Great Western Railway, while his wife was only twenty years old.  During the September of the following year the couple’s second and last child was born while the family was still living in Swindon.  However, not long after that though, Mervyn and his family left Swindon and followed his older brother Percy (above) to Plymouth.  They lived at 35 Clarence Road in Plymouth until it was bombed in the blitz of 1943, following which the family were re-housed at 32 Clarence Road.  Mervyn Fred Matthew Collett died at Plymouth on 4th April 1951 of double pneumonia, while Lily, who was born at Swindon in 1891, died at Plymouth eleven years later on 17th August 1962

 

2Q50 – Frederick Mervyn Collett was born in 1910 at Swindon

2Q51 – Maurice William Arthur Collett was born in 1912 at Swindon

 

Ann Mary Elizabeth Collett [2P37] was born at Poulton in 1865, her birth recorded at Cirencester (Ref. 6a 40) during the third quarter of the year with her full name.  It was also at Poulton that she was baptised on 1st October 1865, the daughter of William Henry Collett and his wife Esther.  Ann Mary Collett from Poulton was six years old in 1871 when she was living with her parents and younger sister Martha (below) at Meysey Hampton, one mile east of Poulton.  By 1881 the family was living in Stroud where Ann Collett from Poulton was 15 and, ten years later, as Ann M E Collett from Poulton, she was 25 and working as a general servant, living at the High Street home, in Minchinhampton, of the Thompson family in 1891.  In 1901 she was a seamstress and was still not married at the age of 35 and was living at Brimscombe to where her family had moved.  Ten years later in the census of 1911, Ann was still a spinster living at Brimscombe where she was recorded as Annie Collett aged 45.  The description of where she was living was ‘institution’ rather than ‘household’.  It is now confirmed that Ann never married, and it was at Stroud register office (Ref. 6a 91) that the death of Ann M E Collett was recorded during the third quarter of 1922 when she was 57

 

Martha Ellen Collett [2P38] was born at Arlington in 1868, her birth using her full name recorded at Cirencester (Ref. 6a 206) during the first three months of the year.  In 1871 Martha Ellen Collett from Arlington was three years old and was living with her parents and older sister Ann (above) at Meysey Hampton, a few miles east of Cirencester.  By 1881 she was living with her family at Dark Mill in Stroud where she was 13 and born at Arlington.  Ten years later, at the age of 23, Martha E Collett was unmarried and a domestic servant and a cook employed by elderly Amelia and Annie Legge at Navinhole in Minchinhampton, where Martha’s parents were living in 1891 and where her youngest brother Arthur (below) was born in 1886.  It was early in 1900 when Martha Ellen Collett married Henry Browning, the event was recorded at Stroud (Ref. 6a 735) during the first quarter of the year.  One year later, the childless couple was recorded at Nailsworth near Stroud, where Henry Browning from Lower Guiting was 40 and a carter on a farm and Ellen Browning from Cirencester was 32.  Tragically she was only married for just under nine years, when the death of Martha Ellen Browning aged 41 was recorded at Stroud (Ref. 6a 330) during the second quarter of 1909.  Having been widowed, Henry Browning married (2) Margaret Kate Hendy, a widow with a child from her first marriage, the event recorded at Stroud register office (Ref. 6a 237) during the last three months of 1909.  According to the census of 1911, Henry aged 51 and a carter working for a grocer was living at Walkley Wood in Nailsworth with his wife Margaret Browning from Stroud who was 31.  With the couple was Edward Hendy aged three years from Bristol, and just-born Frances Browning of Walkley Wood

 

James Henry Collett [2P39] was born at Shorncote in 1872, the eldest son of William Henry Collett and Hester Mills, whose birth was recorded at Cirencester (Ref. 6a 219) during the first quarter of the year.  Sometime over the next few years his family moved to Dark Hill in Stroud where James Collett from Shorncote was nine years of age in 1881 and, by 1891, he and his family were living at ‘Navinhole’ in Minchinhampton, where 19-year-old James was a stick worker and fish skinner, the eldest of the four children still living with their parents.  The Dark Mill at Stroud was well-known for making umbrellas from 1885, where the stick workers were an integral part of the manufacturing process.  By 1901 he was still living with his family in Minchinhampton where James Collett from Shorncote was a 29-year-old stick worker, working with his sister Sarah (below).  During the first decade of the new century, both of James’ parents passed away, leaving unmarried James Collett of Shorncote at 39 years of age and employed as an umbrella stick finisher in 1911.  On that day he was living with his younger unmarried sister Sarah Collett (below) from Kemble, who was head of the household and an umbrella stick stainer.  Also living with them, was their younger brother Arthur Collett from ‘Navinhole’ in Minchinhampton, who was 25.  Five years later, the death of James H Collett was recorded at Stroud register office (Ref. 6a 78) during the fourth quarter of 1916, when he was 44 years old

