PART
TWO
The Second
Gloucestershire Line - 1885 to 1910
This
is the third of four sections of Part Two of the Collett family line
Updated August 2022
Alfred Edward Hersey Collett [2P66] was born at Parry Sound, Ontario in Canada, on 20th
June 1877, the first-born child of Alfred George Thomas Mawbey Collett and his
wife Harriet Hersey, with whom he was living at Parry Sound
in 1881 and 1891, aged three and 13 years, respectively. In between those two years, Alfred’s father
had died in London, England, before the remainder of the family returned to
Parry Sound by 1891. By 1901, when
Alfred was 23, he was the eldest of the five siblings still living at Parry
Sound with their widowed mother Harriet. Alfred was a fur trader and he married Sybil May
Ellis on 10th December 1902 at Powassan, Parry Sound, just south of
North Bay. In the years after they were
married the couple initially lived at Parry Sound before a moved to North Bay
but, by 1936 the family was living at Pine Grove in Ontario. At the time of the birth of their only son,
Alfred’s occupation was that of a brakesman on the railway. In the Nipissing census, conducted the
following year, the family comprised Alfred Collett aged 34, May Collett aged
31, Ruth Collett aged four years, Lillian Collett who was one-year-old, and
Ernest Collett who was five-months-old.
All of them were confirmed as having been born in Ontario. Staying with the family on that occasion were
Alfred’s mother and grandmother, both born in England, and they were Harriet
Collett, who was 54, and Sarah Hersey who was 76. Once again, Alfred was working as a brakesman.
Alfred and Sybil both died only a few
months apart, during 1957
2Q66 - Ruth Alfreda Beatson
Collett was
born at Parry Sound, Ontario on 23rd
June 1906
2Q67 - Lilian
Jane Rosalie Collett was born at
North Bay, Nipissing, Ontario in 1909
2Q68 - Thomas
Ernest Bertrand A Collett was born at
North Bay, Nipissing, Ontario in 1910
Ernest Henry John Collett [2P67] was
born at Parry Sound on 16th September 1879, another son of Alfred
and Harriet Collett. As Ernest H Collett
aged one year, he was living with his family at Parry Sound in 1881 and was 21
years old in 1901, by which time he was living Parry Sound with his widowed
mother. Seven months later, the marriage
of Ernest Henry John Collett, a clerk, and Annie May Gillespie took place at
Parry Sound on 9th October 1901.
They were both 22 years old, Ernest the son of Alfred Collett and
Harriet Hersey, Annie the daughter of James Gillespie and Ellen Deviney. Their marriage produced four children who were
all born at Parry Sound before the family moved to Thunder Bay, where the
family was living at in 1911, within the Rainy River district of Ontario. Ernest Collett was 32 and a salesman at a
local store, his wife Annie Collett was also 32, when their four children were
recorded as Reta Collett who was nine, Gerald Collett who was eight, Jack
Collett who was five, and Ivan Collett who was three years of age. The final member of the family was Beatrice
Hart, the couple’s adopted daughter, who was 16 years old, with every member of
the household reported to have been born in Ontario. Ernest Henry John Collett died on 18th
March 1961 at Winnipeg and was buried at the Brookside Cemetery, when he was 81
years old
2Q69 - Reta May Winifred Collett was born at Parry Sound, Ontario in
1902
2Q70 - Gerald Sherman James Collett was born at Parry Sound, Ontario in 1903
2Q71 - John Aubrey Beresford Collett was born at Parry Sound, Ontario in 1906
2Q72 - Ivan Bertrand Collett was born at Parry Sound, Ontario in 1908
Bertrand Oswald Mawbey Collett [2P68] was
born at McDougall, Parry Sound on 16th September 1881, the third
child of Alfred and Harriet Collett, who was 19 in the Parry Sound census in
1901. He married Helen Elma Fieldhouse
on 5th August 1908 and he died in 1945
Lillian Hattie Amelia Collett [2P69] was
born at McDougall, Parry Sound on 9th April 1883, the fourth child
and eldest daughter of Alfred and Harriet Collett. Lillian Collett was eight years old and 17
years of age in 1901 when, on both occasions, she was living with her widowed
mother and the rest of the family at Parry Sound. Six years later, Lillian Hattie Collett married
Thomas Henry Hemsworth, a waiter from Calgary, at Parry Sound on 26th
September 1907. They were both 24 years
of age, Lillian confirmed as the daughter of Alfred Collett and Harriet Hersey,
while Thomas was the son of John Hemsworth and E J Price. Lillian Hemsworth passed away during 1961
Rosalie Helena Gertrude Collett [2P70] was
born at Parry Sound on 8th March 1885, the last child born to Alfred
George Thomas Mawbey Collett and
Harriet Hersey. She was six years of age
in 1891 and was 16 in 1901, when living at Parry Sound with her family
following the death of her father in England before she was two years old. She was twenty-four years old when the marriage
of Rosalie Helene Collett and Melford Lyle Proctor took place in 1909. Melford was born at New York on 7th
October 1884 and was 62 years old when he died at New Westminster in British
Columbia on 31st December 1946.
On the day of the census in 1911 for Calgary, Alberta, Melford L Proctor
was a grocer’s clerk aged 26, the same age as his wife Rosalie H G Proctor, who
already had a daughter Dorothy A R Proctor, who was two years of age and
born at Calgary. Whether it was a pure
coincidence or a tragic accident, but Rosalie Helena Proctor also died at New
Westminster on 31st December 1945, when she was 61 years of age and
confirmed as married to Melford Lyle Proctor and the daughter of Alfred Collett
and Harriet Hersey
Ernest Henry Collett [2P72] was
born at 14 Pembroke Street in Islington on 6th May 1878, the eldest
surviving child of Mawbey Ernest Collett and his first wife Elizabeth Alice
Stare. He was two years old in 1881 when
he and his younger brother Herbert (below) were living with their parents at 1
Hawley Road in St Pancras. Ten years later, when he was 12, he was recorded in
error as Ernest F Collett, while living with his family within the Pancras
& Kentish Town area of London. He
was still living in the St Pancras area in March 1901, at the age of 22, and
just one year later, while still in St Pancras he married Rose Elizabeth Rogers
on 5th April 1902. The
marriage produced four children for the couple over the next seven years and
all of them born at a different local, perhaps a result of Ernest’s work. The first child was born at Cross Place in
Kentish Town
Around 1909 the family
settled in Walthamstow where their daughter was born and where they were
residing in April 1911. The family
recorded at Walthamstow comprised Ernest who was 32, his wife Rose who was 31,
their three sons who were Ernest aged eight, Reginald who was six and Sidney
who was three, plus their daughter Edith who was only eight months old. No second names were given in the census return. At some time during his life Ernest was a
constable with the Metropolitan Police, although an account given by his
half-brother the Rev. Sidney Collett (below), who was a Titanic survivor,
stated that he was working for an electrical company in England around the time
of the ship’s disastrous maiden voyage in 1912.
His wife Rose Elizabeth Rogers was born in 1880 and she died in 1955,
ten years after Ernest Henry Collett had passed away on 28th May
1945
2Q73 - Ernest Joseph Collett
was born at Kentish Town on 23rd
January 1903
2Q74 - Reginald George Collett was born at Croydon in 1905
2Q75 - Sidney John Percy Collett was born at Stoke Newington in 1908
2Q76 - Edith Rose Elizabeth Collett was born at Walthamstow
on 8th July 1910
Harold John Collett [2P74] was
born at 88 St Johns Road in Upper Holloway on 10th March 1883 and
was eight years old in the Pancras & Kentish Town census of 1891, by which
time his mother had died and his father had re-married. Upon leaving school Harold joined the Royal
Navy, and by the time of the next census in 1901 he was stationed at
Plymouth. The census return
on that occasion recorded him as Harold John Collett from St Pancras who was an
ordinary navy man at the age of 18. He
later emigrated to Canada, where he was a driver on the Canadian Pacific
Railway. That very likely happened
during the first ten years of the new century, since he would appear to have
left England by the time of the census in 1911.
He is known to have married and lived in Toronto with his wife and three
children. He eventually had nine
grandchildren
Percy Alexander Collett [2P76] was
born at 5 Estelle Road in Hampstead on 6th October 1884, the son of
Mawbey Ernest Collett and his first wife Elizabeth Alice Stare, who had died
when he was just eleven days old. He was
seven years old in the Kentish Town census of 1891 when he was living with his
father and his stepmother Ann, but by 1901, at the age of 16, Percy A Collett
from Hampstead was working as a waiter in the Epsom area of Surrey. It would appear that he later joined his
parents in America, with the marriage of Percy A Collett and Margaret Huett
taking place at Geneseo in Livingston County, New York, on 19th
September 1908. Both the bride and the
groom were residing in Geneseo prior to the wedding, with Percy aged 24 and a
baker from London, confirmed as the son of Ernest Collett and Elizabeth Stare,
while 22-year-old Margaret May Huett, from Islington in London, was recorded as
the daughter of George R Huett and Louise Russell. Over the following years, Margaret presented
Percy with four children, although only three survived.
Percy A Collett, a coater
with the Kodak Company, was head of his family onboard the ‘S S Homeric’ of the White Star Line, travelling across the
Atlantic Ocean from Southampton to Ellis Island New York, arriving there on 8th
October 1924. Percy was 40 years of age
and his family’s destination was Rochester on the south shore of Lake
Ontario. While in London, he and his
family had been staying at the home of his mother-in-law, Louise Huett, at 1 Miranda
Road in Upper Holloway. Travelling with
Percy was his wife Margaret Collett who was 38, and the couple’s three surviving
children. They were Phyllis Margaret
Collett who was 13, Dorothy Collett who was 11, and Ernest John Collett who was
three years old. Unlike their parents,
all three children were described as citizens of the United States, confirming
they were born in America
The age gap between the
two youngest children can be explained by Percy’s absence during the First
World War. In the Rochester census of
1915, Percy A Collett was 31 and Margaret Collett was 29, when their two
daughters were recorded as Margaret P Collett who was four and Dorothy R
Collett who was two years of age. His
military record indicated that he saw active service in 1917 and 1918, and
confirmed that he was a British citizen born on 6th October
1884. By the time of the next census in
1920, the family of five was residing at 117 Roth Street
in Rochester, not far from the east bank of the Genesee River. Percy A Collett from England was 35 and
employed by the Kodak Company as someone ‘coating photographic film’ and his
wife Margaret, also from England, was 33.
Their three children were Phyllis Collett who was eight, Dorothy Collett
who was six, and son Winifred Collett who was one year old, who died soon after
the census day
Ten years later, the
Rochester census of 1930 recorded the family living at 6 Meech Park, a short
distance north of Roth Street, from where Percy was still working for the Kodak
Company, but as a lens grinder. He was
45, his wife Margaret M Collett was 44, when the three children were listed as
Margaret Collett, who was 18 and a clerk working in the office of the Kodak
Company, Dorothy R Collett who was 17, but with no occupation, and Ernest J
Collett who was eight years old. After a
further ten years, the census in 1940, confirmed the family home was the same
as in the previous census, where Percy A Collett was 56 when his occupation was
described as a surface grinder with an optical company. Margaret M Collett was 55 and Ernest J Collett
was 18 with no stated occupation.
Staying with the family, was the couple’s married daughter Phyllis, with
her husband and their first child. Upon
his death in Rochester during 1950, Percy Alexander Collett was buried at the
Grove Place Cemetery in Chili, just south-west of Rochester
2Q77 – Phyllis Margaret Collett was born in 1911 in New York State
2Q78 - Dorothy R Collett was born in 1913 in New York State
2Q79 – Winifred
Alexander Collett was born in 1919 in New York State
2Q80 - Ernest John Collett was born in 1921 in Rochester, New York State
Thomas Alfred Fletcher Collett [2P77] was
born 5 Estelle Road in Hampstead on 30th January 1886, the first
child born to Mawbey Ernest Collett by his second wife Ann Pinfold. Thomas A F Collett was five years old in 1891
when living with his parents in the Pancras & Kentish Town area of London. Ten years later, in 1901 when his father was
away in Devon, Thomas Collett was 15 years old and was living with his mother
and his four younger siblings at 68 St Johns Road in Islington, part of Upper
Holloway. By that time in his life, he
was employed as a clerk, perhaps even in his father’s coach-building and
ironmonger company of Collett & Co.
On that occasion in the census return for 1901, his place of birth was
recorded as Gospel Oak, like that of his brother and two sisters (below). He emigrated to America with his parents in
1910 and was educated at Columbia University, where he took his Master
Degree. At the time his younger brother
Sidney was a passenger on the ill-fated Titanic, Thomas was living in Syracuse,
where he was attending the College of Liberal Arts at the University there. He later became a minister in the
Episcopalian Church of America, was married to Irene and had two daughters who
were both born in New York
On the occasion of the
American Census of 1920 Thomas A Collett from England was 33 when he was living
in the Bronx district of New York with his wife Irene, who was 25 and from
Massachusetts, and their daughter Joan who was not yet one year old. Six years later Irene presented Thomas with
their second child to complete the family and in 1930 the family of four was still
living in the Bronx where Thomas was 44, Irene was 36, Joan was 10 and Grace
was four years of age. The census that
year stated that Thomas had entered America in 1905. By the time of the Bronx census in 1940 it
would appear that the couple’s eldest daughter had already left home. However, in addition to Thomas who was 54 and
his daughter Grace who was 14, Thomas’ wife was curiously described as Irene
Collett who was only 36 and from New York.
That may indicate that she was his second wife as the original Irene
would have been 45 or 46 and was from Massachusetts. It was twenty-four years after that when
Thomas Alfred Fletcher Collett was still residing in New York that he died on
16th August 1964
2Q81 – Joan Collett was born at the Bronx in
New York in 1920
2Q82 – Grace Collett
was born at the Bronx in New York in 1926
Sidney Clarence Stuart Collett was
born at 5 Estelle Road in Hampstead on Saturday 8th January 1887,
the son of Mawbey Ernest Collett and his second wife Ann Pinfold. It was as Sydney C S Collett that he was
recorded with his family in the census of 1891 when he was three years old and
living in the Pancras & Kentish Town district of London. By March 1901 he and his mother Ann and his
four siblings were living at 68 St Johns Road in Islington when, as simply
Sidney Collett, he was listed in the census as being aged 13, with no
occupation. A sometime in his youth,
presumably during the first decade of the new century he spent time living on Guernsey
with an uncle, where he was known as the boy preacher. Although he was always recorded under first
forename, Sidney was more commonly referred to as Stuart within his family, to
avoid any confusion with another relative by the name of Sidney Collett. Just over nine years after the census in 1901
his parents sailed to America in 1910, following the sale of the family
business Collett & Co and his father’s retirement at the age of 60
A newspaper account of
the tragedy reported that “The Rev.
Sidney Collett arrived at the home of his parents after having been rescued
from the Titanic of the White Star Line which was lost at sea. His parents, Rev. & Mrs Mawbey E Collett
of North Main Street, had gone to Syracuse to meet him and he had showed signs
of tiredness and careworn, not being fully recovered from his terrible
experience”
The local newspaper in
Port Byron, The Daily Advertiser, also covered the story by publishing an
interview with Sidney on 23rd April 1912 under the headline ‘Port Byron survivor of
the Titanic wreck’. Sidney recalled “The first boats carried men. Several boats had been lowered full of men,
among them the President of the America Line, Joseph Bruce Ismay, who was also
the Chairman and Managing Director of the White Star Line. The officers were just lowering boat number
9, the third from the last to be put off.
The ladies stepped into the boat, then the officer, with drawn revolver,
said to me ‘Well, what of you, where are you going?’ To which I replied that I
have these young ladies in my charge and felt it my duty to take care of
them. ‘Get in’ said the officer and a
moment later the boat was lowered. A
fright for those in small boats”
“After we
had floated for an hour or more there came our first real scare for our own
safety. All about us we could see the
backs of monster fish, their shiny skins or scales glimmering grew in the
moonlight. They were terrible looking
monsters and we feared that they would swim under our boats and upset them, but
they did not. It was a time when we were
close to our Maker. I prayed constantly
from the time our boat struck the iceberg until I reached New York. Never was there a wireless message that went
so quickly and straight as my prayers to the throne of God. Never will I forget those horrible hours
after the sinking of the ship. It was
maddening. Minutes seemed like hours and hours like days”
When
he eventually returned to his studies he was set upon by some fellow students,
the following item reported in the newspaper
“Sidney C
Stuart Collett, son of Reverend and Mrs. Mawbey E. Collett of Port Byron, who
is well known in Auburn (Cayuga County, New York) as one
of the survivors of the Titanic disaster, was the victim of hazers in Denison
College, Granville, Ohio, recently, and may have been disfigured for life by
the treatment he received. The Syracuse
Post-Standard today contains the following story of the occurrence and a
statement from Collett’s brother, a student in Syracuse University: “Six
students, alleged to have been led by Kent Pfeifer of St. Paul, Minn. took
charge of Collett’s hazing which consisted of branding his forehead with
nitrate of silver. Acid used to
obliterate the stain of the nitrate apparently has added to the
disfigurement. “Thomas F.A. Collett, a
student at Syracuse University and a brother of Stuart, declared last night
that steps probably will be taken to bring the hazing to the attention of the
British ambassador as young Collett is still a subject of the King. Whatever move is made will probably be
through Richard Collett, an uncle, who is a wealthy Englishman and a member of
Parliament.” The item concluded with
a final paragraph: “It was Collett’s
intention to enter Rochester Theological Seminary at the completion of his
course at Denison, where he went upon the advice of relatives in England. He studied in Glasgow two years before coming
to America”
In 1916, with the war raging in Europe, Sidney
submitted his registration card in which he sought exemption from military
service whilst in America on the grounds of being a Titanic survivor. The form confirmed that Sidney C S Collett had
been born in London, England on 8th June 1887 and that he was 29
years old residing at 364, West 57th Street in New York, an alien
and not being a U S citizen. His
occupation as a student (Baptist Ministry) and he was then a single man. He
eventually returned to England, after 1920, where he was married. It is unclear to whom he was married and what
happened during the remainder of his life in England, expect that it was in
Reading Cemetery, on London Road, where he was buried during 1941. It is also now known that the Sidney Collett,
the husband of Ruth, who died at Hendon on 8th May 1941 and was
buried there on 13th May at the age of 83, was not Sidney Clarence
Stuart Collett but was Sidney Collett [2O71], the cousin of his father
Other newspaper articles about Titanic survivor the Rev.
Sidney Collett
The Rev. Sidney Clarence
Stuart Collett of Port Byron is one of the fortunate survivors of the
Titanic. His father, who is Rev. M. E.
Collett of the First Baptist Church in Port Byron, his mother and three
sisters, Lillian, Daisy, and Violet, all live in Port Byron. The girls are at present in Rochester
preparing for college. One brother,
Thomas Collett, lives In Syracuse and attends the College of Liberal Arts of
Syracuse University. Another brother is
in Ontario, Canada, and another brother, Frederick P. Collett, is with the
General Electric Company in Shanghai, China and another brother, Ernest
Collett, is in England, connected with an electrical company in London. Mr. and Mrs. Collett settled in Port Byron
two years ago. The family have been
experiencing the most harrowing extremes of gloom and joy intermingled with
such shocking frequency since the first news came that it will be surprising if
no permanent nervous shock results. The
first news came on Monday morning when Rev. and Mrs. Collett heard that the big
liner had collided with an iceberg.
Knowing that their son, Rev. Sidney C. S. Collett, was aboard, they were
instantly plunged into despair, and it was not until the afternoon dispatches,
sent out from various places near the scene of the trouble, erroneously stated
that all passengers were being taken off and there was no danger, that their
fears were allayed. Later came the news
that the vessel was reported to be sinking, although there was no definite news
as to the fate of the passengers. Mrs.
