PART FORTY-SIX

The Charlton-on-Otmoor (Oxon) Area Line 1870 to 2011

Updated September 2024

This is the second of two sections of this family line

46O60

George Thomas Collett was born at Crawley Road in the hamlet of Hailey near Witney on 4^th May 1850, the only son of William Collett and Harriet Hunt. His birth was registered at Witney (Ref. xvi 151) during the second quarter of that year. It was also at Crawley Road where George T Collett was only ten months old on the day of the census in 1851, while it was simply as George Collett aged 10 years that he was recorded as the only child still living with his parents at Hailey on the day of the census in 1861. George was only seventeen when his mother died in 1867, after which his father re-married during the first three months of 1868. A few months later, teenager George Collett married Fanny Stone with their wedding recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 899) during the second quarter of 1868. They were married by banns at the parish church in Bicester on 13^th April 1868 when the witnesses were named as John Faunt and Rebecca Faunt, both of whom were listed as husband and wife in the Bicester Market census returns in 1861 and 1871.

Fanny Stone was a spinster of 28 years who had been born in Bicester, the daughter of labourer William Stone. Neither George nor Fanny signed the register in their own hand, while bachelor George, who was around ten years younger than his bride, stated he had already attained the full age of 21. His occupation was that of a labourer and it was the fact that he confirmed he was the son of carter William Collett. The place of residence for both the bride and the groom on their wedding day was recorded as Bicester M2. Once married the couple settled in Bicester and it was there also where all their children were born.

Around fifteen months after their wedding day, Fanny gave birth to Elizabeth Jane Collett whose birth was registered at Bicester (Ref. 3a 618) during the third quarter of 1869. Three months later, the death of Elizabeth Collett was also recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 426) during the last quarter of the same year, after which there was an inquest, with the following outcome. “On Tuesday last, an inquest was held at The Crown Inn, by W Brunner Esq., County Coroner, touching the death of an infant child named Elizabeth Collett, three months old, daughter of George Collett, a brewer’s labourer. Fanny Collett, mother of the deceased, said her child was not healthy. She took her to bed on Saturday night, as usual, and she laid on her right arm, between herself and her husband, and she went to sleep with the child in that position. Her face was to her breast. It was half-past twelve when they went to bed, and she (the witness) did not wake until after six in the morning. The child was then lying on her arm, as when she went to sleep, and quite dead. She had not heard the child move or make any noise during the night. Her husband was not lying close to the child. She called one of her neighbours immediately. Clementina Hudson, wife of John Hudson, labourer, the neighbour alluded to, was called and corroborated the evidence of the mother. The jury returned a verdict of death from suffocation.”

The census in 1871 confirmed that the young family was living at Market End in Bicester, immediately adjacent to the Rose & Crown Inn, where George may have been working as a brewer’s labourer. George Collett from Witney said he was 25 instead of 21, his wife Fanny Collett was 32, and their son and first child James Collett was eight months old. Four further children were added to their family during the next decade, so by 1881 the family comprised George Collett from Witney who said he was brewer’s labourer at the age of 34, his wife Fanny was 42, while their children were named as James Collett who was 10, Lucy who was nine, Emily who was seven, Julia who was four and Thomas who was one year old. By that time the family was residing in Water Lane in Market End. Lodging with the family was out-of-work ostler and widower Thomas Shrewsbury of Bicester who was infirmed at the age of 63.

No more children were added to the family which, by 1891 was still living in Bicester, but at Church Lane. On that occasion the family was listed as George who said he was 46 instead of 41, while Fanny was 52, James T Collett was 20, Lucy E Collett was 19, Emily J Collett was 17 and a general servant, Julia S Collett was 14, and Thomas was 11 years of age. Boarding with the family was 21-year-old William Grundy of Bicester who was also a brewer’s labourer, presumably working with George Collett.