 

Sarah Ann Collett [2P40] was born in 1874 at Kemble, near Cirencester where her birth was recorded (Ref. 6a 248) during the third quarter of the year.  During the next couple of years her family moved to Dark Mill in Stroud where Sarah from Kemble was six years old in 1881.  Shortly after the birth of her youngest sibling, Arthur (below), the family settled in Minchinhampton and, in 1891, when Sarah was 16 and already working as a stick worker and stainer, it was at ‘Navinhole’ that the family was recorded.  In 1901 she was again living with her family in Minchinhampton, when Sarah was 26 and a stick worker, like her brother James (above), employed in the manufacturing and production of umbrellas.  First her mother died in 1902 and then her father six years later, leaving Sarah Collett of Kemble, still a spinster at the age of 36, when she was head of the household and employed as an umbrella stick stainer in Minchinhampton.  Living there with her were her two brothers, James (above) with whom she was still working, and Arthur (below).  Sarah Ann never married, but lived a long life in Gloucestershire, when the death of Sarah A Collett was recorded at Stroud register office (Ref. 7b 95) during the third quarter of 1960, at the age of 86

 

Arthur John Collett [2P43] was born either at the end of 1885 or early in 1886, with his birth recorded at Stroud (Ref. 6a 226) during the first quarter of the latter.  He was the last child born to parents William Collett and Hester Mills.  By the time he was five years of age his family was living in Minchinhampton, at a location referred to as ‘Navinhole’.  After a further ten years, at the age of 15 in 1901, he had already left school and was employed as a pin worker while still living at the family home in Minchinhampton, when his place of birth was recorded as Brimscombe.  His mother died during the following year, and his father six years later, at which time Arthur continued to live in Minchinhampton with his unmarried sister Sarah (above) and older brother James (above).  According to the Minchinhampton census conducted in 1911, Arthur Collett was 25 and a core maker at a brass foundry whose place of birth was curiously recorded as Navinhole.  What happened to him after that day has still to be determined

 

Ellen Louisa Messenger Collett [2P51] was born in the hamlet of Foxcote near Dowdeswell in 1885, the eldest of the five known children of farmer William Collett and his wife Emma Elizabeth Messenger.  As Ellen Louisa Collett, she was six years old in the Dowdeswell census of 1891, when living with her parents and three younger siblings at Foxcote, Upper Dowdeswell. After a brief time at Kilkenny in Dowdeswell, her family was living at Cranham, near Coopers Hill in the parish of Stroud by 1901.  By that time Ellen had left school and was working and living away from the family home.  It was six years later on 1st April 1907 that Ellen was married by banns to Albert James at St Mary’s Church in Charlton Kings, near Cheltenham.  The parish record provided the following information.  Firstly, that the bride was Ellen Louisa Messenger Collett, a spinster of 22 years of 2 Hamlett’s Yard, and the daughter of labourer William Collett.  Secondly, that Albert was a bachelor at 27, a labourer from 4 Somerset Cottages, and the son of William James.  The witnesses were William James and Emily Jane Collett, and the marriage of Ellen Louisa M Collett and Albert James from Charlton Kings, was recorded at Cheltenham register office (Ref. 6a 95)

 

Albert James, the son of William and Jane James, was born at Church Street in Charlton Kings in 1879 and was a navvy in the census of 1901 when he 21 and still living with his family at Charlton Kings.  By the time of the next census in 1911, Ellen had provided Albert with a son who was born at Charlton Kings, where the family was still living in April 1911 at 6 Emily Place off Horsefair Street.  Albert James was 31 and a labourer with the local urban district council, Ellen James from Foxcote was 26 and their son Ernest James was three years old.  Staying with the family that day was Ellen’s youngest brother Frank Collett (below) from Kilkenny who was 14.  Three more children were added to the family during the following decade.  Two years after that census day, Ellen gave birth to a daughter, the birth of Kathleen E James recorded at Cheltenham register office (Ref. 6a 31) during the second quarter of 1913, when the mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Collett.  Just less than two years, the birth of Francis L James was recorded at Cheltenham (Ref. 6a 131) during the first three months of 1915, and he was followed by the birth of Howard J James whose birth was also recorded at Cheltenham register office (Ref. 6a 51) towards the end of 1918.  Again, both of those records confirmed the mother’s maiden name as Collett.  Ellen L James was only forty-seven when she died, her death recorded at Cheltenham register office (Ref. 6a 481) during the last three months of 1932.  Albert James survived for another twenty years, when his death was also recorded at Cheltenham register office (Ref. 7b 407) during the first three months of 1953 at the age of 74