Collett had written a postcard to her son, Thomas, in Syracuse stating
"Teddy is on the Titanic. All taken
off in Mats. How dreadful. We are anxious"
The Syracuse member of
the family thereupon went continuously to the offices of the local papers
anxious to hear further news, and when the shocking message came that the big
liner had never had any chance and had gone to the bottom at midnight on Sunday
night, he was overcome. He went at once
to Port Byron to comfort his mother, and the family prepared for the
worst. Hastening back to Syracuse for
further news, young Collett was admitted into the Post-Standard
office last night. He arrived shortly
after six o'clock, just as the Associated Press operator was receiving the
latest revised list of those who were saved and were on board the
Carpathia. Peering with tear-stained
eyes over tine shoulders of the telegraph expert, who was kept at top notch of
efficiency in his efforts to catch correctly the names, he watched the type keys
of the typewriter as it rapidly spat out the lines of names of the fortunate
survivors. The operator had pounded out
14 names on his mill and with the fifteenth name young Collett gave a gasp and
trembled with joy when he read "Stuart Collett"
"I must tell father
and mother" he exclaimed, as he ran for the telephone booth. The joyful news was soon conveyed to the
various members of the family assembled at home and although happy in the news,
they now await the son in flesh and blood before they will be calmed. He is expected on the Carpathia, which will
reach New York sometime tonight or tomorrow morning. The family motto "dum spiro sperc”
meaning "while I live, I hope" was put to the test on this rare
episode. The family bears a name
distinguished in England
The Rev. Sidney Collett
was ordained to the Baptist ministry three years ago in England and was coming
to this country to preach. The rescued
clergyman is commonly known as Stuart Collett because another Collett is known
by his surname Sidney. He is the last
but one of the family to leave England.
The Colletts have been coming to America for eight years and are making
places for themselves in educational and church work. The Colletts are linked with the nobility of
England. The family coat of arms bears
the motto of hope and Sir Richard Collett of Peasenhall Hall in Suffolk, is an
uncle of the Port Byron clergyman. In
the reign of Edward VI, a Collett was twice Lord Mayor of London and the family
name is prominent in history
Eight years ago, Thomas
Collett, now about 30, came to America.
For some time, be had been connected with St. Paul's Church in
Syracuse. He is also taking a course in
the College of Liberal Arts of Syracuse University. Sir Richard Collett, head of one branch of
the family, was one of the six engineers who designed the Great Eastern, in its
day the largest vessel afloat. For his
services in this connection, he was knighted by the King of Portugal
Stuart was bringing with
him those family possessions which had not been previously brought to America
by other members of the family. These
consisted of a valuable library, family documents and a considerable sum of
money. All of the valuables are believed
to have gone to the bottom of the ocean with the Titanic. Stuart's trip on the Titanic was not his own
choice. He arranged for passage on the
St. Louis, but that boat's sailing was cancelled because of the coal
strike. His passage was then arranged on
the Philadelphia, but that too was cancelled for the same reason and the young
man wrote to his parents congratulating himself that he was coming over on the
giant Titanic at the rate asked for on the other boats. In a letter written on April 5, Stuart told
his mother to remind Thomas of a promise the latter made to carry until Stuart
reached America - a small pocket Bible.
Thomas still has the Bible, although it is only a packet of worn covers
and loose leaves. Stuart contemplates
entering the ministry in this country, and probably owes his life to having two
young girls in his care while on board the Titanic
The two girls were Miss
Kate Buss, and Miss Marion Wright, the daughter of Mr. Wright, of Yeovil, who
formerly lived in College Road in Reading, who was on her way to New York to be
married. Marion Wright was also
mentioned by name when the record of the last evening on board the Titanic was
documented in an article in the Toronto Daily Star on 20th April 1912, as
re-produced below
What happened at the
regular Sunday service on board the Titanic on the day of the ship's doom? Many have asked that question, but the answer
is only now being supplied, and the man who tells of it is a young theological
student by the name of Stuart Collett, from North London. On the fateful day he assisted the Rev. Mr.
Carter, also of London, in a hymnal and prayer service on the Titanic. At the service Miss Wright played the piano
and sang three solos, which were ‘There is a Green Hill Far Away', ‘For Those
in Peril on the Sea’ and ‘Lead, Kindly Light’, after which the Rev. Carter
prayed. There were 35 at the service,
and after the prayer they sang 'Now the Day is Ended'. Shortly after they felt the crash of the ship
against the iceberg and scrambled to the decks to find the crew manning the
lifeboats. Young Mr Collett, said he
assisted Miss Wright and Miss Buss to the lifeboat and after explaining to the
crew about to man it that the young women had been entrusted to his care, he
was allowed to enter the lifeboat with them.
'When Collett met his brother here [in New York] the first thing he did
was to take a small Oxford bible from his pocket and hand it to his
brother. It was given to him by his
brother when they last parted, with the admonition that he was to hand it back
the next time they met
In another article, the
following was written:
Mother
put the kettle on, Let's have a cup of tea,
Ready
for dear old Sid, Who's coming home from sea,
You'll
be glad to see him and kiss him with delight,
So
put the kettle on Mother, I'm coming home all right
The above jingle was
received on a postal card by Mrs. Mawbey Ernest Collett, mother of the Rev.
Sidney S Collett, the young clergyman who was one of the fortunate survivors of
the Titanic, a few days after that hapless vessel sailed from Southampton for
New York. It was the only news they had
received beyond earlier advices that he intended to sail on the Titanic, but
its pleasant little message was set at naught when the news of the sinking
reached the Port Byron home and placed a crushing weight upon the young man's
parents. But the glad news came that he
had been saved and his return home, now delayed by the investigation in New
York, is anxiously awaited
According to the meagre
information thus far furnished, Mr. Collett was assisting the women and
children and, while at first, he was stopped by ship's officers, he was allowed
to pass when it was seen that he was ministering to the sick and injured. He is now in New York attending several of
the survivors and waiting to be called by the investigators of the Senate. In all probability, the examination of the
officers will not be concluded today and he may have to wait until next week
and go to Washington. While his
inability to come home is a cause of deep regret to his parents, they patiently
defer their preparation for his home coming, but they will surely “put the
kettle on" once definite news reaches them that he is on his way
Also, in April/May 1912,
the Guernsey Evening Press included an item about Mr Stuart Collett. That stated that “Mr. Stuart Collett, the Boy
Preacher who conducted a mission at Cobo Bay [Guernsey] some time ago, was
among the survivors. A telegram
announcing his safety was received by his uncle in London [Thomas Huntley of
Reading], and copy of it was transmitted to Mr. D. Nicolle [another uncle] at
Rue du Gele, Castel on Guernsey”
In addition to that, the Reading Observer of 24th
April 1912 stated that Stuart Collett was the nephew of Mrs Thomas Huntley of
London Road in Reading. It also stated
that the two girls who were in his company on board the Titanic were Marion
Wright and Kate Buss. Marion formerly
lived at College Road in Reading and was born on 26th May 1885,
making her two years older than Stuart.
It is interesting that the final resting place of Sidney Clarence Stuart Collett was Reading
Cemetery, also on London Road in the town
The details of an in-depth
interview with Sidney Clarence Stuart Collett were published in The Auburn
Citizen on 23rd April 1912; Auburn of Cayuga County in New York
State being where he was living at that time.
The article is too long to reproduce here but was serialised over two
months in the Collett Newsletters No. 105 and 106 in early 2015. The final act,
in that most tragic of incidents, was that the Reverend Sidney Collett
subsequently submitted a claim against the shipping company’s insurance for $50
for the loss of hand written college lecture notes from an earlier two-year
course of study
Violet Amelia Collett [2P79] was
born at 5 Estelle Road in Hampstead on 15th December 1888 and was
two years old in the census of 1891. By
the time of the census in 1901 she was 12, at which time she and her family,
minus her father, was living at 68 St Johns Road in Islington. She later emigrated to America with her
parents in 1910, and in 1912 she was at Rochester with her two sisters (below)
getting ready to start college. She
later married John Van der Kolk. The
marriage produced twin sons for the couple, neither of whom survived, and two
daughters; Jean Van der Kolk, who married Mister McCall, and Lily Van
der Kolk, who married Richard Cowles
Daisy Ann Collett [2P80] was
born at 5 Estelle Road in Hampstead on 17th February 1891 and was
six weeks old in the census of 1891. Ten
years later she and her mother and her four siblings were living in the Upper
Holloway area of Islington at 68 St Johns Road.
It was nine years later, and following the sale of her father’s
business, Collett & Co, that Daisy emigrated to America with her parents in
1910. In April 1912 when the Port Byron
newspapers were running stories about her older brother Sidney (above) on how
he survived the sinking of the Titanic, Daisy and her two sisters were at
Rochester preparing for college. The
only other known detail about her is that Daisy Ann Collett died in America
during 1953
Lily Elizabeth Collett [2P81 was
born at 5 Estelle Road in Hampstead on 24th April 1892, the youngest
child of Mawbey Ernest Collett and his second wife Ann Pinfold. Within the census return for the family in
March 1901, Lily was recorded as ‘Lilly Collett’ aged eight years, living at 68
St Johns Road in Islington, who had been born at Gospel Oak like her four older
siblings, rather than Hampstead. When
Lily was 18, she, together with other members of her family including her parents,
emigrated to America in June 1910 on board the Steam Ship SS Teutonic. And it was there, in America in 1912, that
Lily was living with her two sisters at Rochester just prior to them entering
college. Lily Elizabeth Collett later
married to become (1) Lily Elizabeth Collins, and after that (2) Lily Elizabeth
Williams
Kathleen Collett [2P82] was born in 1884 and,
according to the later census returns, she was born at Hampstead and St John
Hampstead, with her birth recorded at Kensington (Ref. 1a 310) during the last
quarter of that year. She was the first
of the two children of London-born merchant Walter Collett and Amelia Jane
Sprunt from Glasgow who were living at Coverdale Road in Hammersmith in 1881
just after they were married. No record
of Kathleen, her brother Ronald (below) and their parents has been found in
1891, whilst the electoral roll of 1898 placed them residing at within the
London Borough of Hammersmith at 14 Brook Green. Three years after that, the family of four
was in Torquay when Kathleen Collett from Hampstead was 16, perhaps on holiday,
as they were staying at a boarding house.
She was unmarried and 26 years old in the Hayes, Middlesex, census of
1911, when she was not credited with a job of work
Twelve years later, and
five years after the death of her father, the marriage of Kathleen Collett and
Sheldon Arthur Stewart Bunting took place at The Presidency in Bombay, India,
on 10th February 1923.
Kathleen was recorded as being 36 (sic) and the daughter of Walter
Collett (deceased), with Sheldon being 40 years old and the son of Percy
William Bunting. Sheldon Arthur S
Bunting was born in London, where his birth was recorded at St Pancras (Ref. 1b
326) during the third quarter of 1882 who, in 1901 was a pupil boarder,
attending Rugby School, when Sheldon A S Bunting from St Pancras was 18. Kathleen and Sheldon were living in
Llandudno, where first Kathleen Bunting died on 12th September 1942,
with her Will proved in Devon on 12th January 1943, the main
beneficiary named as Sheldon Arthur Stewart Bunting. It was only seventeen months after being
widowed, that Sheldon died on 22nd June 1944, when his Will was
proved at Middlesex on 17th October 1944, the main beneficiary was
John Budgett
Ronald Leslie Collett [2P83] was born in 1886 at
Hampstead, where his birth was recorded (Ref. 1a 236) during the third quarter
of the year. Twelve years later he and
his family were living at 14 Brook Green in Hammersmith. After another three years, it seems likely
the family were enjoying a spring holiday in Torquay, where they were staying
at a boarding house in 1901 when Ronald Leslie Collett from Hampstead was
14. By the time he was 24, Ronald was
working as an analytical chemist who was a bachelor still living with his
family, but at Hayes within the Uxbridge census registration district. The death of Ronald L Collett was recorded at
Paddington register office (Ref. 5d 8) during the third quarter of 1955, when
he was 69
Denbigh Collett [2P84] was
born at Bayswater in London during 1878, the eldest child of Edward Charles
Collett and his wife Charlotte Wadham Hill, his birth being recorded at
Kensington register office (Ref. 1a 136) during the second quarter of that year.
He would have been approaching his third birthday in April 1881, when he
was recorded in the census that month as being two years old when he and his
sister Eveline (below) were living with their parents at 40 Oxford Gardens in
North Kensington. The family was still
living in Kensington in 1891 when Denbigh was 12 and still at school, while
living at 139 Ladbroke Place, Ladbroke Grove Road, the census return confirming that he had been born at Bayswater. His father died in 1893 and that sad event
may have caused his family to become separated.
According to the census in 1901 his mother was at an institution in
Kensington, while at that same time Denbigh Collett, aged 22, was living and
working in the Battersea area of London, where he was employed as a commercial
clerk
By that time Denbigh
would appear to have entered into a relationship with a teenage girl, whom he
eventually married at the end of 1901.
Denbigh Collett was 23 when he married Alice Louise Gant who was only 18
in London, their wedding being recorded at Hanover Square register office (Ref. 1a 978) during
the last three months of the year. Once married the couple initially set up home
in Battersea, but later moved to Pimlico, then to Fulham, before being recorded
as residing at Wimbledon in April 1911.
According to the census that year Denbigh Collett from Bayswater was 32
and was still working as a commercial clerk, whilst living with his family at
100 Faraday Road in Wimbledon
His wife Alice Louise
Collett was 27 and from Pimlico and she and Denbigh were recorded as having
been married for nine years. Their three
children at that time were Dorothy Alice Collett, who was eight and from
Battersea, Evelyn Maud Collett, who was five and from Pimlico, and Edward
Denbigh Collett who was four years old and from Fulham. Also living with the family was Alice’s
widowed father Robert Valentine Gant, who was 69 and a retired carpenter from
Fakenham in Norfolk. It is known that
two further children were added to the family after the Great War, the youngest
being another daughter by the name of Mary who was known as Molly, and Betty
who later married to become Betty Hall, the grandmother of Jan Boneham who
kindly provided her family details
Denbigh Collett died in
1953 when his death was recorded at Uxbridge register office (Ref. 5f 141) in
Middlesex during the fourth quarter of that year. Alice survived for a further thirteen years
after losing her husband and eventually left London to live out her final years
in Northamptonshire with, or close to, her married daughter Betty. Alice Louise Gant was born in the Pimlico
district of London, her birth recorded at St George Hanover Square register office
(Ref. 1a 413) during the third quarter of 1883, while her passing was recorded
at the Northamptonshire register office in Daventry (Ref. 3b 513) during the
last three months of 1966
2Q83 – Dorothy Alice Collett was born at Battersea, London in 1903
2Q84 - Evelyn Maud Collett was born at Pimlico, London in 1905
2Q85 - Edward Denbigh Collett was born at Fulham, London in 1906
2Q86 - Betty Kathleen Collett was born at Fulham, London in 1918
2Q87 - Mary Collett was
born at Fulham, London in 1922
Eveline Margaret Collett [2P86] was
born at Kensington in London in 1880, although the birth was recorded at her
mother’s home town of Barnstaple in Devon during the first three months of that
year. She was the second child and
eldest daughter of Edward and Charlotte Collett and was just one year old at
the time of the census in 1881 when her family was living at 40 Oxford Gardens
in North Kensington. It was that census
return that gave her place of birth as Kensington, as did the one in 1891 when
Eveline was 11 and living with her family at 139 Ladbroke Place, Ladbroke Grove
Road in Kensington
Maud Collett [2P87] was born at
Kensington in 1881 and very likely at 40 Oxford Gardens in North Kensington
where her family was living in April that year.
She was nine years old in 1891 by which time the family was living at
139 Ladbroke Place, Ladbroke Grove Road in Kensington. Maud was only eleven years old when her
father died and by 1901, she appears to be looking after the younger members of
her family, while her mother was in an institution in Kensington. The census in 1901 recorded Maud Collett
working in the West Ham area of London, where her two younger brothers George
and Frank (below) were recorded at an institution, perhaps an orphanage. A Maud Collett, aged 29, was still living and
working in West Ham ten years later, although by then her two youngest brothers
were still living together, but in the St Pancras area of London
Ormonde Collett [2P88] was
born at Shepherd’s Bush in 1886, the son of Edward Charles Collett and his wife
Charlotte Wadham Hill, while his birth was recorded at Fulham (Ref. 1a 240)
during the second quarter of 1886. He
was four years old in 1891 when he and his family were living at 139 Ladbroke
Place, Ladbroke Grove Road in Kensington.
Following the death of his father in 1893 no record of him has been
found in 1901 when his mother and two youngest brothers (below) were in
separate institutions in London. By 1911
Ormonde Collett was 24 and was a bachelor living and working in the Uxbridge
registration district
It was almost exactly two years later that
Ormonde Collett sailed out of Liverpool on 20th May 1913 on board
the White Star Dominion Line ship Arabic bound for
Portland in Ontario, Canada, the passenger list describing him as a labourer of
27 years. Two months later he crossed
the border between Canada and America which was recorded at Noyes in Minnesota in
July 1913, when he was named as Ormonde Collett from London who was 27. Not long after that on 11th August
1913 in the York district of Toronto he married Alice
Amelia Hulber with whom he had six children. However, all of their known children were
born after the couple had settled in New York State. Alice was 24 and the daughter of Alfred
Hulbert and Ellen Farr, while 27-year-old Ormonde was recorded as the son of
Charles Edward Collett and Charlotte Hill
On 1st
November that same year the newly married couple made a permanent move to America
and, on that day, they were recorded entering the country at Buffalo in New
York State. On that occasion Ormonde’s
mother’s name was recorded as Charlotte Lette, presumably an error for Collett. More curious is a reference to a foster
sister June Toroment who may have been related to Alice. From Buffalo the couple made their way east
and settled at Rotterdam in Schenectady where their children were born over the following
years. It was there also that the family was still living in 1920, when the census
that year listed the family as Ormonde Collett from England who was 31, his
wife Alice Collett also from England who was 30, and their two children Grace
who was five and Frank who was three.
The enlarged family was still residing in Schenectady ten years
later, at 454 Arthur Street, by which time Ormonde was 43 and a rate setter
with an electric company, Alice A Collett was 41, Grace N Collett was 16, Frank
W Collett was 14, Edna M Collett was nine, Ruth L Collett was six and Jack E
Collett was two years of age
By 1940, Ormonde Collett from England was 53
and a cabinet maker at a factory, where he was also a foreman, when he and his
reduced family were residing at 454 Arthur Street in Schenectady, New York,
where they had been living ten years earlier.
His wife Alice was 51 and only four of their six children were still
living with them at the family home.
They were Frank Collett who was 23 and a draughtsman in a factory, Edna
Collett who was 19 and a filing clerk in an office, Ruth Collett who was 16 and
Jack Collett who was 12 years old, both of them still attending school. Seventeen years after that Ormonde Collett died
in New York on 24th January 1957, death certificate number 1957/5862. His daughter Edna M Collett never married
and, continued to reside in Schenectady, where she was still living on 13th
July 2001
2Q88 – Grace N Collett was born at Schenectady, New York in 1914
2Q89 – Frank W Collett was born at Schenectady, New York in 1916
2Q90 – a Collett child was born at Schenectady, New York in 1918
2Q91 – Edna M Collett was born at Schenectady, New York on 13th March 1921
2Q92 – Ruth L Collett was born at Schenectady, New York in 1924
2Q93 – Jack E Collett was born at Schenectady, New York in 1927
George Collett [2P89] was born at
Kensington either near the end of 1887 or early in 1888, his birth recorded at
Kensington (Ref. 1a 116) during the first quarter of 1888, the fifth of the six
children of Edward and Charlotte Collett.
It is possible that he may have been born at 139 Ladbroke Place,
Ladbroke Grove Road in Kensington, since it was there that he was living in
1891 when he was three years of age. Two
years later his father died and it seems likely that the family was then split
up with his mother ending up in an institution by 1901. Also, at that same time George and his
brother Frank (below) were also placed in an institution, but in West Ham and
not at Kensington where their mother was recorded. George was only 13 at that time in his
life. George and Frank stayed very close
and, by 1911, they were still sharing the same accommodation and the same
employer in the Grays Inn Road area of St
Pancras. Both brothers were confirmed as
working as upholsterer’s clerks, who were born at Kensington, and employees of
the head of the household where they were living, when George Collett was 23
Frank Barry Collett [2P90] was
born at 139 Ladbroke Place, Ladbroke Grove Road in Kensington, either near the
end of 1889 or early in 1890, his birth recorded at Kensington (Ref. 1a 162)
during the first quarter of 1890. It was
also at 139 Ladbroke Place, where he and his family were living in 1891, when
Frank Collett was one year old. With his
father dying in 1893 and his mother in an institution by 1901, Frank aged 11
was with his brother George (above) in 1901, when the pair of them were staying
at an institution in West Ham, where their older sister Maud was also living
and working at that time. Ten years
later, according to the census in 1911 for Grays Inn Road in St Pancras, Frank
Barry Collett was once again living with his older brother George Collett. Frank was 21 and an upholsterer’s clerk, and
assistant and employee of the head of the household, as was his brother, their
place of birth confirmed as Kensington
Elizabeth Collett [2P91], who
was referred to as Bess, was born in Hammersmith in London on 29th
October 1879. Two years later she was
listed as living with her parents at 32 Oxford Gardens in Kensington. While she
was 11 years old in the 1891 Census when Elizabeth and her family were still
residing in Kensington. Two years later
her mother died, so on the occasion of the next census in 1901 she was 21 when
she was living with her widowed father at 86 Leathwaite Road in Clapham from
where she was working as a post office clerk at a local branch of the General
Post Office. With the early death of her
father Percy Collett in 1902, it was left to Elizabeth, as his eldest daughter,
and supported by her brother Algernon (below), to look after the younger
children of the family. Around 1909
Elizabeth married William Frederick Ford Arnold at St Paul’s Church in
Hammersmith. William was born at
Southwark in 1870 and at the turn of the century he was a book binder living in
Battersea. He later became a dealer in
fine art and at the time of their wedding he was living at 42 St Dunstan’s
Road, opposite Charing Cross Hospital.