According to the next census in 1901 all their children bar one had left the family home, leaving just George who was said he was 53, rather than 51, who was still employed as a brewer’s labourer while he was still living on Church Lane in Market End Bicester. On that day it was rather curious that his wife gave her name as Sarah Collett who was 62 and from Bicester. The only one of their children still living there with them was their eldest married daughter who was using her second name of Ellen Walduck. The census return was completed by the inclusion of Ellen’s husband Henry Walduck and two of George’s and Fanny’s grandchildren. They were Herbert Collett who was two years old and Louisa Walduck who was one, the two children of their daughter Lucy Ellen.

It was the order in which the six individuals were recorded in the census return in 1901 which indicates that Herbert Collett was very likely the base-born son of Lucy Ellen Collett. That was prior to her marriage to Henry Walduck, with whom she subsequently had three children, although only one appears to have survived. It was also a similar situation ten years later. The Market End Bicester census in April 1911 recorded the household as George Collett from Witney who said he was 64 and not 61, a brewer’s labourer, his wife of forty-three years was Fanny Collett from Bicester who was 72, and their grandson Herbert John Collett who was 12 and born at Bicester. Still living with them in the dwelling at 2 Church Lane was the couple’s married daughter Lucy Ellen Walduck, her husband Henry and their sole surviving child, their daughter Doris May Walduck.

George Thomas Collett, a brewer’s labourer, was said to be 69 when he died on 5^th November 1917 at 2 Church Lane in Bicester in the presence of his married daughter L E Walduck, who probably did not know that he was 67. The cause of death was chronic rheumatic arthritis, coupled with bronchitis and cardiac failure. The death of George T Collett was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 1132). Throughout his married life, George had never given his actual age, presumably out of embarrassment that his wife was around ten years older than him. His widow, Fanny Collett nee Stone, who was born at Bicester around 1839, died in 1921 at the age of 82, following which her death was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 1210) during the first three months of that year.

46P113

Elizabeth Jane Collett

Born in 1869 at Bicester

46P114

James Thomas Collett

Born in 1870 at Bicester

46P115

Lucy Ellen Collett

Born in 1871 at Bicester

46P116

Emily Jane Collett

Born in 1874 at Bicester

46P117

Julia Susan Collett

Born in 1877 at Bicester

46P118

Thomas Collett

Born in 1879 at Bicester

46O66

Walter Wentworth Collett was the base-born child of Charlotte Collett and was born at Fencott in 1857. Being born out of wedlock, no baptism record for him has been found, although his birth was registered at Bicester (Ref. 3a 535) during the second quarter of 1857. In 1861, Walter W Collett was three years old and was living at Fencott with his unmarried mother and younger brother Thomas (below). Although all his subsequent siblings were believed to be fathered by Thomas Cooper, it is possible that his father’s name may have been Wentworth. The premature death of Walter Wentworth Collett was recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 451) during the last three months of 1870, when he was 13 years of age. He died at Fencott and was buried at St Mary’s Church in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 11^th December 1870.

46O67

Thomas Cooper Collett was born at Fencott in 1859, his birth recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 555) during the second quarter of that year, as simply Thomas Collett. He was the second of the eight base-born children of unmarried Charlotte Collett, his father very likely being bachelor Thomas Cooper. It would also appear that during all his life Thomas Cooper Collett was referred to as Tom and, from the time he was born until 1911, he lived in Fencott. In 1861, as Tom Collett, he was two years of age, and by 1871 he had finished his schooling, when Tom Collett was 11 years old and already working as an agricultural labourer. On that census day, his unmarried mother was living with Thomas Cooper at Fencott. It was as Tom Cooper Collett that he was recorded in 1881 when he was 22 and, still was working as an agricultural labourer like his father, Thomas Cooper, while living with his unmarried parents at Fencott, together with six of his seven siblings.