 

Emily Jane Collett [2P52] was born at Foxcote, near Dowdeswell in 1887, the daughter of William and Elizabeth Collett whose birth was registered at Northleach (Ref. 6a 375) during the first three months of that year.  As Emily Jane Collett she was four years old in the Upper Dowdeswell census of 1891, and at the time of her completing her education her family had settled at Cranham near Coopers Hill, Stroud.  Upon leaving school she was employed as a general servant at the home of the Giblett family in Brockworth near Coopers Hill, not very far from her parents, where she was recorded in March 1901 as Emily Collett, aged 14, from Withington.  Six years later Emily Jane was the second witness at the wedding of her older sister Ellen (above) at Charlton Kings.  After a further four years Emily Collett, aged 24 and from Foxcote, was living and working in the Cardiff area of South Wales

 

It was just over nine years later that she married John Edward Hosier, their wedding being registered at Swansea during the third quarter of 1920.  John was born at Camberwell in London during the September quarter of 1880 (Ref. 1d 810) and he was married to Emily for just under ten years.  During those years Emily presented John with two daughters.  The first was Mary E Hosier who was born at Swansea during the second quarter of 1921 (Ref. 11a 2526), where she later married Clifford R Phillipert at the end of 1951 (Ref. 8b 1235).  The couple’s second daughter was Edith M Hosier who was also born at Swansea during the September quarter of 1926 (Ref. 11a 1796), and she married Gwylim J Thomas at Pontypridd during the last three months of 1951 (Ref. 8b 992).  He had been born at Cardigan in Cardiganshire in the 1931.  The two daughters were only nine years old and four years old respectively when they and their parents were living in the Swansea area of Wales when Emily Jane Hosier nee Collett aged 45 died, her death being recorded at the Swansea register office during the first quarter of 1930 (Ref. 11a 1121).  And tragically it was only eighteen months after being made a widower that John Edward Hosier died at Swansea during the third quarter of 1931 (Ref. 11a 866), leaving his two daughters as orphans.  What happen to them at that very sad time is not known

 

Ernest William Collett [2P53] was born at Foxcote and his birth was recorded at the Northleach register office (Ref. 6a 389) during the second quarter of 1889, the third child and eldest son of William and Elizabeth Collett.  It was as Ernest William Collett that he was listed with his family in the Upper Dowdeswell census of 1891, at the age of two years.  By 1901 he and his family were residing at Cranham, near Coopers Hill, when Ernest was 12 years old.  Where he was in 1911 has not so far been determined.  It was eleven years later that he married Mabel Irene Whitehead at Cheltenham during the second quarter of 1922 (Ref. 6a 1028), Mabel having been born at the end of 1894 with her birth recorded at Northleach during the last quarter of that year (Ref. 6a 362).  No record of any children has been found and nothing further is known about the couple, except that Ernest William Collett died during the second quarter of 1947 when he was 56, his death also recorded at Cheltenham register office (Ref. 7b 290)

 

Constance Beatrice Collett [2P54] was born at Foxcote in the first few months of 1891 as confirmed by the census that year.  She was the youngest of the three daughters of William and Elizabeth Collett and her birth was recorded at Northleach (Ref. 6a 234) during the first quarter of 1891.  Just after she was born her family moved to nearby Upper Dowdeswell, which Constance later said was where she had been born.  When she was 10 years old it was as Constance Collett from Foxcote that she was one of three children living with her parents at Cranham, near Coopers Hill, within the parish of Stroud.  Tragically her mother died three years later, at which time the family seems to have been split up, when her father and her grandmother Eliza Collett, who had been living with the family in 1901, went to Withington to stay at the home of her father’s brother-in-law Charles Messenger.  According to the next census in 1911 Constance Collett from Dowdeswell was working as a domestic laundry maid at the Cheltenham General Hospital on Sandford Road when she was 20 years of age