Shortly after they were married Elizabeth and William left London and
moved north to live at Newcastle-upon-Tyne where their two children were born
and where William opened a picture gallery.
By April 1911 the marriage had produced the first of the couple’s two
children. The census return that year
confirmed that Elizabeth Arnold of London was 31 and that her husband William
Frederick Ford Arnold of London was 41.
Living with the couple was their one-year-old son Cecil William
Arnold who had been born after they had arrived in Newcastle
During the following year
Elizabeth presented William with their second son Stanley Ford Arnold
who was born in 1912 and who, twenty-seven years later, married (1) Minnie
Hepplewhite Alderson which was recorded at Newcastle-upon-Tyne register office (Ref. 10b
50) during the second quarter of 1939.
Their marriage produced a daughter who was born the following year when
the birth of Elizabeth M Arnold was recorded at Newcastle (Ref. 10b 191) in
1940. It would appear that within a few
short years Stanley and Minnie were divorced most likely when Stanley was a
serviceman with the British Army. It was
in Singapore during 1948 that Stanley married (2) Gladys Louvain Aldridge, the
source of the information being the GRO Index of Army Marriages. Many years later his first wife also
remarried, the event being recorded at the Border register office in
Northumberland (Ref. 1a 47) during the last three months of 1964 that Minnie H
Arnold married Joseph E Coulthard
Sadly, Elizabeth’s first
son Cecil William Arnold died while still very young, and further bad luck hit
the family when Elizabeth’s husband’s art gallery failed and he was declared
bankrupt. William Frederick Ford Arnold
died in 1927 and the age of 57.
Elizabeth lived a widow’s life for a further thirty-eight years before
she died in 1965 at the age of 86. Elizabeth’s other son
Stanley Ford Arnold died at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk during 1987 when it was
confirmed that he was born in 1912, while his first wife Minnie Hepplewhite
Coulthard died at Newcastle in the 2000 at the age of 86. Their daughter Elizabeth married John Noble
at Northumberland Central register office (Ref. 1a 371) in the last quarter of
1972 under the name Elizabeth M Coulthard.
Their two children were John Noble (born 1979) and David Noble (born
1981)
Algernon Percy Collett [2P92] was
born at Kensington in London during the third quarter of 1881, and certainly
after the third of April that year. It
is very likely that he was born while his parents were living at 32 Oxford
Gardens in Kensington where his family was recorded in the census return that
year. He was nine years old in the
Kensington census of 1891 and just two years after that his mother died during
childbirth. On leaving school he took up
work in a solicitor’s office and by 1901 was 19 years of age and was employed
as a solicitor’s clerk while living with his widowed father and the rest of his
family at 86 Leathwaite Road in Clapham.
He later became an articled clerk and eventually qualified as a
solicitor. Following the death of his
father Percy Collett during 1902, Algernon and his older sister Elizabeth
(above) took over responsibility for the care of their five younger
siblings. Around 1909 both Algernon and
Elizabeth were married, by which time their youngest sibling was still only
sixteen years of age. It was in London
that Algernon married Winifred Mary Gill, who was known as Winnie, the marriage
being registered at Hackney during the first three months of 1909. When his sister Elizabeth was married, she
and her husband immediately moved to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, so it was left to
Algernon and Winnie to continue to look after the youngest members of his
family
By April 1911 the
marriage had produced the first child for Algernon and Winnie. At the time of the census that year the
family of three was recorded as visiting the home of Algernon’s younger married
sister May Blossom Dunhill (below) and her husband Arthur at 14 Arnold Road in
Tottenham within the Edmonton registration
district of London. One-year earlier,
Algernon and Winnie had been residing at Stroud Green in the London Borough of
Haringey when their son was born. The
census return in 1911 listed the three of them as
Algernon Percy Collett who was 29, his much younger wife Winifred Mary Collett
who was 21, and their son Frank Percy Collett who was just one year old. The couple later left London shortly after the
census day in 1911 and travelled east to settle in Rochford in Essex where the
couple’s next three children were born.
It is understood that the marriage actually produced to total of five
children, but so far only the four of them listed below have been
identified. Not long after the birth of
the fourth child, and at the height of the First World War, the family left
Essex when they swapped the east of England for Weston-Super-Mare in
Somerset. It was also at
Weston-Super-Mare that Algernon Percy Collett died in 1945, his death being
recorded there during the final three months of that year. Winnie survived her husband by fourteen
years, when Winifred Mary Collett nee Gill died at Weston-Super-Mare during the
first quarter of 1959
On 8th July 1948 a certain spinster by the
name of Sarah Bryan Collett died at
166 Milton Road in Weston-Super-Mare, following which her Will, valued at
£6,269 3 Shillings 2 Pence, was proved at Bristol on 30th
August. Named as executor was Alice
Kathleen Goad, the wife of John Henry Goad, who may have been her married
sister. Apart from the Weston
connection, the details have been included here because of Sarah’s second name
of Bryan. It is established that Bryan
Collett [2P97] died in 1911 and he may have been her cousin, Sarah being born
just after he died and named in his memory, perhaps even the child of Algernon
and Winifred missing from the list of their children below
2Q94 – Frank Percy Collett was born at Stroud
Green, London in 1910
2Q95 – Beryl M Collett was born at Rochford,
Essex in 1912
2Q96 – Stanley Collett was born at Rochford,
Essex in 1914
2Q97 – Muriel W Collett was born at Rochford,
Essex in 1916
May Blossom Collett [2P94] was
born at Kensington in 1883, the twin sister of Hubert J Collett. Whilst she may have been born at Notting
Hill, like her younger siblings, it was at Kensington where her birth was
recorded (Ref. 1a 83) during the third quarter of the year. She was seven years of age in 1891 and was 17
years old by the end of March 1901. She
was not in employment at that time but was probably helping her widowed father
Percy Collett to look after her younger siblings in the family home 86
Leathwaite Road in Clapham after the premature death of her mother in
1893. A little while later, but before
1911, she married Arthur Dunhill and they initially settled in the Edmonton
area of London near to where May’s brother Algernon (above) was also living at
that time. According to the Edmonton
district census of 1911 May Blossom Dunhill was 27, when she and her husband
Arthur, who was 25, were residing at 14 Arnold Road in Tottenham. They had no children at that time and on the
day of the census they had visiting them May’s older brother Algernon Percy
Collett (above) and his wife and their first child. Later in their life together, it is known
that May and Arthur lived at Finsbury Park where the marriage produced three or
four sons for the couple
Stanley Collett [2P95] was
born at Notting Hill in London on 15th April 1887, when his birth
was recorded at Kensington register office (Ref. 1a 113). He was three years old in the Kensington
census of 1891. He was still at school
at the turn of the century at the age of 13, his mother having died when she
was only five years old. Therefore, in
March 1901, he was living with his widowed father and the rest of his family at
86 Leathwaite Road in Clapham. He was a
very clever young man and had great successes in his Civil Service Examinations
and became a civilian quartermaster with the Royal Navy and sometime between
1901 and 1911 he left London and moved to Portsmouth. According to the census of 1911, Stanley
Collett from Notting Hill, was 23 and a civil servant and an assistant
secretary to the admiral superintendent at H M Dockyard Portsmouth, who was a
boarder at the home of Edward and Eliza Caroline Paddick. Visiting him there on that day, were two of
his younger siblings Adelaide and Bryan Collett (below).
Just over eight years
later, the marriage of Stanley Collett and Ethel Florence Adams was recorded at
Havant register office in Hampshire (Ref. 2b 1259) during the third quarter of
1919. Ethel was ten years younger than
her husband, having been born at Portsmouth on 7th July 1897, the
youngest child of Harry and Alice Adams, who were living at Farlington near
Havant in 1911. The marriage produced
two daughters for Stanley who served with the Royal Navy in Singapore during
the 1930s and, during the Second World War, he was posted to Rosyth in
Scotland. His travels with the navy may
be the reason why the birth of the couple’s second child has not been found in
Great Britain. His daughters were both
married in Surrey, their weddings recorded at the South-Eastern register
office, where the death of Stanley Collett was recorded at the same register
office (Ref. 17 1174) during the first few months of 1980, when he was 92 years
old. Three years later, the death of
Ethel Florence Collett was recorded at the Surrey Mid-Eastern register office
(Ref. 17 110) during the spring of 1983, aged 85
2Q98 – Sheila J Collett was born at Plymouth
in 1927
2Q99 – Ursula D Collett was born in 1929
Adelaide Rose Collett [2P96] was
born at 44 Chesterton Road in Notting Hill, London, while it was at Kensington
(Ref. 1a 146) where her birth was recorded during the last quarter of
1889. That was confirmed by the census
of 1891, when she was one year old, and two years later her mother died. By the time she was 11 in 1901 she was living
with her widowed father and the rest of her family at 86 Leathwaite Road in
Clapham. Later that same year Adelaide’s
father died, at which time she had reached her twelfth birthday. The death of her father resulted in her
having to leave school to seek employment, which she did, at a local draper’s
shop. At that time in her life, she and
her other young brothers and sisters were looked after by the two oldest
members of the Collett family, they being Adelaide’s sister Elizabeth and
brother Algernon. However, when both of
them were married around 1909, Adelaide and her brother Bryan (below) travelled
to Portsmouth in 1911, where their brother Stanley Collett was a member of the
Royal Navy and in lodgings there. The
April census of 1911 recorded all three unmarried siblings together, when
Adelaide Rose Collett was 21 and a draper’s shop assistant from Notting Hill,
who was a visitor at the boarding-house managed by Edward and Eliza Caroline
Paddick from London.
Within just a few weeks,
her brother Bryan died in Portsmouth when, in the census that year, he was
described as an invalid. Sometime later,
perhaps when Stanley became a married man, Adelaide left Portsmouth and headed
for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where she stayed with her older married sister
Elizabeth ‘Bess’ Arnold. It was while
she was living with her sister, that she met her future husband
Sverre Hjersing. Sverre had been born at
Moss in Norway in 1890 and worked in Oslo and the United States of America as a
naval architect. He came to England in
1916 and was employed at Anesen Christensen & Smith Ltd where he later
became one of the directors at their Cardiff office. Adelaide married Sverre at St Johannes Church
in Maple Street in Newcastle on 24th November 1917. The couple later had three children, Betty
Hjersing who was born at Cardiff in 1919 and who went on to marry George
Welford, Harold Hjersing who was born in 1920, and Elsie Hjersing
who was born in 1925 and who later married Laurence Reed. Sverre received a royal commendation from the
King of Norway for his efforts and support in the ‘Free Norway Movement’ and he
died on a business trip in 1956 aged 66.
Following his death Adelaide lived at Bolham House in the village of
Bolham just north of Tiverton in Devon, where she later died in 1974
Bryan Collett [2P97] was born at 44
Chesterton Road in Notting Hill, his birth recorded at Kensington register
office (Ref. 1a 326) during the third quarter of 1891. His mother died in 1898, after which his
father took the family to the Wandsworth & Clapham area of London. Bryan was nine years old by the day of the
census in 1901, when he was living with his widowed father and his brothers and
sisters at 86 Leathwaite Road in Clapham.
Less than one year later, his father Percy Collett died, following which
Bryan and his siblings were looked after by the two oldest unmarried siblings
Elizabeth Collett and Algernon Collett.
The young family continued to live together like that in London until
1909, when both Elizabeth and Algernon were married to their respective life
partners. By that time, Bryan’s older
brother Stanley Collett (above) had already joined the Royal Navy and was a
boarder in Portsmouth at the home of the Paddick family. On the day of the next census in 1911, Bryan
Collett, together with his sister Adelaide (above), were visitors at the
boarding-house where Stanley (above) was living in Portsmouth. The census return confirmed that all three
siblings had been born at Notting Hill, with Bryan being 19 and an invalid and
a former bank clerk, no longer able to work.
Tragically, not long after that census day, the death of Bryan Collett
was recorded at Portsmouth register office (Ref. 2b 53) and during the second
quarter of 1911, when he was still 19 years of age
Frances Collett [2P99] was
born in 1895 at 26 Chesterton Road in Notting Hill, to where her parents had
moved in 1894, the last child of Percy Collett and Elizabeth Berridge. Her birth was recorded at St Pancras during
the second quarter of 1895, where her mother’s death was recorded in 1898. It was the census in 1901 which has caused
confusion over her year of birth, since at that time she was said to be seven
years of age, instead of being six years old.
According to the census return that year Frances Collett was living at
86 Leathwaite Road in Clapham with her father Percy Collett and her seven older
siblings or half siblings. During the
next few months another major tragedy struck the family with the third death in
the family in the space of just a few years, when her father died. For almost the remainder of the decade
Frances was cared for by the older members of her family, primarily her eldest
sister Elizabeth, and her eldest brother Algernon, and later by Algernon and
his wife Winnie
By April 1911 Frances’
sister Elizabeth was married and was living in Newcastle, while her brother
Algernon and his wife were living in Edmonton, as was married sister May
Blossom who was actually living at the same address as Algernon. And it was also in Edmonton, but at a
different address that Frances Collett was living and working at the age of
sixteen. That perhaps was a better
indicator that she was actually born in 1895.
After the Great War Frances married Harold H Penman from Nottingham at
Newcastle during the June quarter of 1921.
The marriage produced a daughter Evelyn Penman who was born at
Tynemouth in 1925 and who later married Francis Beck, from Kendall in Cumbria,
at Hendon in 1952. Frances Penman nee
Collett died in Surrey during the last three months of 1979 at the age of 86
and was followed two years after by her husband Harold H Penman who died at
Islington in London in 1981
Anne Collett [2P103] was born at
Broadway in 1878, the likely base-born daughter of unmarried Amelia A Collett
who would have been around 30 when she fell pregnant. With her mother being employed as a domestic
servant at The
Vicarage in Childswickham in 1881, Anne was being looked after by her
grandparents Francis and Mary Ann Collett in Broadway. Just
after the turn of the century Anne Collett from Broadway was living within the
North Broadway registration district and was listed in the census of 1901 as
Annie Collett, aged 22. On that occasion
Annie was a boarder at the Midland Store in the High Street, in the north part
of Broadway, where she was working as a grocer’s manager with Henry Preece and
his wife. The only other Collett living within that same area of Broadway at that
time was Sarah Collett who was 69 and from Childswickham (see the Appendix One
in section one of Part 2 for more details)
William Reuben Collett [2P104] was
born at Northleach in 1859, the eldest son of Edwin from Cold Aston and his
wife Maria from Little Rissington, Edwin being the son of Joseph and Elizabeth
Collett. Just after he was born his
father’s work as a carpenter resulted in the family moving to nearby Farmington
where they were living at the time of the census in 1861. Their home was the tollgate cottage at New
Barn Pike in Farmington, where William’s mother Maria was the collector of
tolls. The census return confirmed that
William R Collett was one year old and had been born at Northleach. For whatever reason, that was the only
occasion when William was recorded with his parents. It was also at Farmington that the family was
still living when William’s brother Charles (below) was born later that same
year, although shortly after that the family moved again, to nearby Great
Rissington, where the majority of William’s later siblings were born. By the time of the next census in 1871, and
perhaps for reasons of over-crowding in the family home, William R Collett from
Northleach was living with his elderly grandmother, Elizabeth Collett from Cold
Aston, at a private house in the village of Little Rissington. The census return confirmed that he was 11
years of age and the grandson of widow Elizabeth Collett. The only other person residing at the house
was Elizabeth’s youngest son Henry Collett, aged 20 and a blacksmith, who was
the youngest brother of William’s father
During the years that
followed, Elizabeth eventually left Gloucestershire, when she travelled south
to Sevenoaks in Kent to live with her son James and his family. It seems very likely that William also made
the long journey with his grandmother, because that was where he was living in
1881, albeit separately from his grandmother and his uncle James, as confirmed
in the census of 1881. At that time
William Collett, aged 21 and from Gloucestershire, was a servant and assistant
grocer at the home of grocer Thomas Hill from Ashford in Kent, at 78 Hills Yard
in Sevenoaks. Five years later, during
the first three months of 1886, William Reuben Collett married Jane Henrietta
Lambert at Sevenoaks in Kent, where the event was recorded (Ref. 2a 966). The birth of Jane H Lambert was registered at
Chippenham during the first quarter of 1859, the second child and eldest
daughter of Henry and Jane Lambert of Box in Wiltshire. Once they were married, William and Jane
settled in Brighton on the south coast of Sussex and it was there that three of their four children were born. It was also in Brighton that the family was
still living at the time of the census in 1891, albeit with only two of their
children, since the couple’s third child was born four years later
The Brighton census in
1891 listed the family as William R Collett, aged 31 and from Northleach in
Gloucestershire, his wife Jane H Collett from Box in Wiltshire, who was
incorrectly recorded as being 36, when she was the same age as her husband, and
their two children Cecil L Collett who was three and Percy H Collett who was
two years old. Sometime after 1895, and
following the birth of the couple’s third child, the family left Brighton when
they moved along the coast to settle in Hasting, where the fourth child was
born. It was within the Holy Trinity
area of Hastings, at Cambridge Gardens, that the family was residing in March
1901. Once again, the census confirmed
that William was involved in the grocery trade, when he was described as
William R Collett from Northleach who was 41 and a grocer and a
shopkeeper. His wife was recorded as
Jane H Collett, aged 42, and their four children on that occasion were Cecil L
Collett aged 13, Percy H Collett aged 12, Dorothy K Collett who was five years
of age, and Marjorie L Collett who was one year old
During the first decade
of the new century the family moved again, on that occasion to Burnham in
Buckinghamshire, midway between Maidenhead and Slough. It was at Burnham that the
family was located in April 1911 when the census return that year recorded the
family as William Reuben Collett who was 51 and a grocer and a draper, Jane
Henrietta Collett who was 52 and assisting in the family business, Cecil
Lambert Collett who was 23 and Percy Herbert Collett who was 22, both of them
working with their father as grocer’s assistants, Dorothy Kathleen who was 15
and a draper’s assistant, and Marjorie Lucy Collett who was 11 and still
attending school. The couple appear to
have lived out the rest of their life together in that area of the country,
since the death of William Reuben Collett was recorded at the Windsor register
office (Ref. 2c 526) during the last three months of 1926. Following the death of her husband Jane
continued to live in Burnham for the next twenty-five years when, at the age of
92, widow Jane Henrietta Collett died on 1st November 1951. She was residing at a dwelling on the High
Street in Burnham at that time, but passed away in St Peter’s Hospital at
Chertsey in Surrey and it was at Chertsey register office (Ref. 5g 638) that
her death was recorded. Her Will was
proved at Oxford on 19th March 1952 when the executors of her estate
of £3,705 5 Shillings 4 Pence were named as Cecil Lambert Collett, a master
grocer, and Percy Herbert Collett, the manager of a newsagents
2Q100 – Cecil Lambert Collett was born at Brighton
in 1887
2Q101 – Percy Herbert Collett was born at Brighton
in 1888
2Q102 – Dorothy Kathleen Collett was born at
Brighton 1895
2Q103 – Marjorie Lucy was born at Hastings in
1899
Charles H Collett [2P105] was
born at Farmington in 1861 after the census that year, the second son of Edwin
and Maria Collett. Just after he was born
his parents moved to nearby Great Rissington, where the family lived until
1876, when they moved north to County Durham.