Ten years later in 1891, Tom Cooper was 30 and again employed as an agricultural labourer but, by March 1901, he was once again listed simply as Tom Collett of Fencott. He was still a bachelor at 40 years of age, and his occupation at that time, was that of a hay binder. On that occasion he was still living at Fencott with his elderly unmarried parents Thomas Cooper and Charlotte Collett. Following the death of his father, seven years later, Tom Cooper was 51 in April 1911, when he was the only member of his family living with his widowed mother Charlotte Cooper who was 76, with both having been born in Fencott. The death of Thomas (Tom) Cooper, who was born in 1859, was recorded at Chipping Norton register office (Ref. 3a 1886) during the first quarter of 1936.

46O68

Charlotte Georgina Cooper Collett was born at Fencott, the third child and base-born daughter of Charlotte Collett. The birth was recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 552) under the name of Charlotte Georgina Collett, during the first three months of 1862. Her father was more than likely Thomas Cooper, who never married her mother, although her mother, and all her siblings, lived with him. In the Fencott census of 1871, she was simply recorded with her family, with Thomas Cooper, as Georgina Collett aged eight years. It was the same situation ten years later when, according to the 1881 Census, Georgina Cooper Collett of Fencott was 19 and was working as a domestic servant, while living with her family at the Fencott home of Thomas Cooper. Shortly after that census day, Georgina gave birth to a daughter, who was initially looked after by her parents. However, a year after giving birth, the marriage of Georgina Cooper (formerly Charlotte Georgina Collett) and Henry Probets took place on 13^th August 1883 at the parish church of St Mary the Virgin in Charlton-on-Otmoor. The marriage register confirmed that her father was Thomas Cooper, while the event was recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 1119) during the third quarter of 1883.

Prior to 1891, Georgina presented her husband with their first three children, as confirmed by the census form completed that year. Henry Probets was 28 and a groom, living at Brill, between Oxford and Aylesbury, with his wife Georgina Probets who was 29, their two daughters Beatrice Probets and Caroline Probets, aged seven and three respectively, and their son Abraham Probets who was one year old. All three children were born after the family had settled in Brill. On that same say, Georgina’s base-born daughter Ellen Collett from Fencott was eight years of age, when she was still living at Fencott with her grandmother Charlotte Collett and her life partner Thomas Cooper.

By the end of the century Henry and Georgina Probets had seven children living with them at Thame, when Henry from Brill was 38 and working as a domestic groom and gardener. Georgina was 39 and gave her place of birth as Charlton-on-Otmoor. Their family comprised Caroline Probets who was 13, Richard Probets who was 12, Thomas William Probets who was nine, all born at Brill, and Charles Probets who was eight, Mary Probets who was five, Fred Probets who was three, and Frank (Francis Buller Dundonald) Probets who was one year old, and all of them born after the family had moved to Thame.

The family was still residing in Thame in April 1911, by which time they had two grandchildren living with them. Henry was 47 and was employed at a nursery as a gardener, Georgina was 48, and their four children still living with them were Graham (Richard) who was 21, Thomas who was 19, Frederick (Frederick Toddy) who was 12, and Buller (Frank) who was 11. The two grandchildren were granddaughter Ellie Probets who was nine, and grandson Berie (Barry) who was eight, both born at Thame. The only time during her life, that is, other than at the registration of her birth, that she was described as Charlotte Georgina Probets, was upon the registration of her death. She died on 18^th March 1948 while she was living at 23 Hollybush Lane in the Hampton area of Twickenham. She was 86 years of age at that time and the informant was E Yates, ‘daughter of the deceased’, who was the aforementioned Ellie Probets. The death of Charlotte G Probets was recorded at Middlesex South register office (Ref. 5f 42) in London at the end of March in 1948.

The birth of Henry Probets was recorded at Thame (Ref. 3a 535) during the first quarter of 1863, the son of James and Elizabeth Probets of Brill, where he was born. The death of Henry Probets was recorded at Headington register office (Ref. 3a 889) in Oxford during the third quarter of 1926, when he was 63. Thomas William Probets, the third son of Georgina Collett and Henry Probets, was the great grandfather of Jackie Eldridge who kindly provided the details regarding the life of Georgina Cooper Collett. Thomas William Probets’ wife died shortly after giving birth to their daughter Irene, following which the child was brought up and cared for by her grandmother Charlotte Georgina Probets. Irene Probets was therefore the grandmother of Jackie Eldridge.