 

It was five years later that the marriage of Constance B Collett and Howard E Salvidge was recorded at Cardiff register office (Ref. 11a 102).  The church register at Llandaff, Glamorganshire, where their wedding took place, confirmed that they were married on 1st January 1916, and that Constance Beatrice Collett was 25 years of age.  The groom was also named in full as 25-year-old Howard Ernest Salvidge.  He was a motor mechanic who had been born at Birmingham on 30th September 1890, but was baptised at the Church of St John Penydarren, in Merthyr Tydfil, on 29th April 1891, the eldest child of William Salvidge from Somerset and Ada Salvidge from Chicago, Illinois in America.  On the occasion of the birth of their first two children at Llandaff, Howard was described as a fitter, they being Ruby Constance Salvidge (born in 1918) and John Howard Salvidge (born in 1920).  Their two later children were Robert D Salvidge (born in 1921) and James O Salvidge (born in 1925).  The death of Constance B Salvidge was recorded at Cardiff register office (Ref. 8b 106) during the first quarter of 1958 when she was 67, while it was eighteen years after losing his wife, that the death of Howard Ernest Salvidge was recorded at South Glamorgan register office (Ref. 28 15) during the spring of 1976, when he was 85 years old

 

Horace Frank C Collett [2P55] was born at Kilkenny near Dowdeswell on 8th December 1896, the last of the five known children of farmer William Collett and his wife Emma Elizabeth Messenger, while his birth was recorded at the Northleach register office (Ref. 6a 374) during that same month.  Not long after he was born his family moved to Cranham in the Coopers Hill district of Stroud where Horace F C Collett was four years old in the March census of 1901.  Following the marriage of his eldest sister Ellen (above) in 1907, it was simply as Frank Collett aged 14 years and a member of Gordon Boys’ Brigade that he was living with Albert and Ellen James at their home at 6 Emily Place on Horsefair Street in Charlton Kings on the day of the census in 1911.  His place of birth was confirmed as Kilkenny.  The Gordon Boys’ Brigade was formed in 1890.  Their Headquarters was in Liverpool Place, just off the High Street next to the Royal Hotel in Cheltenham.  The aim of the Brigade was to bridge the gap between boys leaving school aged about 14, until they were strong enough and old enough to be a wage earner, and placed as pupils in various trades, to become apprentices or work for the railway or the Post Office.  Many of the older boys emigrated and had successful careers but sadly, during the First World War, fifty of them died

 

It was nine year later that the marriage of Horace F C Collett and Florence L King was recorded at Swindon register office (Ref. 5a 42) during the third quarter of 1920.  Florence was born during the last three months of 1900 which was recorded at the register office in Devizes (Ref. 5a 91), and the marriage produced a son whose birth was recorded at Swindon (Ref. 5a 80) just over three years later during the last three months of 1923.  It would appear that Horace and Florence lived in Swindon all of their married life together, since it was there also that Horace Frank C Collett died, his death being recorded at Swindon register office (Ref. 23 2154) towards the end of 1979

 

2Q52 – John C Collett was born in 1923 at Swindon

 

Kathleen Helen Wilkins Collett [2P56] was born in 1892 at Hyde Mill, Lower Swell, the eldest of the two children of Otto John Collett and Mary Ann Wilkins, her birth recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 348) during the first quarter of that year.  She was nine years old in 1901, by which time the family was living in Maugersbury and nine years after that day, her father died, leaving Kathleen and her younger brother George (below) still living with their widowed mother at Maugersbury in 1911, when Kathleen Helen W Collett was 19 and a farmer’s daughter undertaking dairy work.  Five years later, and seven years prior to the death of her widowed mother, the married of Kathleen H W Collett and James Foster was recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold register office (Ref. 6a 18) during the second quarter of 1916.  No record of any children had been found, although it is established that Kathleen was 68 when she died, her death recorded at the North Cotswold register office (Ref. 7b 71) during the second quarter of 1960

 