In every census from 1871 to 1901 he was listed as Charles H Collett and
he followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming a joiner. He was nine years old in the Great Rissington
census of 1871 and was 19 in the census of 1881, by which time he and his
family were living at North End in Sedgefield, where Charles was working with
his father as a joiner’s apprentice. He
was the eldest offspring of Edwin and Maria and one of just five of their
children still living with them at High Row in Sedgefield in 1891. On that census day, when unmarried Charles H
Collett from Farmington who was 29 and a joiner like his father, with whom he
may have been working. Ten years later
the family home was at High Row in Sedgefield from where Charles, aged 39, was
still working alongside his widowed father as a joiner and a carpenter. It is assumed that Charles never married and,
in April 1911, the census that month, confirmed that Charles Collett from
Farmington in Gloucestershire was 49 and a joiner, who was still living his
widowed father Edwin at The Square in Sedgefield. By that time Charles’ unmarried younger
sister Marion Collett was the only other member of the family living there, and
she was the housekeeper. Twenty-seven
years later, the death of Charles H Collett was recorded at the Durham Western
register office (Ref. 10a 202) during the fourth quarter of 1938, when he was
76 years old
Emily Collett [2P106] was born at Great
Rissington in 1863 just after her parents Edwin and Maria Collett move there
from Farmington. As a result of which,
the birth was recorded at Northleach during the last three months of the year,
and it was at Great Rissington that she was living with her family in 1871 at
the age of seven years. Around five
years later Emily’s family left Gloucestershire and moved to Sedgefield in
County Durham. By the time of the next
census in 1881 the family was living at North End in Sedgefield and at that
time in her life Emily had already left school and had entered into domestic
service. The census return that year
confirmed she was 17 years of age and from Great Rissington, when she was
working as a domestic servant at the home of curator Richard Everold Thomas and
his mother Annie Thomas and his sister Ann Everold Thomas at 3 Grove Street in
Elswick, Northumberland
By 1891 the census that
year placed Emily Collett aged 26 was living and working in the Bishopwearmouth
district of Sunderland. Upon the death
of her mother Maria, just before the end of the century, Emily returned to the
family home at High Row in Sedgefield to take over as housekeeper for her
widowed father and other members of her family.
According to the census in March 1901, Emily Collett from Rissington in
Gloucestershire was 37 and was the domestic housekeeper for her father Edwin
and her brothers Charles and Alfred at Sedgefield. In that role she was supported by her younger
sister Marion (below). Sometime during
the first decade of the new century Emily left Sedgefield, leaving her sister
Marion to care for her father and her brother Charles. By April 1911 Emily Collett from Great
Rissington was 47 when she was living in the Auckland registration district of
County Durham. It would appear that she
never married and lived for the rest of her life in Durham where she died at
the age of 80 during the second quarter of 1944, her death recorded at Durham
Western register office (Ref. 10a 217)
Alfred J Collett {2P107] was
born at Great Rissington in 1865, the son of Edwin and Maria Collett, and it
was there he was living with his family in 1871 when he was five years
old. Around the time when he was ten or
eleven years of age, his family left Great Rissington and travelled north to
County Durham and settled at North End in Sedgefield. It was there that Alfred was living with them
in 1881 at 15 years of age when he was still at school, although no census
record for him has so far been found ten years later in 1891. However, after a further ten years Alfred J
Collett, aged 35 and from Rissington, was back living with his widowed father
in Sedgefield, where his occupation was that of a domestic coachman. Two and half years later Alfred married widow
Isabella
Strawbridge, the marriage being recorded at Lanchester (Ref. 10a 461), seven
miles north-west of Durham, during the third quarter of 1903. The former Isabella Burton was baptised at
Cornforth, Durham, on 22nd November 1876, the daughter of Thomas and
Isabella Burton. The death of her late
husband, William Strawbridge, was recorded at Lanchester during the second
quarter of 1902. Twelve months earlier,
Isabella Strawbridge was 26 in 1901, when she was recorded in the Scottish
census that year at Kelvin, Glasgow in Lanarkshire, with her first husband
William Strawbridge who was 33. That day
she was expecting the birth of her third child, having already given birth to
James H Strawbridge who was four and William Ward Strawbridge who was three
years old, both of whom had been born in the County Durham village of
Quebec. So, when Isabella married
Alfred, she brought with her, into his home, the three children from her first
marriage
Following their wedding day, Alfred and
Isabella made their home at Annfield Plain, in the parish of Lanchester, where
Isabella had been born and where the couple’s four children were born although,
only two of them were still alive by April 1911. However, one more child was added to the
family two years later. The census in 1911 placed the family residing at
2 Antliff Terrace, a three-roomed accommodation, in Annfield Plain, County
Durham. Head of the household was A J
Collett from Gloucestershire who was 46 and a labourer at Bank Colliery. His wife of seven years, Isabella Collett,
was 36 and had been born at Kyo, Annfield Plain. Their two surviving daughters were Margaret
Collett who was seven and attending school, and Isabella Collett who was three
years old. Living with the Collett
family that day, were Isabella’s three Strawbridge children, described as
Alfred’s stepsons. They were
James Strawbridge who was 14 and working with his stepfather at Bank Colliery,
William Strawbridge who was 12 and S Strawbridge who was nine, both of them
still attending school. Alfred’s only son and namesake was born at
Annfield Plain in 1913, the birth of Alfred J Collett recorded at Lanchester
register office (Ref. 10a 719) during the third quarter of that year, when his
mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Burton.
Twenty-four years on from his birth, Alfred J Collett, senior, was still
living within the parish of Lanchester in County Durham (Ref. 10a 329) when he
died during the second quarter of 1937, at the age of 71
2Q104 – Margaret Ann Collett was born at
Annfield Plain, County Durham in 1904
2Q105 – Ellen Collett was born at Annfield
Plain, County Durham in 1906; died in 1909
2Q106 – Isabella Collett was born at Annfield
Plain, County Durham in 1908
2Q107 – Emily Collett was born at Annfield
Plain, County Durham in 1909; died in 1909
2Q108 – Alfred J Collett was born at Annfield
Plain, County Durham in 1913
Elizabeth Annie Collett [2P108] was
born at Great Rissington in 1867, the daughter of Edwin and Maria Collett. It was at Great Rissington that the family
was living in 1871 when Elizabeth Annie Collett was three years of age. Around five or six years later the family
left Gloucestershire and set up a new home in County Durham and it was at North
End in Sedgefield where the family was recorded in 1881. The census that year confirmed that Elizabeth
Collett from Great Rissington in Gloucestershire was 13 and still at
school. During the following decade the
family left North End and settled at High Row in Sedgefield where Elizabeth A
Collett from Rissington was a dressmaker at 23.
Elizabeth Annie Collett was 29 years of age when she married Arthur
Arnold Ashton, aged 26, at St Edmund’s Church in Sedgefield on 19th
July 1897, when the bride’s father was confirmed as Edwin Collett and the
groom’s father was named as Thomas Ashton.
The marriage produced at least two children, although for some reason
the couple’s first-born son was staying with his grandfather, Elizabeth’s
father, at High Row in Sedgefield on the day of the census in 1901. Reginald Ashton was born at Tudhoe near
Spennymoor in County Durham and was the two-year old grandson of widower Edwin
Collett. On that same day his parents
were at their home in Tudhoe where Arthur A Ashton from Kirby Moorside in
Yorkshire was 29 and the manager of a grocer’s shop. His wife Elizabeth A Ashton from Great
Rissington was 33. Ten years later all
four members of the family were together in Auckland. Arthur Arnold Ashton was 40, his wife Elizabeth
Annie Ashton from Gloucestershire was 42 and their two sons were Albert Reginald
Ashton who was 12 and Roland Percival Ashton who was eight years of
age
Agnes Eliza Collett [2P109] was
born at Great Rissington during the month of May 1870, another daughter of
Edwin and Maria Collett. Within the
Great Rissington census that was conducted the following year Agnes Eliza
Collett was eleven months old but when she was around six years old her family
moved to Sedgefield in County Durham. It
was at North End in Sedgefield that the family was recorded in 1881 where Agnes
Collett was 10 years old and attending the local school. From North End the family moved to High Row
where they were living in 1891 but without Agnes Collett who would have been 20
years of age. Therefore, either she had
died by then or had married before reaching adult age
Alwyn Collett [2P110] was born at Great
Rissington during the first three months of 1874, the birth being recorded at
Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 391). When he
was around three years old his parents moved to Sedgefield in County Durham, as
confirmed by the census of 1881 in which they were recorded as living at North
End in Sedgefield, when Alwyn Collett from Great Rissington was seven years old
and at school. According to the next
census in 1891, Alwyn Collett from Rissington was 17 when he was still living
with his family at High Row in Sedgefield where his occupation was that of a
domestic gardener. During the next ten
years Alwyn left the family home at High Row in Sedgefield and moved to the
Cornforth area of County Durham, where he was a lodger in March 1901 at Church
Street in Coxhoe, the home of the Holmes family. At that time, the census confirmed he was 27
and had been born at Rissington, by which time he was employed as a signalman
and a porter working on the staff of the North Eastern Railway Company
Just five years later,
Alwyn Collett of Great Rissington married (1) Beatrice Othick Clarke at
Darlington during the second quarter of 1906 and, it was in the following year
that, their son was born at Cornforth.
He was named jointly after Beatrice’s father and Alwyn’s father. Beatrice was born at Chilton, near
Sedgefield, in 1882 and was the daughter of Major and Elizabeth Clark. In the census of 1901 Beatrice O Clark was 18
and was a dressmaker at Cornforth, where she very likely met Alwyn. The subsequent census for Darlington in 1911,
recorded the family of three as Alwyn Collett, who was 37 and from Little
Rissington, a railway signalman, Beatrice Othick Collett, who was 28 and from
Ferry Hill in Durham, and Major Edwin Collett who was three years old and born
at Cornforth. On that day, Alwyn’s work
had taken the family to Croft Spa Station, at Hurworth-on-Tees, on the
Darlington Main Line. As far as can be
determined, no further children were added to the family over the following
years and, four years later, the death of Beatrice O Collett, aged 33, was
recorded at Darlington register office (Ref. 10a 6) during the second quarter
of 1915. Three and a half years after
being widowed, the marriage of Alwyn Collett and (2) Lena Marie Eden was
recorded at Darlington (Ref. 10a 5) during the last three months of 1918. That second marriage endured for almost
twenty years, while it was at York register office that the death of Alwyn
Collett was recorded during the second quarter of 1937 (Ref. 9d 20), when he
was 63. His Will was proved at York on
the 5th July, which confirmed the day he died as 6th May
1937, while the sole beneficiary under the terms of the Will was Lena Marie
Collett, his second wife
2Q109 – Major Edwin Collett was born at Cornforth,
County Durham in 1907
Marion E Collett [2P111] was
born during 1876 at Great Rissington, another daughter of Edwin and Maria
Collett. She was still a baby when her
family left Gloucestershire and, by 1878, they had settled in North End in
Sedgefield, County Durham. The census in
1881 included Marion E Collett living with her family at the age of five years,
her place of birth confirmed as Rissington.
It was at Sedgefield appears to have lived for the rest of her
life. Ten years later the family was
residing at High Row in Sedgefield when the census in 1891 listed her in error
as Maria E Collett from Rissington who was 15 and a dressmaker’s
apprentice. After a further ten years
the census in 1901 revealed that her mother had died and that Marion E Collett
aged 25 had no stated occupation, so was most likely helping her eldest sister
Emily (above) in supporting her widowed father and two brothers. By April 1911 Marion Collett from Great Rissington,
aged 34, was the housekeeper for her elderly father and her unmarried brother
Charles (above). It is not known at this
time whether or not she was ever married
Ellen Maria Collett [2P112] was
born in 1878, the youngest child of Edwin and Maria Collett from
Gloucestershire and their only child to be born at Sedgefield on County
Durham. She may have been born at North
end in Sedgefield where the family was recorded in the census of 1881 when
Ellen M Collett was three years old. In
1891 and 1901 the family was residing at High Row in Sedgefield where Ellen M
Collett was 13 in the first on them but had left home by the second. No trace of her as Ellen Collett has been
found after 1891, either in the census returns for 1901 or 1911
Frank Charles Collett [2P113] was
born at Upper Slaughter in 1865, the eldest child of Albert Collett and his
wife Caroline Clifford. His birth was
registered at Stow-on-the-Wold during the June quarter of that year. By the time of the census in April 1871
Frank’s family had left Upper Slaughter and was living in Bourton-on-the-Water,
where Frank Collett was recorded as being five years old. Ten years later Frank was still living with
his family at The Bank in Bourton, by which time he was 15 and was working with
his father as a shoemaker. He later
worked as an engine driver on the railway which took him all over the country
and, it was while in Birmingham, that he met his wife (1) Florence Ada Rowley
who was born at Aston in the final three months of 1860. The marriage took place in 1889 at Reading
where it was registered during the September quarter of that year. One year later, on the occasion of the birth of their only child, the
couple was living in Southall, where Rowland Albert Collett was born, his birth
recorded at Uxbridge register office.
Eight months after that happy event, the family of three was residing at
Grove Terrace in Norwood, Middlesex, where Frank Charles Collett from
Gloucestershire was 25 and a fireman with the Great Western Railway, his wife
Florence Ada Collett from Warwickshire was 26, and Rowland from Southall was
eight months
It was at the other end of the Great Western Railway
line that the family was living ten years later in 1901. By then Frank C Collett from Upper Slaughter was
still employed by the Great Western Railway, but as a railway engine driver at
the age of 35. It was within
the parish of St Mary in Truro where the three of them were recorded, Truro, in
Cornwall, having a station on the GWR west coast main line. Living there with him was his wife Florence A
Collett, aged 36 and from Birmingham, and their son Rowland A Collett who was
ten and born at Southall. It was around
six months later that Florence Ada Collett, nee Rowley, died at Truro where her
death was registered during the September quarter of 1901, when she was
37. Following the death of his wife,
Frank left Cornwall and, it may have been his work on the railways, that
eventually took him to Oxfordshire. Just
over four years after being made a widower Frank married (2) Ellen Pilgrim, who
was born at Woburn in Bedfordshire in 1868, the wedding taking place at Banbury
in Oxfordshire during the last three months of 1905. By the time of the next census in April 1911,
Frank Charles Collett from Upper Slaughter was 46, and living with him in the
Banbury area was his wife Ellen Collett who was 43 and from Bedfordshire. It was almost exactly twenty years after that
when Frank Charles Collett died in 1931, his passing recorded at St Albans
register office during the first three months of the year. Ellen survived her husband by twenty-eight
years when, at the age of 90, she too died at St Albans, where her death was
recorded during the second quarter of 1959
2Q110 – Rowland A Collett was born in 1890 at Southall,
Middlesex
Ernest Austin Collett [2P114] was
born at Upper Slaughter in 1867, the second of four sons of shoemaker Albert
Collett and his wife Caroline. His birth
was registered at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 340) during the last three months
of 1867. Within the census return for
Bourton-on-the-Water in 1871, Ernest A Collett was three years old. However, by the time of the next census in
1881, Ernest had left the family home in Bourton, even at the tender age of
13. At that time in his life, he had
taken the major step of moving to London, where he was recorded as a visitor at
the Lambeth home of the widow Susan Kidman at 23 Dorset Road. Whilst Susan Kidman’s three sons, all in
their twenties, were working as barristers’ and solicitors’ clerks, young
Ernest A Collett was described as being a lad in an architect’s office, which
was a major change from his family background of shoemaking. On that occasion his place of birth was
simply recorded as Gloucester, a shortening of Gloucestershire. Ernest was still a bachelor in 1891 when the
census that year placed him living at Bishops Road in Lambeth in London, a
boarder at the home of the Burdett family.
It was as Ernest A Collett, aged 23, and from Upper Slaughter, that he
was recorded on the census return as an architect’s assistant. Just over five and a half years later he met
and married Grace Bourne. Grace was born
at Ninfield in East Sussex the daughter of Benjamin and Harriet Bourne, her
birth being recorded at Hailsham register office during the third quarter of
1873, while their wedding was also registered there (Ref. 2b 219) during the
final three months of 1896. Once married
the couple settled in Battersea, where their only known child was born almost
exactly nine months later
And it was at Broadlands
Terrace, on Nightingale Lane in Battersea St Luke, that the family of three was
living in March 1901. The census on that
occasion recorded them as Ernest A Collett, aged 33 and from Upper Slaughter,
whose occupation was still that of an architect’s assistant, his wife Grace
Collett aged 27 of Ninfield in Sussex, and their son Alan Collett who was three
years old and born at Battersea. Ten
years later Grace Collett was temporarily separated from her husband and her
son when she was staying with her elderly parents in nearby Hastings in April
1911, perhaps even looking after them in their advanced years. The census on that occasion described Grace
Collett from Ninfield as being 37 years of age and married for fourteen years
during which time she had given birth to just one child, still living. On that occasion she was staying at 78 Alfred Road in
Hastings the home of her parents, Benjamin Bourne aged 67 and a retired grocer,
and Harriett Bourne who was 71. At that same time the remainder of her family had
left Battersea in London and instead Ernest and his son were recorded at
Sledmere within the Driffield registration district of the East Riding of
Yorkshire to the south-west of Bridlington.
The Sledmere census return in 1911 listed the two of them as Ernest
Austin Collett from Upper Slaughter who was 43 and an estate clerk of works,
and his son Alan Collett from London who was 13
Judging by the circumstances prevailing at the
time of the death of Grace Collett nee Bourne, it is possible to surmise that
she and her husband were never reunited and that earlier separation was a
permanent arrangement. What is known is,
that both of them did live out their lives in East Sussex. Grace Collett nee Bourne died towards the end
of the Second World War on 3rd April 1944, when her passing was
recorded at Battle register office in Sussex during the second quarter of 1944
when she was 70. It was her Will, proved
at Lewes on 30th May 1944, that has given rise to the theory that
she was not with her husband at the time of her death. Probate of her personal effects, amounting to
£3,077 15 Shillings 5 Pence, was granted jointly to her son Alan Collett, a
poultry farmer, and solicitor Reginald West Fovargue. At that time Grace was described as the wife
of Ernest Austin Collett, her address recorded as Houblon in Ninfield, while it
was in The Bexhill Hospital in Bexhill where she died
Eleven years later the death of Ernest Austin
Collett was recorded at Hailsham register office during the third quarter of
1955. Probate for
Ernest Austin Collett of Alwyn, Bexhill Road in Ninfield, midway between
Bexhill and Battle where his wife had been born, stated that he died on 23rd
September 1955. The executor of his
estate of £3,052 9 Shillings 2 Pence, was named as Winifred Collett, a married
woman, who was the wife of his son Alan Collett. Why it was not granted to his son remains a
mystery, since Alan Collett died in 1991.
Furthermore, there may have been issues with the estate or problems with
the Will of Ernest Austin Collett because a further grant was made by the
probate office nearly seven years later on 5th January 1962
2Q111 – Alan Collett was born at Battersea,
London in 1897
Archibald Collett [2P115]
was born at Upper Slaughter around 1869, the son of Albert and Caroline
Collett, his birth recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold register office (Ref. 6a 359)
during the final three months of that year.
Not long after he was born his family moved from Upper Slaughter to
Bourton-on-the-Water, where they were living in 1871. The census that year confirmed that Archibald
Collett was one year old. The next
census in 1881 placed him, at the age of 11, and his family living at The Bank
in Bourton-on-the-Water. Ten years
later, according to the census in 1891, Archibald Collett, aged 21, was still
living with his family at Bourton and by then his occupation was that of a
shoemaker, like his father, with whom he was probably still working. It was during the following year at
Headington in Oxford where he married Selina Mary Ann Webb, the event recorded
at Headington register office (Ref. 3a 1239) during the June quarter of
1892. She was apparently born at Cheltenham
during the second quarter in 1863 (Ref. 6a 410) although in the census of 1901
her place of birth was curiously recorded as Horton in Buckinghamshire. At that time the childless couple was living
at Bourton-on-the-Water where Archibald was
still a shoemaker. It would seem likely
that they never had any children since they were living alone in the
Stow-on-the-Wold area of Gloucestershire in April 1911 when Archibald Collett
was 41 and his wife Selina Collett was 50.
By the time of his death nearly forty years later Archibald was a
widower living at Deben in Suffolk where it was recorded during the last
three months of 1949 (Ref. 4b 720). In
fact, he had spent the previous twenty-two years as a widower following the
death of Selina Mary Ann Collett nee Webb at Woodbridge in Suffolk during the
second quarter of 1927
James Collett [2P116] was born at
Bourton-on-the-Water on 5th October 1874, the son of shoemaker
Albert
It was just fifteen
months later that Lavinia died at Coventry, where she was buried on 4th
July 1912. James continued to live in
Coventry, and it was there also that he married (2) Alice Cresswell during
December 1913. The marriage certificate
recorded widower James Collett as being 39 and the son of Albert Collett, while Alice was
a spinster of 25. In fact, she had been
born on 10th July 1890 at Shire Oak, Walsall Wood, Brownhills in
Birmingham, the daughter of Thomas Cresswell and Esther Chatwin, meaning that
she was really only 23 and therefore sixteen years younger than James. The marriage took place at Christchurch in
Coventry and provided James with a further four children, although their first
son died shortly after he was born. By
the time of the birth of their third child the family was living at 20 Coombe
Street in Coventry, which is also where they were living at the end of their
lives. It was also a year early, when
the couple’s only son died and was buried on 5th March 1921. Forty years later, James Collett died at Coventry during January 1961, at the age of 87, and
was buried there on 26th January.