George Otto Wilkins Collett [2P57] was born at Hyde Mill in Lower Swell near the end of 1893, the second child and only known son of Otto John Collett by his wife Mary Ann Wilkins who was known as Ann.  His birth was recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold register office (Ref. 6a 93) during the first three months of 1894 under the name of George Otto W Collett.  Sometime after he was born his family left Hyde Mill in Nether Swell when they moved to Maugersbury, just south of Stow-on-the-Wold where they were living in 1901 when George Otto Collett was seven years old.  It was nine years later that his father died, leaving George Otto Wilkins Collett, aged 17 and a farmer’s son working on the family’s farm at Maugersbury in 1911, with his mother Ann and his older sister Kathleen Helen Wilkins Collett (above) who was 19.  George would have been around thirty years of age when his mother passed away at the end of 1923.  It was three years earlier that George Otto Wilkins Collett had married Florence M Hopkins in the neighbouring county of Warwickshire, where the event was recorded at the Alcester register office (Ref. 6d 129) during the final quarter of 1920.  It was also at the register office in Alcester, over the following years, that the births of their two children were recorded, when the mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Hopkins.  It is worth pointing out that the births of the five children of Otto Collett [2P22] and Dorothy Gwendoline Gibbs were also recorded at Alcester from 1920 onwards.  The death of George O W Collett was recorded at Alcester register office (Ref. 9c 68) during the third quarter of 1958 at the age of 64

 

2Q53 – Joyce Nancy E Collett was born in 1922 at Alcester, Warwickshire

2Q54 – Derek George Wilkins Collett was born in 1925 at Alcester, Warwickshire

 

William Henry Collett [2P58] was born at 28 Compton Street in Islington on 31st January 1869, the birth being registered at Gray’s Inn Lane, St Pancras (Ref. 1b 269).  His birth certificate confirmed that his parents were Arthur James Collett and Harriet Euphemia Amelia Brittain, their first child, who were living at 28 Compton Street.  Shortly after he was born his parents took him to live at Parry Sound in Ontario, Canada.  The tough and rugged lifestyle, which included trading with the local Indians to survive, and the death of his youngest sister Grace in 1882, probably contributed to his father’s decision to return to England with his young family in 1883.  Because he was very much an infant when the family went to live in Canada, on his return and in the St Pancras census of 1891, William Collett aged 21 and a polisher, was a lodger at the home of the Kippen family at Haverstock Road, when he said he had been born in Canada.  Three years after, William Henry Collett, aged 25 (sic) was living at Kensal Town when he married Ellen Caroline Harris on 14th January 1894 at the parish church of St Martin in Kentish Town, when his occupation was that of a pianoforte maker and journeyman.  Their wedding was recorded at St Pancras (Ref. 1b 232) when Ellen was 21 and the daughter of Salvation Army captain and porter William Thomas Harris and his wife Ellen Francis, and had been born at St Pancras in 1874, her birth registered at St Pancras during the first three months of that year.  The witnesses at the ceremony were William’s brother Edmund Alfred Collett and Annie Harris who was most likely Ellen’s mother.  Ellen was with-child on their wedding day and just three month later the couple’s first child was born when William and Ellen were living at 3 Hanover Street in Kentish Town, St Pancras, where William was working as a piano maker and journeyman

 

They were still living at 3 Hanover Street for the birth of their next two sons, but by the time of the birth of their daughter Grace in 1900, the family was residing at 70 Carlton Road in the Grafton Ward of St Pancras polling district, midway between Belsize and Kentish Town.  However, later that same year, or early in 1901, the family moved again, on that occasion to 4 Cleveland Villas in Willesden, and it was there that they were recorded in the census in 1901.  The census return listed the family as William H Collett, aged 32 and an auctioneer’s saleroom porter, his wife Ellen Collett was 27 and both of them saying they had been born at St Pancras.  Their four children at that time were William Collett who was six and also born at St Pancras, John Collett who was five, Arthur Collett who was three, and Grace Collett who was seven months old, all three of them recorded as born at Kentish Town, while the records of the birth of all of the couple’s children were reported to the St Pancras register office

 

During the next decade another two children were added to the family which, in 1911 was living at 134 Fleet Road in Hampstead.  William Henry Collett was 42 and an auctioneer’s porter, and his wife Ellen C Collett was 38.  Their six children living with them on that occasion were listed as William Alfred Collett aged 16, John Francis Collett aged 15, Arthur Thomas Collett aged 13, Grace Ellen Amelia Collett aged 10, Ernest Henry who was seven, and Albert Edward who was five years old.  Living with the family was William’s younger brother Francis Ernest Collett who was 41.  Four years later, at the end of January 1915, when William’s eldest son was married, the occupation of William Henry Collett was given as being that of an auctioneer’s porter.  William and Ellen were living just round the corner from Fleet Road in 1916, at 50 Lawn Road in Hampstead, where they received the sad news of the death of their son John Francis Collett who died at Duala in Cameroon during the First World War.  Lawn Road leads off Fleet Road and runs south to Haverstock Hill (A502) close to where other members of the Collett family lived