His wife Alice died nearly two years later, when she passed away in
Coventry on 24th December 1962, aged 72, and was buried on 3rd
January 1963. An insight into the life
of James and Alice Collett in their home at 20 Coombe Street has been
generously provided by their grandson Colin James Poynton, a copy of which can
be found in Appendix Two at the very end of Part 2
2Q112 – Kenneth Norton Collett was born at Chipping
Norton in 1903
The following are the
children of James Collett and his second wife Alice Cresswell:
2Q113 - Clarice Wilmore Annie Collett was born at Coventry in
1914
2Q114 - Norman James Stewart Collett was born at
Coventry in 1919; died in 1921
2Q115 – Marjorie Joyce Collett was born at Coventry
in 1922
2Q116 – James Collett was born at Coventry
in 1926
Annie M Collett [2P117]
was born at Bourton-on-the-Water in 1877, with her birth being registered at
Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 404) during the second quarter of that year. It was at ‘The Bank’ in Bourton that she was
living with her family in 1881 when she was three years old. As Annie M Collett, she was still there ten
years later when she was 13 and one of only two children still living with her
parents Albert and Caroline Collett.
With the last of her siblings to be married during the last decade of
the century, Annie was the only child recorded with her parents at Bourton in
1901. By then her father was a retired
shoemaker and her mother was a dressmaker.
Unmarried Annie M Collett of Bourton was 23 and was also employed as a
dressmaker, very likely working alongside her mother at the family home. It was during the first quarter of 1908 that
Annie M Collett married Thomas (Tom) John Robinson at Wolverhampton (Ref. 6b
748). Tom was at Ashbourne in
Derbyshire during 1879 (Ref. 7b 613). No
details of any children are known at this time, except that Annie Robinson died
at Birmingham during the first three months of 1952. Tom Robinson died ten years later, when he
passed away at Wolverhampton (Ref. 93 772) during the third quarter of 1962 at
the age of 83
Frederick Collett [2P118] was
born at Little Rissington in 1864 and he was six years old and living with his
family in the census for that village in 1871.
Upon leaving school Fred, as he was known, entered into domestic service
and by 1881 he was 16 and was working and living in a hotel in
Cirencester. The Fleece Hotel at 117
Dyer Street in the town was managed by James Trinder and his wife who had three
children of their own. In addition to
Fred Collett, who was employed as a servant with a duty to clean boots, there
were five other servants including cook, barmaid, waitress, and
chambermaid. Through his association
with the hotel Fred eventually secured a job as a coachman which allowed him to
travel the country. In 1891 he was 26
and was recorded on his travels at Barton-upon-Irwell in Lancashire. On that same day his future wife Louisa A
Baker was 19 when she was living at Frimley near Farnham in Surrey with her
family. It must have been almost
immediately after the census day that Frederick married Louisa Agnes Baker, the
daughter of Henry and Mary A Baker of Watlington in Oxfordshire, as the birth
of their first child was recorded at Farnham register office during the September
quarter of that same year. Ten years
earlier the census of 1881 confirmed that Henry Baker, aged 47 and a labourer,
was living at Princess Street in Frimley, within the Farnham registration
district of Surrey
Once married the couple
initially settled in Camberley, Surrey, where their first two children were
born. Three more children were added to
the family after Frederick’s work took him to a new employer in Aldershot. By March 1901 Frederick was a domestic
coachman and was one of the eleven servants employed by Major General Laurence
Oliphant of 3rd Infantry Brigade at Aldershot Barracks within the
Farnham and Frimley census registration district, while it was at Farnham that
Frederick’s youngest brother Algernon Collett (below) was living with his
family in 1911. According to the Farnham
census in 1901 Frederick Collett from Little Rissington was 37, his wife Louisa
Collett from Watlington was 29, and their three children at that time were
Alfred Collett who was nine, Kathleen Collett who was four, and Ernest Collett
who was one year old. Louisa was
probably with-child on the day of the census since, later that same year, she
gave birth to the couple’s fourth child and he was followed a couple of years
after by the birth of their last child
Sometime between that
final birth and the next census in April 1911 Frederick Collett suffered a
premature death before completing forty years of his life. Whether his death was a result of his work or
through illness is not known, but by 1911 his widow Louisa Agnes Collett from
Oxfordshire who was 38, was head of the household living at Royal Oak Cottages,
Fern Bank Road, Ascot Heath within the parish of Winkfield near Ascot, in the Easthampstead registration district of
Berkshire. To provide an income for her
family, Louisa was working as a laundress, while living with her were just her
three youngest Aldershot born sons. They
were Ernest Frederick Collett who was 11, Harry Edward Collett who was 10 and
Harold Percival Collett who was seven, all three still attending school. The census return
also confirmed that Louisa had been married for nineteen years, during which
time she had given birth to seven children, two of whom were no longer
alive. It therefore seems very likely
that those two deceased children were born during the first five years of her
marriage. Her eldest son Alfred Collett
had already joined the British Army and was based at Colchester Barracks where
he was recorded as Alfred Collett from Camberley who was 22. On that same day her absent daughter was
staying or visiting her uncle Algernon Collett and his family at Farnham, where
she was recorded as Kathleen Collett from Camberley who was 14. Staying with the family on that day was
Louisa’s widowed father Henry Baker, aged 77, and her brother William Henry
Baker who was 28
2Q117 – Alfred William Collett was born at Camberley,
Surrey in 1891
2Q118 – Kathleen Mary Collett was born at Camberley,
Surrey in 1896
2Q119 – Ernest Frederick Collett was born at Aldershot
in 1899
2Q120 – Harry Edward Collett was born at Aldershot
in 1901
2Q121 – Harold Percival Collett was born at Aldershot
in 1903
Lewis (Louis) Collett [2P119] was
born at Little Rissington during the first three months of 1867. When he was twenty-four in 1891 Louis was an
ostler (stableman at an inn) at a hotel at Weston Subedge just east of Evesham
in Herefordshire. Just over four years
later he married Blanche Kate Wyatt from Minister Lovell, their marriage being
registered at Stow-on-the-Wold during the September quarter of 1895. Blanche was born at Minister Lovell in 1868,
the daughter of Charles and Mary Wyatt, whose birth was recorded at Witney in
Oxfordshire (Ref. 3a 669) during the third quarter of that year. On the day of the census in 1871, Blanche
Kate Wyatt was two years of age when she had her younger brother Henry Wyatt
from Great Rissington were living at Hulbert’s Lodge in Great Rissington with
their parents. Charles Wyatt was 46 and
a labourer from Minister Lovell who was one of ten men working for farmer Lewin
Hulbert, while his much younger wife Mary from Great Rissington was only 24. Ten years
later Blanche Wyatt from Minister Lovell was 12 years old when she and her
family were residing at Clapton Lane in Bourton-on-the-Water. Charles Wyatt was 57, Mary Wyatt was 34, and
Blanche’s two younger siblings were Henry Wyatt who was 11 and Cornelia Wyatt who
was nine years of age. On the day that
Blanche Kate Wyatt married Lewis Collett she was already heavily pregnant with
the couple’s first child and, even though the birth of Ruby Cornelia Collett
was recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold during the last three months of 1895, their
daughter was born during the last ten days of September
It may have been the
birth of the next two children that resulted in the eldest child of Lewis and
Blanche being looked after by her maternal grandmother, both in 1901 and again
in 1911. On the occasion of the first of
those two census days the remainder of the family was recorded at
Bourton-on-the-Water where Lewis Collett was 35 and an ostler at a livery
stable, his wife Blanche K Collett was 32, and their two children were Blanche
M Collett who was three and born at Lower Slaughter, and William S Collett who
was one year old and born at Bourton. By
that time the father of Blanche Kate Collett had died and her widowed mother
Mary was married to inn keeper William Tyler, the landlord of the Bell Inn at
Bourton-on-the-Water. Mary Tyler from
Great Rissington was 54 and living with her and William Tyler, aged 76, was her
granddaughter Ruby Collett who was five years old, whose place of birth was
recorded as Little Rissington
According to the next
census in 1911, the family was still living at Bourton-on-the-Water. The family was then made up of Lewis Collett,
aged 45 and from Little Rissington who was a groom and domestic gardener,
Blanche Kate Collett from Minister Lovell was 42, Blanche May Collett who was
13, William Seymour Collett who was 11, Charles Henry Collett who was seven and
Horace Lewis Collett who was eight months old and a much later addition to the
family. On that same day the couple’s
eldest daughter Ruby Cornelia Collett was still staying with her grandmother
who, by then, had married for a third time.
Mary Giles from Great Rissington was 64 and was married to William Giles
who was 62 and the new landlord of the Bell Inn. Ruby Cornelia Collett was 15 years of age and
an apprenticed dressmaker from little Rissington. It was towards the end of the following year
that Blanche Kate Collett nee Wyatt died at Bourton-on-the-Water when she was 44 years
old, with her death recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold register office (Ref. 6a 43) during
the last three months of 1912. Lewis or
Louis Collett passed away sometime during the next seven years since, on the
occasion of the marriage of his eldest daughter Ruby, he was described as Louis
Collett, deceased, a former groom and gardener
2Q122 – Ruby Cornelia Collett was born at Little
Rissington in 1895
2Q123 – Blanche May Collett was born at Lower
Slaughter in 1897
2Q124 – William Seymour Collett was born at Bourton-on-the-Water
in 1900
2Q125 – Charles Henry Collett was born at
Bourton-on-the-Water in 1920
2Q126 – Horace Lewis Collett was born at Bourton-on-the-Water
in 1910
Alfred Collett [2P120] was
born at Little Rissington in 1868 and was 12 years old at the time of the
Little Rissington census of 1881. He was
still living in that area of Gloucestershire in 1891 when he was twenty-three,
but during the next decade he left Gloucestershire and moved to Kent. According to the census in March 1901, Alfred
Collett from Little Rissington was unmarried at 32 years of age and was a
Metropolitan Police Constable living and working in Sheerness in Kent. He was nearing his fortieth birthday when he
married the much younger Annie Eliza Groombridge who was born at Bishopsbourne
in 1881, the daughter of Joseph and Ann Groombridge. Their wedding was recorded at Thanet register
office (Ref. 2a 1965) during the second quarter of 1909 and the first of their
three known children was born prior to the next census in 1911. By that time, Alfred and his wife and their
daughter, were living at Frindsbury, one of the Medway towns in Kent, where
Alfred Collett from Little Rissington was 42 and still working as a
metropolitan police constable. His wife
Annie Collett from Bishopsbourne in Kent was 29, while their daughter Norah
Collett was just one year old and born at Frindsbury. The birth of Norah, and the couple’s next two
daughters, were all recorded at Strood register office, when the mother’s
maiden name was confirmed as Groombridge
2Q127 – Nora Kathleen Collett was born at
Frindsbury, Kent in 1910
2Q128 – Evelyn M Collett was born at
Frindsbury, Kent in 1912
2Q129 – Elsie F Collett was born at Frindsbury,
Kent in 1916
Harold Collett [2P121] was born at
Little Rissington in 1870 and was listed as being under one year old in the
census for that village in 1871. Ten
years later according to the village census in 1881 he was living with his
family and, at the age of 11, he was described as an idiot. In 1891 he was 21 years old and ten years
after that he was still living at the family home in Little Rissington. By that time, he was 30, and it was very
likely that it was his mental condition that was the reason for the fact that
in no census record was he ever credited with an occupation. By April 1911 unmarried Harold Collett of
Little Rissington was 40 and was living there with his widowed mother Eliza
Collett who was 75 and a domestic housekeeper and head of the household. Living with them was Harold’s unmarried
brother Edwin (below) and their niece Dorothy Collett from Cheltenham who was
10 years of age and described as Eliza’s granddaughter. Once again it was indicated that Harold had
no occupation and instead, in the final column on the census return, it was
written that he had a condition from birth, although it not clear what that
was. Despite whatever that disability
may have been, Harold Collett died at the age of 64, his death recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold
register office (Ref. 6a 451) during the fourth quarter of 1934
Edith Collett [2P122] was born at Little
Rissington in 1872, her birth recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 377) during
the third quarter of the year. She was
the fifth child of Herbert Reuben
Collett and his wife Eliza. Edith was
recorded in the census of 1881, when she was eight years old and living at
Little Rissington with her family. Ten
years after that, Edith Collett from Little Rissington had left the family home
in Gloucestershire when, aged 18, she was employed as a housemaid and domestic
servant at the Paddington home of the large Harris family at Sutherland
Avenue. No record of her has been found
in 1901 but, wherever she was, unmarried Edith Collett would have been in the
late stages of pregnancy, upon discovery of which, she made her way to
Cheltenham, where her base-born daughter was born shortly after, her birth
recorded there (Ref. 6a 450) during the second quarter of 1901. It was later that same year, at All Saints
Church in Cheltenham, that Dorothy Collett was baptised on 7th
October 1901, the daughter of Edith Collett – no father named. The baptism record also placed Edith as
residing at Frances Owen Home, at 28 Cambray Place in Cheltenham.
The children’s home was founded in
1883 and was intended for the rescue of girls who had fallen into moral danger,
sometimes referred to as the ‘friendless and fallen’. It provided accommodation for up to three
months for up to eight girls, while local cases, like Edith, were received
without charge. With
no record found of Edith ever being married, and with her daughter being taken
into the care of paternal grandmother, Eliza Collett, Edith’s mother, it is
possible that unmarried Edith returned to London to continue working in
domestic service. It may also be, that
the death of Edith Collett, recorded at Islington register office (Ref. 1b 180)
during the third quarter of 1902, was the Edith Collett from Little Rissington,
as no later record of her has been found.
Instead, on the day of the census in 1911, her daughter was living with
her grandmother at Little Rissington, when Dorothy Collett from Cheltenham was
10 years old. Completing the Collett
household were Edith’s two unmarried brothers, Harold Collett who had a
disability, and Edwin Collett who was a small holder farm
2Q130 – Dorothy Collett was born at Cheltenham
in 1901
Kate Collett [2P123] was born at Little
Rissington in 1874 and was six years old in 1881. It would appear that Kate left Little
Rissington for London once she left school as both girls were working there in
1901. That year Kate Collett of Little
Rissington was 26 and was employed as a parlour maid in a house in Paddington,
the area of the city where her sister had also been working. Sometime in the next decade it is likely that
Kate was married as there is no Kate Collett of Little Rissington recorded in
the census of 1911
Edwin Collett [2P124] was born at Little
Rissington on 18th August 1876 and was four years old at the time of
the census of 1881 when he was living there with his family. Ten years later in 1891 Edwin had left
school, and at the age of 14 he was employed as a hall porter while still
living with his family in Little Rissington.
No record of Edwin Collett has been found in 1901, but by April 1911 he
was back living in the family home at Little Rissington. The census return
recorded that he had been born at Little Rissington, was 34 years old and
unmarried, a small holder farmer having his own account working at home, who
was living with his widowed mother Eliza, his brother Harold, and niece
Dorothy. On that same census day, and
not very far away, was Edwin’s future wife.
Violet Evelyn Annie Burford, from the Isle of Wight, was 22 and
assisting her uncle Alexander Austin Stokey run his hotel in
Bourton-on-the-Water, when living there with him, his wife and their son. However, it was just over nine years later,
that the marriage of Edwin Collett and Violet E Burford was recorded at the
Isle of Wight register office in Newport (Ref. 2b 1688) during the third
quarter of 1920. Vera was ten years old
when she was baptised at Ryde on 1st October 1898, the daughter of
Hugh Sydney Burford and his wife Selina Annie, the date of her birth being 6th
May 1888, and recorded during the second quarter of that year (Ref. 2b
635). The earlier marriage for Mary Ann
Collett [2O38], recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold in 1875, involved John Fisher, an
ironmonger from the Isle of Wight. Was
that just a coincidence? Or was there some link between the families
It is now established
that Violet presented Edwin with three children, although their third child was
not living with the family at Little Rissington in 1939. The births of all three children were
recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold, when their mother’s maiden name was confirmed as
Burford. By the time of the compilation
of the 1939 Register, with the threat of the Second World War on the horizon,
Edwin Collett was a wharfman, who was still living in Little Rissington with
his younger wife Violet, who was a housekeeper, son Stanley was a gardener and
daughter Vera was still attending school.
Less than a year later, the death of Edwin Collett was recorded at the
North Cotswold register office (Ref. 6a 1661) in 1940, when he was 63. Having lost her husband, and with her
children married, widow Violet settled in Guildford towards the end of her
life. Her address in 1962 was 37
Canterbury Road in Guildford, and it was there, at the Surrey South-Western
register office, that her death was recorded (Ref. 5g 934) during the last
three months of that year, when Violet Evelyn Annie Collett was 74 years
old. Her body was then taken to Little
Rissington, where she was buried with her later husband on 5th
October 1962
2Q131 – Stanley Edwin Collett was born at Little
Rissington in 1923
2Q132 – Vera Evelyn Collett was born at Little
Rissington in 1927
2Q133 – Howard Victor Collett was born at Little
Rissington in 1929
Algernon Collett [2P125] was
born at Little Rissington in 1878, the last child born to Herbert Reuben and
Eliza Collett. His birth was recorded at
Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 396) during the third quarter of that year. He was two years old in the census of 1881
when he was still living at Little Rissington with his parents. Ten years later at the age of 12 he and his
were still living at Little Rissington in 1891.
No record of Algernon has been found anywhere in Great Britain in the
census of 1901 although, it is now known that four years later, he married
Susan Elizabeth Baker at Colchester in Essex during the first three months of
1905. Susan was slightly older than
Algernon, having been born at Henley in Oxfordshire during the third quarter of
1873
Once married, the couple
settled at Camberley in Surrey, although the births of their three known
children were recorded at Farnham register office, to the south of Camberley. The first child was born just over nine
months after they were married, so appears he could have been a honeymoon
baby. After the birth of the third
child, the family of five moved to Frimley, where they were recorded on the day
the census was conducted in April 1911.
Algernon, from Withington in Gloucestershire, was 33 and an office
servant domestic, his wife Susan from Oxfordshire was 37, while their three
children were listed with them as Harold Collett who was five, Walter Collett
who was three, and Ivy Collett who was one year old. All three of them were said to have been born
at Camberley. Living with the family was
boarder Henry Watts, aged 30 from Aldershot, and Kathleen Collett, the niece of
Algernon Collett, who was 14 years old and also born at Camberley in
Surrey. In 1901 she had been living with
her parents Frederick Collett (above) and his wife Louisa within the Farnham
registration district. However, upon the
possible death of her father after 1907 and before 1911, she was perhaps just
visiting Algernon and his family while her mother was living in Easthampstead
with three of her four brothers
The couple was living at 64 Middle Gordon Road
in Camberley when Susan Elizabeth Collett
nee Baker died while a patient at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in
Reading 29th November 1945 when she was 71. The death of Susan E Collett was recorded at
Reading register office (Ref. 2c 440) during the last quarter of that
year. Five days after she passed away,
she was buried at the Church of St Michael in Camberley where she was reunited
with her husband nine years later.