 

It was also around that time when Ellen was looking after William’s nephew Reginald (Reg) Collett, following the death of the boy’s father Francis Ernest Collett (below) during the previous year and at a time when the boy’s mother had become mentally ill.  Curiously, no marriage of his father has been found in Britain, nor has the birth of Reginald been found, although both events must have taken place after 1911 and before 1915, when his father was killed in action while serving with the Royal Naval

 

On the occasion of the marriage of his son Arthur Thomas in 1921, William’s occupation was that of house painter.  A year after, at the time of his daughter’s wedding in 1922, his occupation was once again stated as being that of an auctioneer’s porter, which is how he was remembered by his grandson.  It is very likely that William and Ellen had more children that those listed below, and it is possible that a son was born in 1914 who was the only member of the family in 1935 who was not married.  At that time William and Ellen were still living at 50 Lawn Road in Hampstead.  William Henry Collett died on 20th May 1947 at the age of 78.  At that time in their lives William and Ellen were residing at 118 Mayfield Gardens in Hanwell, North London.  The death of William H Collett was recorded at Brentford register office (Ref. 5e 50), while probate for his estate of £325 9 Shillings 9 Pence was granted in London on 5th December 1947 in favour of his widow Ellen Collett.  Just less than two years later Ellen Caroline Collett nee Harris was still living at 118 Mayfield Gardens, in Middlesex when she passed away on 5th September 1949.  Probate for her personal effects valued at £222 4 Shillings 2 Pence was granted to Grace Ellen Amelia Nahum nee Collett [2Q58], the only daughter of William Henry Collett and Ellen Caroline Harris.  The death of Ellen C Collett was recorded at Ealing register office (Ref. 5e 9264) during the third quarter of 1949, at the age of 76

 

2Q55 – William Alfred Collett was born in 1894 at St Pancras, London

2Q56 – John Francis Collett was born in 1895 at Kentish Town, London

2Q57 – Arthur Thomas Collett was born in 1897 at Kentish Town, London

2Q58 – Grace Ellen Amelia Collett was born in 1901 at Kentish Town, London

2Q59 – Ernest Henry Collett was born in 1903 at Kentish Town, London

2Q60 – Albert Edward Collett was born in 1905 at Kentish Town, London

 

Francis Ernest Collett [2P59] was born at Parry Sound in Ontario during 1870.  He returned to England from Canada with his family in 1883 and in 1891 he was twenty years old and living at Carlton Road in St Pancras with his parents Arthur and Harriet Collett.  No record of Francis has been found in the census of 1901, but by 1911 he was unmarried at the age of 41 and with no occupation, when he was living with his married brother William Henry Collett (above) at 134 Fleet Road in Hampstead.  Maybe it was his North American accent that was the reason the 1911 census recorded his place of birth as the United States of America, instead of Canada.  It would appear that he did marry shortly after that, and that the marriage produced a son for him and his wife.  At the outbreak of the Great War, Francis enlisted with the Royal Marines Light Infantry and was assigned to the battleship HMS Goliath.  Tragically, the ship was torpedoed by the Turkish destroyer Muavenet-I-Millet off De Tott’s Battery in the Dardanelles on 13th May 1915 with the loss of 570 men.  The name of Private PLY/10685 Frank Collett appears on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.  There is no reference to any next-of-kin, so it is possible that he had not married the mother of his son, and also that the son may have been born after he was killed.  The death of Francis Ernest Collett was recorded at Kensington register office (Ref. 1a 4) during the second quarter of 1915, when he was 46.  That tragic event, coupled with the fact that his wife was troubled with a mental illness after giving birth to their son and only known child, baby Reginald was taken into the care of the Hampstead family home of his uncle William Henry Collett at 50 Lawn Road

 

2Q61 – Reginald Collett was raised by William Henry Collett and Ellen Caroline Harris

 

Edmund Alfred Collett [2P60] was born at Parry Sound in 1872 and he returned to England with his family in 1883.  Unlike other members of his family, no record of Edmund has been found within the London area in the census of 1891.  However, ten years later in 1901, Edmund A Collett of Canada was 29 years of age and was living in the St Andrews district of London, where he was employed as a draper’s assistant.  Four years later Edmund married Everell Williams in 1905.  Everell was an upholsterer and was five years older than Edmund, having been born at St Pancras in 1866.  The year after the couple was married, Everell presented Edmund with their only child, possibly when they were residing at 107 Piedmont Road in Plumstead, within the London Borough of Woolwich, where the child’s birth was recorded.  After leaving Piedmont Road, the family lived at 46 Flaxton Road in Plumstead until 1910, when they moved again to 42 Griffin Road in Plumstead.  It was there that the family of three was living in from 1911 through to at least 1913.  The Plumstead census in 1911, recorded the family as Edmund Alfred Collett from Parry Sound, Ontario, was 39 and a draper’s assistant, his wife Everell Collett from St Pancras was 44, and their son Arthur John Collett was five years old and born in Plumstead, although his birth was recorded at Woolwich register office.  Visiting the Collett family that day, was Everell’s older sister Jessie Williams aged 50 and also born at St Pancras

 

During their lives together, the couple lived along the south side of the River Thames at Woolwich, Erith and Dartford, from where Edmund worked as a draper with his brother Herbert (below).  It is now established from shipping records that Edmund Alfred Collett, a draper of 56 and born at Parry Sound in Ontario, sailed to America on board the ship Celtic, out of Liverpool, and arrived at Boston in Massachusetts on 10th June 1928.  The return journey to England took place two weeks later, again on the Celtic, a ship of the White Star Dominion Line, when he sailed from New York arriving in Liverpool on 25th June 1928.  In his later life Edmund was a patient at Bexley Mental Hospital, and it was there that he lived for the last few years of his life.  At the time of his death on 4th September 1950 Edmund and Everell were residing at 52 Stanham Road, Dartford in Kent and it was his widow who was named as the executor of his estate of £2,069 16 Shillings 2 Pence.  Everell Collett nee Williams survived her husband by eight years when she passed away at the age of 97, her death recorded at Ealing register office (Ref. 5e 13) during the third quarter of 1958

 

2Q62 – Arthur John Collett was born in 1905 at Plumstead, Woolwich

 

Herbert Edward Collett [2P61] was born at Parry Sound in 1875 but returned to England with his family in 1883, following the death of his youngest sister Grace in Canada in 1882.  By 1891 Herbert was not living with his family in Kentish Town instead, he was recorded in the census that year as a lodger at the First Street, Chelsea home of the Ralph family, when 15-year-old Herbert E Collett from Canada was already employed as a draper’s assistant.  Ten years later, Herbert E Collett from Canada was 25 when he was a boarder at a very large boarding house in Islington, London, where his occupation was again that of a draper’s assistant.  During the next decade Herbert is known to have worked at a draper’s shop with his brother Edmund Alfred Collett (above).  However, because of his views on trade unions, Herbert was dismissed from many jobs in London and eventually moved north to the Lake District, where he met his future wife.  The marriage of Herbert E Collett and (1) Florence Mary Darvell of Millom in Cumberland, took place at nearby Whicham, during the summer of 1910, and was recorded at the Cumberland Bootle register office (Ref. 10b 33) in the third quarter of that year.  On being married, the couple returned to live in London where, in 1911 they were living at 40 Raeburn Avenue, Dartford in Kent, the house name being ‘Parry Sound’ after Herbert’s place of birth in Canada.  The census return that year listed the childless couple as Herbert E Collett from Ontario who was 35 and a shop assistant in a drapery store, and his wife Florence Mary Collett who was 37 and from Millom in Cumberland, who had no stated occupation.  After being married for just over four years, Florence presented Herbert with a son, their only know child, who was born near the end of 1914, his birth recorded at Dartford register office early in 1915.  Florence Mary Collett nee Darvell died in 1934, following which Herbert married (2) Norah Elizabeth Stevenson, the daughter of the Dartford Congregational minister, but tragically he died in latter quarter of 1935

 

2Q63 – Harold Ernest Collett was born in 1914 at Dartford, Kent

 