Administration of her personal effects of £166 5 Shillings 6 Pence was
granted to her husband Algernon Collett, a head porter. Algernon Collett died at 26
Victoria Street in Camberley, Surrey on 19th August 1954 at the age
of 76, following which he was buried at St Michael’s Church in Camberley four
days later on 23rd August. It
was at the Surrey North-Western register office (Ref. 5g 572) during the third
quarter of 1954, while administration of his personal effects, valued at £815
10 Shillings 5 Pence, was granted in London on 8th October 1954 to
his son Harold Algernon Collett, a painter and decorator
2Q134 – Harold Algernon Collett was born in 1905 at Camberley,
Surrey
2Q135 – Walter Henry Collett was born in 1907 at Camberley,
Surrey
2Q136 – Ivy Blanche Collett was born in 1909 at Frimley,
Camberley
Albert James Collett [2P126] was
born at Sandgate in Kent on 22nd October 1867, the eldest of the
five sons of evangelist James Collett from Little Rissington and his wife Ruth
Pegrum. Over the months after he was
born his parents moved first to London, where the family was residing in 1871,
and later to Sevenoaks where the family was living in 1881. In 1871 Albert J Collett was three years old
when he was living with his parents within the Kensington & St Mary
Paddington district of London. By 1881,
the family was residing at 2 Cedar Terrace in Sevenoaks, where Albert J Collett
was 13, where they were also still living in 1891. On that occasion the census in 1891,
identified Albert J Collett, aged 23, as an apprentice dentist living at 38
Southernhay West in Exeter, the home of dental surgeon Francis D Harris aged 53
and from London. One difference from the
information in the previous census, was that Albert gave his place of birth as
Sandgate near Folkestone in Kent, rather than Sevenoaks. A repeat of that same detail, in the next
census in 1901, perhaps means that his parents moved to Sevenoaks shortly after
he had been born at Sandgate
By the time of that next
census, in March 1901, Albert James Collett, aged 33 and a dental surgeon from
Sandgate, was living at Lewisham with his widowed mother and his youngest brother
Edwin (below). It was probably around
five years later that he married the much younger Beatrice May Cooper at the Congregational
Church in Lewisham. Beatrice had been born at Brockley
Road in New Cross, Lewisham, in London on 14th December 1882, the
daughter of George and Harriet Cooper. And
it was also at Lewisham where her own daughter
and only known child was born. Ten years
later, the family of three was visiting the family of Edward and Emma Bolton in
Cambridge, where dental surgeon Albert James Collett from Sandgate was 43,
Beatrice May Collett from Brockley was 28, and Doris Evelyn Collett from
Lewisham was three years old. Edward
Bolton was a haulage contractor and furniture remover. No further children appear to have been added
to the family after that time. Albert
James Collett died on 24th December 1949 when he and Beatrice were
living at 112 London Road in Bromley, Kent.
Probate of his estate of £260 3 Shillings was granted in London on 23rd
October 1950 to his brother Edwin Howard Collett, a dentist, and Beatrice May
Collett, his widow. It was just over
twenty years later that Beatrice Mary Collett nee Cooper died on 29th
March 1970, while residing in a diabetic home at 3 Beach Avenue in Birchington,
Kent
2Q137 – Doris Evelyn Collett was born in 1907 at
Lewisham, London
Walter Ebenezer Collett [2P128] was
born at Sevenoaks in 1872, the third son of James and Ruth Collett, and his birth
was recorded at Sevenoaks register office (Ref. 2a 527) during the final three
months of that year. It was at 2 Cedar
Terrace in Sevenoaks that Walter E Collett was living with his family in 1881
when he was eight years old, and again in 1891 when he was 18. By that time, he was already working as an
apprentice to a whitesmith. It was just
three years later that he married Flora Emily Couchman in Tunbridge
Wells, Kent, where the event was recorded during the second quarter of 1894
(Ref. 2a 1100). Flora, who was known as
Emily, was born at Ticehurst in Sussex in the autumn 1868 and, once they were
married, she and Walter settled in Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, where
their two children were born. Flora was in the late stages of the pregnancy for their
first child, whose birth was recorded at Leighton Buzzard shortly after the
wedding day. By March 1901 Walter E
Collett from Sevenoaks was 28 and a plumber and a gas and hot water
fitter. His wife Flora, named as Emily
Collett, was 31 and their two children were Albert G Collett was six years old
and Walter J Collett was four years old, both of them born after the couple had
moved to Leighton Buzzard. It was a
similar story ten years later when Walter Ebenezer Collett was 38, Emily
Collett was 41, and they were living at 25B
Hockliffe Street in Leighton Buzzard with
their two sons Albert George Collett, aged 16, and Walter James Collett who was
14. Living with the
family was Alice Katie Kingsnorth from London who was 16 and described as the
niece of Walter Collett. The same census
return stated that Walter and Emily had been married for seventeen years,
during which time they had only had two children, both living
Alice Katie Kingsnorth was baptised on 5th
May 1895 the daughter of Fred and Rhoda Kingsnorth of 3 Queens Street off the
Edgware Road in London. It is therefore
possible that Alice was actually the niece of Emily, rather than Walter. Of further interest is another resident of
Leighton Buzzard in 1911, that being Evelyn Minnie Collett (Ref. 9P5) who was
17 and from Swindon. She was employed as
a general domestic servant at the home of Bernard Robert Parkinson and his
family at their residence ‘Ristholme’ on Albany Road in Leighton Buzzard. Walter Ebenezer Collett died at Leighton
Buzzard, and it was at Leighton Buzzard register office in Bedfordshire (Ref.
4a 107) that his death was recorded during the first three months of 1960
2Q138 – Albert George Collett was born at Leighton
Buzzard in 1894
2Q139 – Walter James Collett was born at Leighton
Buzzard in 1897
Herbert Edgar Collett [2P129] was
born at Sevenoaks in 1874, the son of James and Ruth Collett. He was six years old in 1881 when as Herbert
E Collett he was with his family at 2 Cedar Terrace in Sevenoaks. There was then a gap in his life when he was
absent from the family home at 2 Cedar Terrace in Sevenoaks in 1891 when he
would have been 16. In 1901 he was 27
and a dental mechanic who was still living in Sevenoaks. Six years later, during the second quarter of
1907, Herbert Edgar Collett married Annie Lavinia Gregory, at Tonbridge in
Kent. The wedding was recorded at
Tonbridge register office (Ref. 2a 1521) when the witnesses were named as
Frederick Harvey and Sarah Vigor.
Whether anything significant can be read into the Vigor surname is
unclear at this time, but the Collett family depicted in Part 64 – The
Gloucestershire Upper Swell Line contains the name Vigor/Vizor. Having married in Tonbridge shortly
thereafter the couple settled on the south coast at Eastbourne. And it was at Eastbourne that they were
living in 1911, when Herbert Edgar Collett from Sevenoaks was 36, while Annie
Lavinia Collett was 28
It would appear that the
couple lived all of their married life at Eastbourne since it was at 11 Kings
Avenue in the town that they were living when Annie Lavinia Collett nee Gregory
died on 15th march 1949. Her
Will was proved at Lewes on 5th July that year and named her husband
Herbert
Edgar Collett, a dental surgeon, as the sole executor of her personal estate of
£2,562 4 Shillings 10 Pence. Herbert
Edgar Collett survived his wife by ten years and, when he passed away on 8th
June 1959, he was residing at 24 Kings Avenue in Tonbridge. With no
children, his Will was proved at Lewes on 9th September that same
year, when Barclays Bank was the executor of his estate of £6,444 8 Shillings 1
Penny
Edwin Howard Collett [2P130] was
born at Sevenoaks on 13th January 1878, the last of the five sons of
James and Ruth Collett and was three years old and living at 2 Cedar Terrace in
Sevenoaks in 1881. It was at that same
address that the family was still living at the time of the census in 1891 when
scholar Edwin H Collett was 13. By 1901
Edwin H Collett of Sevenoaks was 23 and a dental mechanic living at Lewisham
with his widowed mother Ruth Collett and his older brother Albert (above). Eventually Albert left to be married so in
1911 Edwin Howard Collett, aged 33, was still a bachelor living with his mother
in Lewisham. Upon the death of his older
brother Alfred James Collett (above) at the end of 1949 it was Edwin Howard
Collett, a dentist, who was named as a joint executor of his small estate
together with his brother’s widow Beatrice Collett. Very little else is known about Edwin except
that he was living within the Northwood area of Ramsgate, at Windmill House in
Millfield Road, when he died in 1969 at the age of 91. His death was recorded at the Thanet register
office (Ref. 5f 1966) during the last three months of that year
Henry James Allington Collett [2P133] was
born at Maidstone in Kent in 1886, his birth as Harry James A Collett was
recorded at Maidstone (Ref. 2a 715) during the last three months of that
year. He was then baptised as Harry
James Allington at Holy Trinity Church in Maidstone on 18th February
1887, the son of Henry Collett and his wife Annie, who may well have been Annie
Allington. Not long after he was born
his father secured work in London as a prison warder at Holloway Prison, where
Henry James Collett was living with his family in both 1891 and 1901 when he
was four years of age and 14 years old respectively. By the time of the latter census his mother
had died and Henry was already working as a commercial clerk. It was on 20th April 1918, when
Harry James Allington Collett was 32 and confirmed as the son of Harry Collett,
that he married Lilian Cresswell at St Paul’s Church in Gloucester, when Lilian
was 30 and named as the daughter of Henry Cresswell. It seems highly likely that their son was an
only child since, at the time of the death of Henry James Allington Collett in
1957, Anthony was the only one named in his Will. It was as Harry James Allington Collett of Tally Ho at
Condicote, near Cheltenham, that his death was recorded at the Moore Cottage
Hospital in Bourton-on-the-Water on 27th October 1957. Probate of his personal effects, valued at
£267 16 Shillings 9 Pence, was granted at Gloucester on 3rd December
1957 to Anthony Cresswell Collett, an omnibus conductor
2P140 – Anthony Cresswell Collett was born at
Stow-on-the-Wold in 1922
Mary Jane Collett [2P134] was
born at Gloucester during the June quarter of 1873, the eldest of the four
children of Joseph Collett and his wife Jane Elizabeth Lewis. She and her family were living at The Lamb
Inn on St Mary’s Square in Gloucester in 1881 when she was eight years
old. Upon leaving school, and according
to the 1891 Census, Mary J Collett aged 18, was working as a barmaid for her
father Joseph at The Lamb Inn where he was not only the inn keeper but a
fruiter as well. Later that same year
Mary’s mother died so she did not see Mary Jane married (1) Charles George
Guest in Gloucester during the third quarter of 1893. Tragically it would appear that Charles, who
was born in Gloucester in 1871, also died there within ten years of them being
married. It was therefore in the final
three months of 1902 that Mary Jane Guest, formerly Collett, married (2) Harold
Piuce Perkins in Gloucester. Harold had
been born at Exeter in 1871 and he died in Gloucester in 1939. Just less than three years after losing her
second husband Mary Jane Perkins nee Collett died at Gloucester during the
first three months of 1942
Charles Ernest Lewis Collett [2P135] (previously
thought to be Charles Edwin) was born in Gloucester during the June quarter of
1875 to Joseph Collett and his wife Jane Elizabeth Lewis. It was as Chas Collett that he was listed
with his family in 1881 when he was six years old and was living with them at
The Lamb Inn on St Mary’s Square in Gloucester, where his father was the inn
keeper. Charles E L Collett was still
living with his family at The Lamb Inn ten years later in 1891, when he was 16,
but just six months after the census that year his mother died, following which
his father remarried. It was also during
the late 1890s that Charles and his brother Frank (below) left Gloucester to
seek work in the London area where they were both taken on as plumber’s apprentices. It was while in London that Charles met and
married Florence Daphne Knights, who was born there around 1874. They were married during 1900 and by the time
of the census in 1901 they had a daughter and were residing at 19 Victoria
Terrace in Gillingham, Kent, where Charles was then a fully-fledged
plumber. Their daughter Ethel Collett
was under one month old and may have unwell at the time, since staying with the
family was a monthly nurse, Ellen Sager who was 63. Also living with the family was Charles’
brother Frank Collett, who was still a plumber’s apprentice
It appears that Charles
and Florence did not retain the name Ethel for their daughter, and perhaps
changed their minds by the time the birth was registered a few days after the
census. That situation seems to be confirmed
in the next census of 1911, by which time Florence had presented Charles with a
son, which he named after his younger brother, who curiously has not been
identified within the 1911 Census.
According to the census that year Charles Ernest Lewis Collett from
Gloucester, was 36 and a foreman plumber, living at 102 Franciscan Road in the
Tooting Graveney district of South London with his family. His wife was recorded as Florence Daphne
Collett, who was 37 and from Paddington, to whom he had been married for eleven
years. Their daughter was listed as
Dorothy Violet Collett, aged 10, and their son was as Frank Charles Collett who
was six years of age. Born children were
attending school and both had been born in Gillingham. Also staying with the Collett family were two
of Florence’s siblings and one of her cousins.
They were Arthur Samuel Knights who was 23 and a plumber, presumably
working for Charles Collett, Maud Marion Knights, aged 26 who was a
schoolteacher, and Arthur John Knights who was a widower and a master plumber
of 36. All three of them had been born
at Bristol
Without all of the additional information on Charles
Ernest Lewis Collett entered during September 2012, it was previously written
here that Charles enlisted with the 2nd
Battalion Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment and became Private Collett
11143. That Charles Collett was
tragically killed in action on 2nd March 1916 and was buried at St
Sever Cemetery in Rouen. His next-of-kin
was named within the War Office records as
his sister Miss M Collett of 138 Fort Road, Bermondsey in London. One possibility is that he was Charles E
Collett (Ref. 37P19) who had a sister Mary A Collett (Ref. 37P15), but this
still needs to be verified. More
recent information added In December 2013, has verified the Charles Ernest
Lewis Collett of
53 Greenfield Gardens in Cricklewood, London died there on 22nd May
1954. Probate was granted in London on 2nd
November 1954 to Florence Daphne Collett, his widow, and to his son Frank
Charles Collett, a bank official, regarding his personal effects amounting to
£2,358 12 Shillings 9 Pence
2Q141 - Dorothy Violet Collett was born at Gillingham,
Kent in 1901
2Q142 – Frank Charles Collett was born at Gillingham,
Kent in 1904
Frank Collett [2P136] was born at
Gloucester during the September quarter of 1883 and was eight years old in the
census of 1891, when he was living with his family at The Lamb Inn on St Mary’s
Square in Gloucester. With the death of
his mother later that same year, and his father subsequently remarrying towards
the end of the decade, Frank and his brother Charles (above) headed for London
to seek work. By the time of the next
census in 1901, Frank Collett, aged 18 and from Gloucester, was a plumber’s
apprentice living and working with his brother Charles at 19 Victoria Terrace
in Gillingham, Kent. Just over six years
later it is possible that Frank married Annie Florence M Harvey during the last
three months of 1907 at Bromley in Kent.
Annie was born during the June quarter of 1883 at St Saviour Southwark
in London, the daughter of George and Annie Harvey, and it is established that
she died at Bromley in Kent during the second quarter of 1956. No record of Frank or Annie has been found in
the census of 1911, nor is it known whether the marriage produced any children
for the couple. However, in 1911 an
Annie May Collett was living at Bromley in Kent, but her husband was John Henry
Collett who had been born in 1877, and anyway she was 30 years of age. In
addition to that, there were two Frank Colletts recorded in the census of 1911
but, whilst both of them were around the correct age, both were serving
overseas. One was 28 and a sailor with
the Royal Navy, while the other was 27 and was a soldier with the British Army
Ethel Maud Collett [2P137] was
born at Gloucester, her birth being registered there during the last quarter of
1884. At the age of 16 years Ethel M
Collett was a dressmaker living with her father Joseph and his second wife
Emily at 3 Worcester Street in Gloucester.
Ethel was still unmarried and living with her widowed father in 1911,
following the death of his second wife in 1903.
In the census that year Ethel Maud Collett gave her age misleadingly as
24, when she was still acting as housekeeper to her elderly father in
Gloucester. Five years after that,
when she was actually thirty-one, she married Charles G Irving at Gloucester
during the first three months of 1916.
Their marriage resulted in the birth of three children, all very likely
born at Cheltenham where their twins were definitely born. John G Irving was born in the early
months of 1917, just a year after the couple were married, and he died at
Daventry in Northamptonshire in 2001. Charles
Graham Irving was a twin born on 4th May 1923, and he died at
Cheltenham in 1995, while the birth of his twin sister Ethel G Irving
was recorded at Cheltenham register office (Ref. 6a 75) in the second quarter
of 1923. Ethel was twenty years old when
she married Winifred M Wallace-Hadrill in 1943 and was recorded at Cheltenham
register office (Ref. 6a 983) during the third quarter of 1943
George Henry Collett [2P138] was
born at Glascote near Tamworth in 1871, his birth being registered at Tamworth
during the third quarter of that year.
As George Henry he was eight years old in 1881, when he was living with
his family at Tamworth Road in Bolehall & Glascote. Ten years later in the 1891 census for
Glascote he was still living with his family as George Collett aged 20, when he
was a cart haulier. It was two years
later that he married Anna Upton at Hinckley in Leicestershire during the first
three months of 1893. Anna was born
around 1871 at Wolvey in Warwickshire, just south of Hinckley. After eight years there were no children
resulting from the marriage and in 1901 George H Collett, aged 29 and from
Glascote, was living there and was working as a market gardener. Living with him was his wife Anna from Wolvey
who was 30. It was the same situation
ten years later, when the Glascote census of 1911 listed just the pair of them
as George H Collett, who was 39, and Anna Collett who was 41
Joseph Collett [2P139] was
born on 19th February 1873 at the home of his parents at Allens Row
in Glascote. He was seven years old and
18 years of age in the two Glascote census returns for 1881 and 1891, but just
eight years later he became a married man, when he married Elizabeth Combes at
Newark Parish Church on 29th June 1899. Elizabeth was the daughter of William Combes
and his wife Emily Bentley and was born on 6th March 1876 at
Harcourt Street in Newark, Nottinghamshire, the Combes’ family home. Elizabeth may have been living at 54 Whitfield
Street in Newark just prior to the wedding, which was witnessed by Annie
Combes, Elizabeth’s older sister, and George Combes, an older brother. At that time in his life Joseph was a
warehouseman living at 9 Cross Street in Newark. Earlier in his life he had been a cart
haulier, like his brother George (above).
Apparently, Joseph had moved to Newark with the intention of learning
the trade of a tailor
Elizabeth’s mother had
passed away sometime before the turn of the century since, in 1901, Joseph and
Elizabeth were living at her widowed father’s home in Harcourt Street, where
his son-in-law Joseph Collett from Tamworth was still working as a warehouseman
at the age of 29. While living there,
his wife Elizabeth, aged 25 and from Newark, continued to manage the corner
grocer’s shop and off-licence at 1 Harcourt Street, which her father had
managed until he retired. With the
couple, was their first-born child George W Collett who was one year old. Living at the same address, with her father,
was Elizabeth’s younger married sister, Emily Headland nee Combes, her husband
Samuel, and their daughter Emily.
Eventually Joseph managed to secure a position at Mumby’s Wholesale
Clothing Company in Appletongate, and he later opened a gentleman’s outfitters
shop in the Arcade in Newark
Five more children were
added to the family during the next decade, but tragically only three of them
survived. By 1911, the family recorded
at Newark was made up of Joseph who was 38 and a tailor, Elizabeth who was 35,
George William who was eleven, Constance Ivy who was eight, Winifred who was
six, and Gertrude who was three. Working
for the family was Ellen Laud from Newark, who was 25 and a domestic servant. Sadly, Elizabeth suffered with cirrhosis and
dropsy and, less than one year after that census day, she died at Newark on 11th
March 1912, where her death was recorded (Ref. 7b 588) at the age of just
36. Her Will was proved on 17th
May that year, the sole beneficiary being her husband
Joseph Collett. Following her death,
Joseph left Newark and moved to Birmingham, around the time of the First World
War, Joseph and his son George work in the munition’s factory of the General
Electric Company in Witton, Birmingham.
It was while he was living at Sycamore Road, in the Aston area of the
city, that he died on 18th November 1937, when he was 64, his
passing recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6d 188). During his year at Newark, Joseph Collett was
a Borough Councillor
2Q143 – George William Collett was born at Newark,
Nottinghamshire in 1899
2Q144 – Constance Ivy Collett was born at Newark,
Nottinghamshire in 1903
2Q145 – Winifred Collett was born at Newark,
Nottinghamshire in 1905
2Q146 – Leonard Collett was born at Newark,
Nottinghamshire in 1906; died in 1906
2Q147 – Gertrude Collett was born at Newark,
Nottinghamshire in 1908
2Q148 – Vera Collett was born at Newark,
Nottinghamshire in 1910; died in 1910
Walter Collett [2P140] was
born at Glascote on 9th December 1874, his birth being registered at
Tamworth (Ref. 6b 70) during the first three months of 1875. He was seven months old when he was baptised
at the Church of St Editha in Tamworth on 4th July 1875, the third
son of George Collett and Annie Lyes. He
was six years of age in 1881, and was 16 years old and a boiler maker in the
Bolehall & Glascote census of 1891, when he was living on Glascote Road
with his family. It was also at St
Editha’s Church that the marriage of Walter Collett, aged 20, and Sarah Ross,
aged 19, took place on 29th September 1894. Walter from Glascote was the son of George
Collett and Sarah from Baddesley in Warwickshire was the daughter of Charles
Ross, who was residing in Tamworth up to the day of the wedding. Although born at Baddesley, the birth of
Sarah Ross was recorded at Atherstone during the September quarter of
1875. In 1901 the couple was living in
Glascote with their daughter, where Walter, at the age of 26, was a market
gardener working with his older brother George Collett (above), Sarah was 25,
and Annie Collett was nine months old.
For some reason, perhaps overcrowding in the family home, the couple’s
eldest child Annie was staying with her grandparents in 1911 at their home at ‘Glenthorne’ on Glascote
Road in Tamworth where she was 10 years old
The family of Walter and
Sarah comprised only six of their seven surviving children in 1911, although
the census return that year confirmed that Sarah had given birth to nine
children, two having died by then. Those
two unknown children are therefore missing from the list below. Walter Collett from Glascote was 36 and a
mine loader, his wife of sixteen years Sarah Collett from Baddesley was 35, and
their six children were Ethel Collett who was nine, Belinda Collett who was
seven and Walter Collett who was six, all born at Glascote, William Alfred
Collett who was three and Rose Collett who was two, who were born at Tamworth,
and George Henry Collett who was just six weeks old who had been born after the
family had settled at 15 Cross Street in the Kettlebrook district of
Tamworth. The dwelling was described as
having three bedrooms and two rooms down stairs
Walter Collett was
originally stated here as having died at Lichfield during the summer of 1949,
while his wife Sarah Collett nee Ross had died there only a few months earlier,
when her death was recorded at Lichfield during the first three months of that
same year. However, new information from
the Lichfield register office (Ref. 9b 196) indicates that Walter Collett died
there at the age of 84 during the second quarter of 1959, which corresponds
exactly with his year of birth. That
therefore raises the question, did his wife actually die in 1949, ten years
before her husband and, with no record of the death of a Sarah Collett at
Lichfield in 1959, that would appear to be a valid assumption
2Q149 – Annie Collett was born at Glascote,
Staffordshire in 1900
2Q150 – Ethel Collett was born at Glascote,
Staffordshire in 1902
2Q151 – Belinda Collett was born at Glascote,
Staffordshire in 1903
2Q152 – Walter Frederick Edmund Collett was born at Glascote,
Staffordshire in 1904
2Q153 – William Alfred Collett was born at Tamworth,
Staffordshire in 1907
2Q154 – Rose Collett was born at Tamworth,
Staffordshire in 1909
2Q155 – George Henry Collett was born at Kettlebrook,
Staffordshire in 1911
Leonard Collett [2P141] was
born at Glascote in 1877 and the birth was registered at Tamworth during the
fourth quarter of that year. In the census
of 1881, he was named as Lennard Collett, who was three years old, when he was
living at Tamworth Road in Bolehall & Glascote. Ten years later in 1891, Leonard was 14 and,
by 1901, he was listed as a labourer working on the land while he was still living
with his family at Glascote at the age of 22.
By April 1911 Leonard Collett from Glascote was 33 and a gardener who
was still living with his parents and his youngest sister Rhoda (below) at ‘Glenthorne’ on Glascote
Road in Tamworth. It seems likely that he never married or that
he ever left the county of Staffordshire, since his death was recorded at
Lichfield register office (Ref. 9b 270) during the first three months of 1958
when he was 80 years of age
William Alfred Collett [2P142] was
born at Glascote in 1880, the birth being registered at Tamworth during the
September quarter of the year. He was 11
years old in 1891 and was listed with his family in 1901 at Glascote as William
A Collett, aged 20, who was an apprentice wheelwright of Glascote. Ten years later William Alfred Collett, aged
30 and from Tamworth, was still a bachelor, but was living and working in the
Rugby area of Warwickshire. It was
William who informed the registrar of the death of his brother Joseph Collett
on 18th November 1937. At
that time William was living at Harman Road in Erdington near Birmingham. Twenty years later the death of William A
Collett was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 9c 170) during the
second quarter of 1957 when he was 76
Ernest Samuel Collett [2P143] was
born at Glascote in 1882, the birth being registered at Tamworth during the
last three months of the year. It was
simply as Samuel Collett, aged eight years, that he was listed with his family
in 1891. However, he was curiously named
as Elijah S Collett, aged 18 and from Glascote, in the census of 1901 when he
was still living with his family at Glascote, by which time he was working as a
labourer at a local colliery. It was
during the last three months of the following year that he became a married
man, when he married Annie Elizabeth Bott, who was born in 1884, her birth being
recorded at Tamworth during the second quarter of that year. According
to the Glascote census conducted in April 1911, Ernest Samuel Collett from
Glascote was 28, his wife Lizzie Collett was 27, and their son Ernest Samuel
Collett was six years old and had been born at Glascote. It is not known at this time whether any
further children were added to their family.
Ernest Samuel Collett was 79 years old when he died during the final
three months of 1960, his passing being registered at Lichfield
2Q156 – Ernest Samuel Collett was born at Glascote,
Staffordshire in 1904
Rhoda Collett [2P144] was born at
Tamworth on 11th January 1889 and was two years old at the time of
the Tamworth & Fazeley census of 1891, when she was the youngest member of
the family of George Collett and Annie Lyes.
In 1901 she was 12 and was still attending school in Glascote, while she
was still living with her family. After
a further ten years Rhoda Collett from Glascote was 22 and was still living
there with her parents and her older brother Leonard Collett (above). It was during the September quarter of 1926
that she married Thomas S Bray at Tamworth, he having been born at Kings Norton in
Worcestershire during the December quarter of 1885. His death in 1953 was recorded at Smethwick
in Staffordshire during the first three months of that year. Rhoda Bray nee Collett died twenty-three
years later, when her death was registered at Lichfield during the last quarter
of 1976
John
Brain Collett [2Q1]
who was referred to as Jack, was born within the Ladywood area of Birmingham on
14th May 1903, his birth recorded at Birmingham register office
(Ref. 6d 42). He was the eldest child of
John Brain Collett and Annie Marie Carter.
He and his parents were still living at Ladywood in April 1911 when, as
John Brain Collett, he was seven years old.
When he was still only sixteen years of age, Jack decided to leave
Birmingham for a new life in the colonies and sailed to New Zealand in 1920 to
be reunited with his uncle Arthur Frederick Collett who had settled there just
prior to the start of the Great War and who very likely sponsored the
move. It is also understood that John
actually celebrated his seventeenth birthday with a cake during the sea journey
to New Zealand. It was also in 1920 when
Jack’s mother died and his father remarried and that may well have been the
reason for him travelling to the other side of the world. However, it is established that John’s father gave him an army great coat and a small amount of
money when he sailed out of Southampton.
The coat had already been well used and was later worn by John’s second
son Alan who used to wear it during the winter months to go out in all weathers
to train his dog. When Alan tragically
suffered a premature death in hospital at the age of 18, his dog instinctively
knew before John returned home from the hospital with the sad news, as the dog
had pulled the coat off the hook and was curled up in it and would not move
Ten years after his arrival in New Zealand,
John Brain Collett married school teacher (1) Margaret Janet Shirley at Levin
on 19th December 1931. The
marriage produced six children for Jack and Margaret before her untimely death,
just over twenty years later, on 4th April 1952 aged 49. Following the death of his wife, John and his
eldest daughter Shirley were ably supported by John’s sister Hilda and her
husband Murray in looking after the younger children of the family. At some later date Jack married (2) Olive
before he died at the age of 80 on 22nd September 1983
2R1 – John Brian Collett was born in New
Zealand during 1932
2R2 – Alan Maxwell Collett was born in New
Zealand during 1934
2R3 – Shirley Anne Collett was born in New
Zealand during 1936
2R4 – Jean Mary Collett was born in New
Zealand during 1940
2R5 – Judith Lynne Collett was born in New
Zealand during 1943
2R6 – Patricia Collett was born in New
Zealand during 1945
Leonard
George Collett [2Q2] was born at Ladywood in
Birmingham at the end of 1905, with his birth recorded at Birmingham register
office (Ref. 6d 11) during the first three months of 1906. It was also early in the year that Leonard
George Collett, the son of John and Annie Collett, was baptised in Birmingham
on 21st January 1906. He was
five years old according to the census return for Ladywood in 1911, where he
and his family were still living.
Sometime later he and his sister Hilda (below) sailed to a new life in
New Zealand where they were reunited with their brother Jack (above). Leonard never married and remained a bachelor
all his life. During World War Two he
served in the Pacific campaign. After
the war he lived at Levin, within the Wellington region of North Island, New
Zealand, where both brother Jack and sister Hilda also lived with their
families. He was 52 years of age when he
died in New Zealand during 1957
Albert
Edward Collett [2Q3] was born at Ladywood in
Birmingham on 2nd July 1907, where he was living with his parents in
April 1911 at the age of three. His
birth was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6d 262) and, unlike
other members of his family, Albert continued to live with his father in
Birmingham when some of his siblings emigrated to New Zealand. During his life in Birmingham, he was a tram
driver and/or a bus driver, and it was there also that Albert Edward Collett
from Ladywood was 79 when he died during the spring of 1987, his death recorded
at the Birmingham register office (Ref. 32 267). The present-day family believe that one of
Albert’s sons was still living in Birmingham in 2008, with both his marriage
and the birth of three children having been discovered during an extensive
search in 2020, all the records found in Birmingham. It was during the third quarter of 1937 that
the marriage of Albert E Collett and Betsy Smith was recorded at Birmingham
register office (Ref. 5d 22). A year
later, the first of their three children was born,
followed three years after by the birth of their second child and, it was just
over five years later when their daughter was born. All three births were recorded at Birmingham
register office, when the mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Smith; (Ref. 6d
53) during the third quarter of 1938, (Ref. 6d 124) during the fourth quarter
of 1941, and (Ref. 9c 114) during the second quarter of 1947
Previously, Albert Edward Collett was thought
to have married Minnie Grove during the first quarter of 1935, with whom he had
three children at Birmingham, when their mother’s maiden name was confirmed as
Grove. However, it is now confirmed that
Minnie Grove actually married Edward Angel Collett [2Q3i], as confirmed
at their marriage and at the baptism of their youngest son (3) Robert Arnold
Collett [2R9i] on 21st April 1946, following his birth on 8th
February 1946 at Birmingham. The
couple’s two older Birmingham-born children were (1) Maureen Ann Collett
[2R7i] (born in 1937) and (2) Michael J Collett [2R8i] (born in
1942). In
addition, the discovery in 2012 of the Will of a different Albert Edward
Collett of 48 Nicholls Street in West Bromwich should not be confused with this
Albert Edward Collett. He was born at
Gloucester and was the husband of Mabel Eveline Longmore, who were married at
West Bromwich in 1910. They feature in Part
3 – The Chedworth Line, under reference 3P23
2R7 – Robert E Collett was born at Birmingham
in 1938
2R8 – Ian V Collett was born at Birmingham in
1941
2R9 – Maureen Collett was born at Birmingham in
1947
Hilda
Annie Collett [2Q4] was born at Ladywood in
Birmingham in 1909, her birth recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6d
17) during the second quarter of 1909.
She was two years of age at the time of the census in April 1911 when
she was living with her family in Ladywood.
Later in her life, she and her brother Leonard (above) followed in the
footsteps of their older brother Jack (above) by emigrating to New Zealand,
where Hilda married Murray. The couple
had three children, although the two sons had already passed away by 2008. At that time Hilda’s daughter Marie was still
living at Levin in New Zealand, where her parents had lived prior to their
passing
Arthur
Collett [2Q7] was born in Birmingham
on 28th July 1921, the eldest of the three children of Albert Edward
Collett by his second wife Ruth Hannah Woodall.
It was at Birmingham register office that his birth was recorded (Ref.
6d 432) during the third quarter of 1921, when his mother’s maiden name was
confirmed as Woodall. It was also during
that same, his eldest half-brother, John Brain Collett (above), emigrated to
New Zealand, who was followed there by other family members. It was also expected that Arthur would join
them they once he was old enough to do so.
However, with the outbreak of war in 1939, that did not happen. At that time Arthur joined the British Army
and played an active part in the Second World War, possibly in the Middle East
and/or Far East. What is known is, that
after the war, he was stationed with the army in India. He was married twice during his life,
resulting in two families. While his
second wife was certainly Jeanette, there were two marriages for an Arthur
Collett and a Jeanette, both of them recorded at Southampton. The first of them was Jeanette S E Strange to
whom he was married during the third quarter of 1966, the event recorded at
Southampton register office (Ref. 6b 1958).
The second more curious, because it was Jeanette F M Collett, the event
recorded during the fourth quarter of 1986 (Ref. 20 867). It was also at Southampton, that the death of
Arthur Collett was recorded there (Ref. 5002d d53a) early in 1997. His widow survived for a further eleven years
and, in 2008, Jeanette Collett was a widow living at Botley in Hampshire
Walter R
Collett [2Q8] was born at Birmingham,
where his birth was recorded during the third quarter of 1923 (Ref. 6d 333),
his mother’s maiden name being Woodall.
He too remained behind in Birmingham, with his father, after some of his
half-siblings emigrated to New Zealand.
The marriage of Walter R Collett and Elizabeth (Betty) R Perks was
recorded at Ludlow in Shropshire (Ref. 9a 317) during the second quarter of
1952. The births of their two known
children were also recorded at Ludlow register office, when their mother’s
maiden name was confirmed as Perks.
Walter and Betty were still residing in Ludlow during 2008
2R10 – Josephine R Collett was born at Ludlow,
Shropshire in 1954
2R11 – Alan F Collett was born at Ludlow,
Shropshire in 1958
Estelle E
M Collett [2Q9],
who was referred to as Stella, was born at Birmingham and was the third and
last child of John Brain Collett and his second wife Ruth Hannah Woodall. Her birth was recorded at the Birmingham
North register office (Ref. 6d 524) during the second quarter of 1926, when her
mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Woodall.
Much later in her life, when she was in her mid-twenties, she emigrated
to New Zealand around 1951. And it was
in New Zealand that Stella was married and where she and her husband raised
their three children
Edna
Collett [2Q10]
was born in the Birmingham district of Kings Norton, where her birth was
recorded (Ref. 6d 155) during the first three months of 1921, the only known
child of Walter Raymond Collett from Upper Slaughter in Gloucestershire and his
wife Bertha Levy from Birmingham. It is
likely that Edna married one of the following two men; John J Fallon, recorded
at Birmingham during the fourth quarter of 1946 (Ref. 9c 911), or Walter Jones,
that marriage recorded at Birmingham (Ref. 9c 1521) during the third quarter of
1953
Anthony
John Brain Collett [2Q11] was given the names of
his paternal great grandfather, and was born at Upper Slaughter in 1931, the
son of Francis George Brain Collett. His
birth was recorded at Stow-on-the-Wold (Ref. 6a 549) during the first three
months of that year, when his mother’s maiden name was said to be Long. Anthony it known to
have continued the family building and property maintenance business
established by his grandfather Francis William Collett in 1890. It was during the last three months of 1959
when the marriage of Anthony J B Collett and Poppy M Wells was recorded at
Warwick register office (Ref. 9c 1927).
The birth of their two sons were recorded at the North Cotswold register
office when, on each occasion, the mother’s maiden name was confirmed as
Wells. In 2011 contact was made with the
company at Upper Slaughter where Anthony, aged 80, still managed the business,
aided by his two sons Peter and John.
After the Second World War, Tony’s father carved a wooden plaque on
which Tony then hand-painted the names of the 36 men and women of the village
of Upper Slaughter who safely returned from the conflict, one of only a few
villages to enjoy a safe return for all of their serving men and women. Also, after the war, Tony entered the Royal
Marines for his two years' National Service, and on Remembrance Day 1950 he was
in uniform in Whitehall as the King laid a wreath at the Cenotaph
2R12 – John Brain Collett was born at Upper
Slaughter in 1960
2R13 – Peter William Collett was born at Upper
Slaughter in 1962
George
William Collett [2Q12] was born at Upper
Slaughter during 1951, the son of Francis George Brain Collett and his second
wife Phyllis Parr. The record of his
birth was recorded at North Cotswold register office (Ref. 7b 637) during the
fourth quarter of that year, when his mother’s maiden name was confirmed as
Parr. George and his mother, Phyllis
Collett Tyler, attended the Collett Reunion in Shepton Mallet in 2006, and
around 2005 he was living in Watford, but sometime after that he moved to
Thornbury, just north of Bristol. His
mother did a tremendous amount of work on researching the Collett family of her
first husband and, following her death in 2011, that was passed to George who
hopes to publish it in due course. The
marriage of George W Collett and Ann C Gittins was recorded at the North
Cotswold register office (Ref. 22 1814) during the spring of 1974. By the time the couple’s children were born,
they were living in Derbyshire, the births of their two known children recorded
at Chesterfield register office in 1978 (Ref. 6 236) during the summer, and in
the early months of 1980 (Ref. 6 313).
On both occasions the children’s mother’s maiden name was confirmed as
Gittins
2R14 – Katharine Ellen Collett was born at
Chesterfield in 1974
2R15 – Jonathan George Collett was born at
Chesterfield in 1980
Christian
McLaren Thomson Collett [2Q13] was born at Astley,
near Stourport, in 1915, the eldest on the three children of Jesse Collett and
Jane Robb Thomson, her birth recorded at Worcester register office (Ref. 6c
163) during the last quarter of the year, where his mother’s maiden name was
confirmed as Thomson. It was during the
Second World War when Christian M T Collett married Ronald S Williams, the
event recorded at Alcester register office (Ref. 6d 2767) during the second
quarter of 1942. Ronald was serving with
the Royal Air Force as a squadron leader of a bomber squadron who tragically, was
killed in action just over a year later, on 14th July 1943, and
sadly after the birth of his son. The
birth of Ian R Williams was recorded at Alcester register office (Ref. 6d 1764)
during the second quarter of 1943, when his mother’s maiden name was confirmed
as Collett. It is understood that he
passed away during 1999
George Robert Thomson Collett [2Q15], who was known as Bob, was born at Astley near Stourport on 17th
November 1923, the only son and third child of Jesse Collett and Jane Robb
Thomson. His birth was recorded at
Worcester register office (Ref. 6c 171) and it was in 1935 that his parents
returned to Coughton and Parkfield House, where the Collett family had farmed
since September 1891. He later married
Ann Josephine Allen during 1950, the event recorded at Alcester register office
(Ref. 9c 90) during the second quarter of that year, where the births of the
couple’s first two children were also recorded.
Thereafter, the family moved to Birmingham, where their last three
children were born. George Robert
Thomson Collett passed away during the summer of 2004, his death recorded at
Redditch register office (Ref. 522/1 14b)
2R16 – Martin Robert Collett was born at Croughton,
in 1951
2R17 – Neville John Collett was born at Croughton,
in 1953
2R18 – Geoffrey Edward Collett was born at
Birmingham, in 1956
2R19 – Richard Thomas Collett was born at
Birmingham, in 1960
2R20 –Alexander George Collett was born at
Birmingham, in 1970
Rita
Gwendoline Collett [2Q16] was born on 3rd
June 1920 at Alcester in 1920, the eldest of the seven children of Otto Collett
and Dorothy G Gibbs who were only married a short while before the birth of
Rita, which was recorded at Alcester register office (Ref. 6d 1940) during the
second quarter of 1920, when the mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Gibbs. By the time she was fifteen years of age,
Rita and her family were farming in Kent.
However, it may well have been Rita who was the first member of her
family who returned to the Midlands, where it is known her parents left Kent
for, a few years after the end of the Second World War. It was at Wolverhampton register office (Ref.
6b 1734), during the second quarter of 1942, when Rita G Collett was 22, where
her marriage to Samuel J A Chetter was recorded. At some time during her married life, Rita is
believed to have work at, or managed, a small shop in Bicester, and it was
certainly at Oxford register office (Ref. 70 21d) where the death of Rita
Gwendoline Chetter was recorded during the early months of 1997
George
Otto Collett [2Q17] was born on 22nd
August 1921, the eldest of the two sons amongst the five daughters of farmer
Otto Collett and his wife Dorothy. His
birth was recorded at Alcester (Ref. 6d 1665) during the third quarter of 1921,
when his mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Gibbs. When he was fourteen years of age, his father
took the family from Warwickshire to another farm in Kent and, it was at
Bromley in Kent, where the marriage of George O Collett and Katie L Roffey was
recorded (Ref. 5b 269) during the last quarter of 1946. Six years later, for the birth of the couple’s
first child, George and Katie were living within the catchment area of the town
of Northampton, where the birth of Ian R Collett was recorded. After a further seven years, George and his
family were living within the area of his birth, which may well have coincided
with an earlier move back to Warwickshire by his parents and other
siblings. It was also at Alcester
register office that the birth of his youngest son was recorded. It is understood, that some years later, the
four of them were living in the neighbouring county of Worcester, where
George’s youngest son was married in 1981.