Eleanor Maud Collett [2P62] was born at Parry Sound in 1877, the fifth child and eldest daughter of Arthur James Collett and his wife Harriet Euphemia Amelia Britten.  After the death of her sister Grace at Parry Sound in 1882, Eleanor and the rest of her family returned to England in 1883.  In 1891 she was 13 and was living with her parents and the rest of her family at Carlton Road in the St Pancras census that year.  Ten years later she had already entered into domestic service but, on the day of the St Pancras census of 1901, Eleanor M Collett from Canada was 23 and a visitor at the home of Mary Page and her one-year-old daughter Dorothy Franklin.  A few months earlier, and following the death of her mother during the previous year, Eleanor’s father Arthur James Collett married for a second time and, eighteen months later they took over the care of Eleanor’s base-born baby, which they eventually formally adopted.  The child’s birth certificate confirmed that Eleanor was twenty-five and that she was living at the Hampstead Union Workhouse, where she gave birth to her base-born daughter.  Eleanor Collett from Ontario, Canada, was still living in Hampstead in 1911, when she was described as single, aged 31 (sic), a charwoman and an inmate at the Hampstead Workhouse including the Infirmary and Casualty Wards.  What happened to her after that day is still not known, except that she never married and was living at Watford in Hertfordshire when she died at the age of 65, her death recorded at Watford register office (Ref. 3a 136) during the last three months of 1944

 

2Q64 - Ethel Maud Collett was born on 1st January 1902 at Hampstead; died in 1918

 

Rose Collett [2P64] was born at St Pancras on 17th September 1883 just after her parents returned to London from Parry Sound, Ontario in Canada.  In 1891 she was seven years old and was living with her family at 70 Carlton Road, within the Grafton polling district of St Pancras.  Eight years later her mother died and a year later her widowed father took a much younger wife, also Harriet like Rose’s mother.  According to the census in 1901, Rose, aged 17, and her brother Cecil (below), aged 15, were the only children still living with their father and his second wife at 70 Constantine Road, Belsize, near Hampstead Heath.  Rose never married and, in the April census of 1911, she was still living with her father Arthur James Collett and her stepmother Harriet at 70 Constantine Road, where Rose Collett was 27 and working as a book-keeper, whilst it is known, that at some time during her life she worked in some capacity at Dickens & Jones

 

Cecil James Collett [2P65] was born at St Pancras on 24th April 1885, the last child of Arthur James Collett and Harriet Euphemia Amelia Brittain.  He was five years old in St Pancras census of 1891, when he was living with his family at 70 Carlton Road.  Cecil’s mother died at 70 Constantine Road in Belsize in 1899, after which his father remarried in 1900.  Around six months later, Cecil J Collett was 15 and, having completed his education, he was already working as a corn chandler’s assistant, when he was still living at 70 Constantine Road with his father, his stepmother, and his sister Rose (above).  It was eight years later when Cecil James Collett married Elizabeth Emeline Huggins at Hampstead, where the event was recorded during the last three months of 1909 (Ref. 1a 109).  By the time of the next census in the following year, the newly-wed couple was recorded as residing at 58 Southampton Street within the Gospel Oak polling area of St Pancras.  It is interesting that the Electoral Roll for 1911 also made reference to Cecil also being involved with the property at 70 Constantine Road, but that additional note had been removed by the time the electoral roll for 1912 was published.  In 1911 Cecil James Collett was 25 and a shopkeeper and a newsagent, and his wife Elizabeth Emeline Collett was 28.  Confusingly, the census return claimed that they were both born in Kentish Town.  Elizabeth had been born at Shoreditch during the first quarter of 1880 and was the daughter of cabinet maker William Huggins of Shoreditch, who was a widower by the time Elizabeth was eleven years of age.  At that time in 1891 the family was living at 19 Lamprell Street in Bow, when Elizabeth’s place of birth was given at Bethnal Green, like her two siblings

 

It was during the first three months of 1912 that the birth of their only known child Arthur Collett was recorded at St Pancras, but sadly he only survived for just over seven years when his death was registered at Edmonton during the third quarter of 1919.  It was Elizabeth who, on 1st April 1916, registered the death of her father-in-law Arthur James Collett [2O54] who lived at 70 Constantine Road, Belsize, opposite Hampstead Heath railway station.  At that time the address for daughter-in-law ‘E E Collett’ was confirmed as 58 Southampton Road in Hampstead.  It may be of interest to know that Southampton Street was located near to both Constantine Road and Lawn Road, where various members of the Collett family lived.  Cecil James Collett was living in the village of Bridge in Kent, two miles from Canterbury, when he died during the last quarter of 1962 at the age of 77 (Ref. 5b 87).  The last three years of his life was spent as a widower, following the death of his wife during the third quarter of 1959 at Paddington

 

2Q65 - Arthur Collett was born in 1912 at St Pancras; died in 1919