It was also at Worcester, twenty years later, where George Otto Collett
died on 1st December 2001
2R21 – Ian R Collett was born at
Northampton in 1952
2R22 – Anthony P Collett was born at Alcester
in 1959
Ina
Margaret Collett [2Q18] was born at Alcester
where her birth was recorded (Ref. 6d 1412) during the second quarter of 1924,
the third of the seven children of Otto and Dorothy Collett. When she was eleven-years-old, her family
settled in Kent and later returned to Warwickshire, but before that return to
the county of her birth, the marriage of Ina M Collett and Charles R Godwin was
recorded at Staines register office (Ref. 3a 145) during the third quarter of
1945. They
lived in North Moreton, near Didcot in Berkshire, but were later divorced
during the late 1970s and early 1980s, after which Ina moved to Worcester. While they were still living together in
Berkshire, both of them were employed at Atomic Energy Research Institute at
Harwell, near Didcot, where Ina worked as a secretary who, later in her life,
used her typing skills to work from home for students in Worcester. And it was also at Worcester where Ina
Margaret Godwin died on 1st April 2007, at the age of 83
Gladys
Monica Collett [2Q19] was born at Alcester on
10th February 1926, another daughter of farmer Otto Collett and his
wife Dorothy. Her birth was recorded at
Alcester register office (Ref. 6d 1352) during the first three months of 1926,
when her mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Gibbs. Gladys M Collett married
Bertram H Horton at Birmingham where the event was recorded during the second
quarter of 1952. It is understood that
they never had any children and, just like her sister Ina (above), the marriage
of Monica (as she was known) and Bert ended in divorced. In fact, following her death by an act of
suicide, it was as Monica Gladys Horton that her tragic end was recorded at
Birmingham during the first months of 1993
Mavis
Dorothy Collett [2Q20] was born in 1928 and,
like all of her six siblings, her birth was also recorded at Alcester register
office (Ref. 6d 1380) during the second quarter of the year. She was seven years, when the family moved to
Kent although, by the end of the 1940s, the family had returned to Warwickshire
and had settled in Birmingham. As a
result of that return to the Midlands, it was at Birmingham register office
(Ref. 9c 78) that the marriage of Mavis D Collett and Raymond J L Power was
recorded during the third quarter of 1949.
It was also there, during the next year, that Mavis’ sister Pat (below)
was married. The marriage of Mavis and
Ray provided the couple with two children while they were living in Birmingham,
Hilary J Power
(born in 1958) and Gillian Power (born in 1961). Raymond John L Power was born on 22nd
December 1925 and died during the summer of 1997, his
death recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 07 31a). It seems likely that Mavis survived her
husband by some years, as she was no longer alive by 2020
Patricia
M Collett [2Q21] was born at Alcester, with her birth also recorded
there (Ref. 6c 1269) during the first quarter of 1930, the youngest daughter of
Otto and Dorothy Collett. At the age of
five years, the family travelled to Kent, where they farmed until the late
1940s, when they returned to live within the Birmingham area of
Warwickshire. The marriage of Patricia M
Collett and Lawrence R Bevington was recorded at Birmingham register office
(Ref. 9c 1128) during the third quarter of 1950, and only ten months after her
sister Mavis (above) was also married there.
The couple’s two sons are Andrew L
Bevington (born on 13th February 1959)
and Martyn N Bevington (born on 1st August 1962).
Lawrence Reynolds Bevington was born on 17th February 1924
and he died in Birmingham on 1st December 2001
John
Malcolm Collett [2Q22] was the last of the seven
children of Otto Collett, a farmer, and Dorothy G Gibbs. He was born at Alcester on 29th
March 1932, his birth recorded there (Ref. 6d 1345) during the second quarter
of the year, when his mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Gibbs. John was around three years old, when the
family moved from Warwickshire to Kent, where his father continued as a farmer. It is known that his married older brother
George (above) returned to Warwickshire near the end of the 1950s, as did his
parents. John was twenty-seven when he
married Dorothy Mabel Frankland at Clitheroe on 24th October 1959,
the event recorded at Clitheroe register office (Ref. 10c 118). Dorothy was born at Clitheroe, where her birth
was recorded (Ref. 8e 103) during the first quarter of 1932, where her mother’s
maiden name was recorded as Bryan.
During the first three years of their marriage, Dorothy gave birth to
two sons, both of them born at Templecombe in Somerset. John served with
the Royal Air Force, starting as a mechanic, and progressing to the rank of
chief technician, during which time he was stationed initially at Yeovilton,
Famagusta and Nicosia during the mid-1960s), Lyneham, Masirah in Oman for a
nine-month unaccompanied tour during the mid-1970s, Hullavington, and Northern
Ireland. Upon completing his service
with the RAF in 1986/87 the family moved to Hemswell Cliff in Lincolnshire. The death of John Malcolm Collett was
recorded at Lincoln register office (Ref. 61 91a) during the spring of 1994,
when he was 62, and seventeen years after, Dorothy Mabel Collett passed away
during the month of September in 2011.
It is thanks to their son Chris who, in 2020, kindly provided new
details for his father and his six older siblings. At that time, Chris was living at Stonehaven,
near Aberdeen, with his wife of thirty-one years
2R23 – David John Collett was born at
Templeton, Somerset on 2nd February 1961
2R24 – Christopher Paul Collett was born at
Templeton, Somerset on 20th October 1962
Violet Winifred E C Collett
was born at Gloucester on 31st March 1901, her birth being
registered there during the June quarter of that year, the eldest child of
Albert Henry Collett and his wife Rosina A Lewis. It is highly likely that she was born at 49
Sherborne Street in the Kingsholm district of Gloucester St Marks, where her
parents were recorded as visitors in the March census of 1901, which also took
place on that same date, perhaps indicating that Violet was born immediately
after the census return had been completed.
Around 1906 or 1907 her family moved to Wales, and it was at 23 Dolphin
Street in Newport in Monmouthshire, that she was living with her parents in
April 1911 when she was 10 years old. It
was ten years later at Newport at the end of June in 1921 that Violet married
Henry Gregory Flage with whom she had nine children. It was at Newport also that the marriage was
registered during the third quarter of that year. Violet and Harry, as her husband was
generally known, lived at Newport where all of their children were born. Their children were, Violet Rosina
Elizabeth Flage, known as Rosy (1921-1983), who married Leonard H
Walker at Newport in 1943, Hannah P
Flage (born in 1923), William Mervyn Thomas Flage, known as Billy,
(1927-1983), Bessie Eleanor Flage (born in 1931), who married
Llewellyn Francis Jenkins at Newport in 1951, Barbara Flage (born in 1934), Nora Lorraine Flage (1936-2001), Jean
A Flage who was born in 1941 who married Brian Walker at Newport in
1959, and Janet Flage (born in 1944) who married Julian E Cueto at
Newport in 1965
Billy Flage, who was born
at Newport in 1927, emigrated to Australia in 1966 as part of the ‘ten-pound
pom’ deal, and it was while he was living in Brisbane that he died in
1983. William Mervyn Thomas Flage was
the father-in-law of Jenny Flage of Canberra in Australia who kindly provided
the details regarding the children of Violet Collett and Harry Flage, Jenny
having married Billy’s son John Flage.
Henry Gregory Flage was born at Cardiff on 6th June 1900, and he
died at Newport during the September quarter of 1972. However, he had been a widower for the last
twenty-five years of his life, when his wife Violet Winifred E C Flage nee Collett died at Newport during the third
quarter of 1947 at the relatively young age of 46
Ella Agnes Collett [2Q24] was
born at Gloucester during the first three months of 1903, the daughter of
Albert and Rosina Collett. When she was
around three years of age, her family left Gloucester when they moved to South
Wales, and in 1911 the family was living a 23 Dolphin Street in Newport, where
Ella Collett was eight years old. She
married Arthur David Davies who may have been the brother of Pearl Davies who
married Ella’s younger brother Albert (below).
They were married at Newport during the September quarter of 1926, while
Arthur had been born at Newport during the last three months of 1902. The couple lived at Newport where their two
children were born, the first of them Patricia Davies was born at
Newport during the second quarter of 1927, the second Arthur David Davies
also born at Newport in 1930. Ella Agnes
Davies nee Collett died in East Glamorgan during the first quarter of 1941,
while it was twenty years after her death that her husband Arthur passed away
at Caerleon in Monmouthshire in 1961 at the age of 58. Both of Ella’s children were still alive in
2015, as confirmed by Dai Davies, the son of Arthur David Davies, who kindly
provided the photograph taken at the wedding of his grandparents Ella Agnes
Collet and Arthur David Davies (below).
In the centre of the picture is Ella’s father Albert Henry Collett
Mervyn Stephen A Collett [2Q25] was
born at Gloucester on 16th March 1905, his birth being registered
there (Ref. 6a 87) during the second quarter of 1905. Not long after he was born his father’s work
took the family to Newport in South Wales, where they were residing at 23 Dolphin
Street in April 1911 when Mervyn was six years old. He was the eldest son of Albert Henry and
Rosina Collett and he married Hannah (Nancy) Cross at Newport, where the
marriage was recorded (Ref. 11a 553) during the last three months of 1928, when
he was confirmed as Mervyn S A Collett.
Hannah had been born at Pontypool in 1910 and, once married, the couple
lived in Pontnewynydd, where their two children were born, when their births
were recorded at nearby Pontypool. They
also adopted Violet Reddy, about whom no details are known. At some time during his life Mervyn was a
merchant navy seaman Mervyn, as confirmed by his service record which contained
his date of birth and indicated that he signed up on leaving school. The same record also suggested that he left
the service in 1941. Stephen A Collett
died at Newport in 1982, his passing recorded there (Ref. 28 97) during the
final three months of that year, while his wife outlived him by a further
seventeen years, when she died during the summer of 1999
2R25 – Joan Collett was born at Pontypool,
Wales in 1929
2R26 – John Collett was born at Pontypool,
Wales in 1932
William Collett [2Q26] was
born at Newport not long after his family settled there after moving from
Gloucester in the previous year. His
birth was registered at Newport during the first three months of 1907, as
confirmed by the census in 1911, when he was recorded as being four years old
while living with his family at 23 Dolphin Street in Newport. He was referred to as Bill and he married
Edith Berry at Newport during the final three months of 1930. Edith was born at Newport in 1908, and it was
also there that the couple lived and where their two children were born, the
first during the latter three months of the following year. The couple’s whole life appears to have been
spent living together in Newport, since it was there that their deaths were
recorded in 1972 for Edith and in 1994 for William
2R27 – Elaine R Collett was born at Newport,
Wales in 1931
2R28 – Bertram John Collett was born at Newport,
Wales in 1937
Arthur Stephen Collett [2Q27] was
born at Newport on 28th May 1909, his birth recorded there (Ref. 11a
2). He was twenty-seven, when the
marriage of
2R29 – Arthur Stephen Collett was born at Newport,
Wales in 1937
2R30 – Shirley Collett was born at Newport,
Wales in 1938
2R31 – Robert Anthony Collett was born at Newport,
Wales in 1948
Lewis George Collett [2Q28] was
born at Newport on 15th July 1911, the sixth child of Albert Henry
Collett and his wife Rosina A Lewis. He
married Irene
2R32 – Lewis Alan Collett was born at Birmingham
in 1934; died 1939
2R33 – Derek George Collett was born at Birmingham
in 1937
2R34 – Sheila Marion Collett was born at Birmingham
in 1938
2R35 – Patricia Ellen Collett was born at Birmingham
in 1941
2R36 – Adrian Norman Collett was born at Birmingham
in 1949
Nora L Collett [2Q29] was born at
Newport on 13th June 1913, the younger daughter of Albert and Rosina
Collett. The marriage of Nora L Collett
and Leslie G Faulkner was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6d 123)
during the second quarter of 1938. It
was around four years earlier that Nora moved to the Birmingham area, when her
older brother Lewis (above) and his wife set up home there. Once married, Leslie and Nora made their home
in the Kings Heath area of Birmingham, where their two children were born. They were Patricia E Faulkner (born
1939) and Christopher Faulkner.
Nora was a real character and one of her quirkier aspects was that she
was never known to address her brothers’ wives by their married name of
Collett. Instead, she always referred
her sisters-in-law by their maiden names
Bertram Henry F Collett [2Q30], who
was known as Bertie, was born at Newport on 2nd June 1915 and was
the youngest child of Albert Henry Collett and Rosina A Lewis. His birth was recorded at the Newport
register office (Ref. 11a 48). It was at
Birmingham during the last three months of 1937 that he
married Pearl E Davies (Ref. 6d 39), after which the couple returned to Newport where all
of their seven children were born. Pearl was also from South Wales, having been
born at Abergavenny in Gwent during the last quarter of 1918 (Ref. 11a
66). Bertram H F Collett died at
Newport, where his death was recorded at the Newport register office during the
first three months of 1972 (Ref. 8c 103)
2R37 – Hannah P D Collett was born at Newport in
1939
2R38 – Bertram Thomas Collett was born at Newport in
1940
2R39 – George H Collett was born at Newport in
1943
2R40 – John Collett was born at Newport in
1947
2R41 – Catherine M Collett was born at Newport
in 1951
2R42 – Paul Collett was born at Newport in
1953
2R43 – Christine A Collett was born at Newport
in 1955
Ella Winifred Bizley [2Q31] was born in Swindon on 17th February 1909, the eldest child
of Nellie Winifred Collett and her husband Edward Bizley. She never married and was living in Devizes
when she died between July and September 1974.
Twenty-five years earlier Ella and her sister Nora (below) were named as
the joint executors of her mother’s Will, which was proved at Gloucester on 20th
October 1959
Edward Bizley [2Q32] was born at
Swindon on 5th May 1912 and was named after his father. The photograph here shows Edward circa 1920
with his mother
Nora Bizley [2Q33] was born at
Swindon on 13th March 1914, the youngest of the three children of
Nellie and Edward Bizley. Just like her
older sister Ella (above), Nora never married and died at Barnstaple during the
last three months of 1971. The two
spinster sisters were named as the joint executors of their mother’s Will in
1959
Ruby Lillian Maud Collett [2Q34]
was born on 9th February 1917 at Devizes in Wiltshire and she later
married James Albert Longley on 26th April 1941 at Sheffield. Their only daughter was born at Sheffield and
it was there also that James Albert Longley died on 19th November
1988. Jacquelyn Longley was born at Sheffield on 7th December
1945. She did marry, but was divorced
with no issue. Sadly, Jacquelyn Longley
died unexpectedly at her home during the first two weeks of August with her
funeral later taking place on 30th August 2013
Arthur William Henry Collett [2Q36]
was born on 16th October 1921 at Sheffield, where he married
Elizabeth (Betty) Bartholomew on 26th June 1946. Betty was born during the last three months of 1921, when
her birth was recorded at Barnsley. Arthur’s occupation was that of fitter with
the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) at Sheffield, where the couple’s
only daughter was born. It was also at
Sheffield that he died on 13th October 1975
2R44 – Elizabeth Collett was born at Sheffield
in 1953
Charles Fredrick Collett [2Q37]
was born on 12th November 1923 at Sheffield where he later married
Elizabeth (Betty) Stamp on 28th September 1946. His occupation was engine driver with the LMS
Railway in Sheffield, and it was there that his daughter was born
2R45 – Judith Collett was born at Sheffield
in 1948
Glenna Collett [2Q38] was born at
Sheffield on 11th July 1925, but it was at Swindon that she married
Robert Lawson on 19th March 1949 and where both of their children
were born. Glenna Lawson née
Collett was still living in Swindon when she died on Thursday 18th
April 2019, at the age of 93. The
funeral service took place at St Barnabas Church in the Gorse Hill area of
Swindon on 24th May. The unusual name of
Glenna was chosen by her parents after the American Hall of Fame Golfer Glenna
Collett (1903-1989) who was born in New Haven in Connecticut. She was the winner of six US Women’s
Championships, the second being in July 1925 immediately prior to the birth of
our Glenna. During the previous year she
created an astonishing record by winning 59 out of the 60 events she entered,
the only defeat being on the final hole in the 1924 US Championship. She married Edwin H Vare Junior with whom she
had two children, and as Glenna Collett-Vare she was a member of the victorious
US team that won the Curtis Cup at Wentworth in 1934 and was player-captain of
the team in 1934, ‘36 and ‘38 and again in 1948
Glenna’s
eldest child, Yvonne
C Lawson was born on 27th March 1956 at Swindon,
where her birth was recorded (Ref. 7c 704), when her mother’s maiden name was
confirmed as Collett. It was also at
Swindon that the marriage of Yvonne C Collett and Graham N Stott took place on
17th December 1978 and where it was recorded (Ref. 23 1485). The marriage produced three children for the
couple, all of whom were born at Swindon.
Their eldest daughter was Hayley Joanne Stott who was born on 16th
February 1980. She married Gareth Woodward
in Swindon at the end of 1998, and he was born at Stoke-on-Trent in 1980. They have two children Joshua James Woodward
(born in 1998) and Ryan Jay Woodward (born in 1999), both of them at
Swindon. Yvonne’s and Graham’s next
child was Helen Diane Stott, who was born on 16th August 1982, while
their son Damian Paul Stott was born on 24th October 1985
Glenna’s son, Wayne Stephen R Lawson was born in Swindon on 22nd June 1959,
where his birth was recorded (Ref. 7c 810), when his mother’s maiden name was
confirmed as Collett. The later marriage
of Wayne S R Collett and Bridget W B Billany took place on 4th May
1996 and was recorded at Wallingford-on-Thames in Oxfordshire (Ref. 704
0094). They have two children who are
Adele Glenna Billany Lawson, who was born in Oxford on 25th April
1998, and Ellis Rusting Billany Lawson who was also born there on 24th
February 2001
Mervyn Collett [2Q39] was born at
Sheffield on 12th July 1928, the youngest son of Arthur Stephen Alan
Collett of Swindon and his wife Mary Maud Bigwood from Devizes. He was eleven years old at the outbreak of
World War Two and, with Sheffield being a target for the German bombing, Mervyn
was sent to live with his mother’s married sister Lillian and her husband Percy
at their home in Devizes. It was
therefore while he was at Devizes that he received his secondary education, and
for many years thereafter he kept in touch with his Devizes school friends and
he and his family would meet up with them and other members of the Collett and
Bigwood families in Wiltshire. After the
war Mervyn returned to his home town of Sheffield, from where he joined the
merchant navy. He later married Patricia
Beverley at Sheffield on 14th February 1953 and, following his time
as a merchant seaman, he became an engineering manager at Cintride Limited at
Shiregreen in Sheffield. It was also in
Sheffield that the couple’s three daughters were born. Mervyn Collett died at Sheffield on 28th
April 1983 at the age of 54. In 2011
Patricia Collett nee Beverley was still living in Sheffield and was the proud
owner of the China Medal awarded to Royal Navy seaman William Collett from
Bibury, her late husband’s grandfather
2R46 – Gillian Beverley Collett was born at Sheffield
in 1955
2R47 – Susan Ann Collett was born at Sheffield
in 1957
2R48 – Diana Patricia Collett was born at Sheffield
in 1962
Patricia Mary Collett [2Q40]
was born at Sheffield on 24th September 1930, although it was at
Swindon that she married Peter Sidney Hammans on 28th August
1954. The family lived at 6 Briery Close
at Stratton St Margaret near Swindon for much of their later life and from
where Peter Sidney Hammans died on 9th November 1994. The couple’s first-born child, Teresa Karen Hammans was born on 30th
December 1958, and she married Steven Daglish on 7th July 1979. Their marriage produced two children, and
they are Mark James Daglish, who was born on 26th August 1983, and
John Steven Daglish, who was born on 3rd January 1987. Their second daughter, Elaine Mary Hammans was born on 12th February 1962, and
she married Michael John Purnell on 10th December 1988. In December 1990 they were living in Germany
and Michael saw active service in the Gulf War and later in Kosovo during the
troubles in Yugoslavia in the late 1990s.
They have two children, Christopher Philip Michael Purnell, who was born
on 27th March 1991, and Rebecca Megan Louise Purnell, who was born
29th April 1993