46O69

Barry Cooper Collett was born at Fencott in 1865, his birth recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 606) during the second quarter of 1865, when he was simply named as Beeri Collett. He was listed as Berea Collett aged six years in the 1871 Census and in 1881, Beeri Cooper Collett was 15, when he was working as an agricultural labourer, while living with his mother Charlotte Collett at the home of Thomas Cooper in Fencott. He was still living at Fencott with his family in 1891 at the age of 25. However, even with no obvious record of him in either 1901 and again in 1911, the death of Berri Collett was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 1007) during the second quarter of 1919 when he was 54 years of age.

46O70

Abigail Cooper Collett was born at Fencott in 1867 and when her birth was registered at Bicester, she was simply named as Abigail Collett (Ref. 3a 614) during the third quarter of the year. It was as Abigail Collett that she was listed with her family in the Fencott census of 1871 at the age of three years. in the census of 1871. Ten years later she was still living with her mother Charlotte Collett at the Murcott home of Thomas Cooper when she was 13 and an agricultural labourer like her older brother Barry (above). No trace of Abigail has been found in the census of 1891, by which time she may have been married.

46O71

Jonah Cooper Collett was born at Fencott on 29^th April 1869, another child of unmarried Charlotte Collett and Thomas Cooper. His birth was registered at Bicester (Ref. 3a 599) during the second quarter of 1869 as simply Jonah Collett. He was one year old in 1871 when he was recorded in the census at Fencott as Jona Collett. It was ten years later, when he was 11, that he was listed as Jonah Cooper Collett at Murcott, following which he was 21 in the Murcott census of 1891. It would appear from the 1901 Census for Charlton-on-Otmoor that Jonah, by then a married man with a daughter, had dropped the Collett from his name and was simply Jonah Cooper, aged 31 and a carter on a farm from Fencott. His wife was Henrietta Cooper who was 24, and their daughter was Beatrice E Cooper who was three years old and born at Charlton, as her mother had been.

That was also the situation in the next census of 1911, by which time two further children had been added to the family. The census return listed the family as Jonah Cooper from Fencott who was 42 and a hay binder, Henrietta Cooper who was 34, Beatrice Cooper who was 13, Cecil Richard Cooper who was seven and a school, and Christopher Jonah Cooper who was two. It was at Charlton-on-Otmoor where Jonah Collett was living when he died in 1964 when he was 95, with his death recorded at Oxfordshire register office (Ref. 5b 1006).

46O72

Richard James Cooper Collett was born at Fencott in 1872, whose birth was registered at Bicester (Ref. 3a 680) during the second quarter of that year. It was as Richard Cooper Collett that he was nine years old at the time of the Fencott-with-Murcott census of 1881, when he was living with his unmarried mother Charlotte Collett at the home of Thomas Cooper. The only other record of him was in 1891 when he was 18 and still living with his family, but at Murcott. Thereafter, no record of him has been found in 1901 or 1911.

46O73

Anne Cooper Collett was born at Fencott in 1876 and was four years old in 1881 when living at Fencott . She was the last of the eight children of unmarried mother Charlotte Collett who had earlier taken up living with bachelor Thomas Cooper, the father of seven of her eight children. Anne was 14 in 1891 but no further record of her has been found after that time, most likely because she was married by 1901. Furthermore, unlike her siblings, no record of her birth as Anne Collett or Anne Cooper has been found amongst the recorded at Bicester.

46P1

William Collett was born at Brill in Buckinghamshire and near Thame in Oxfordshire where his parents were married around the time of his birth in 1866, having fled to Thame from Banbury knowing a baby was on the way. After he was born, his parents Robert Sturch Collett and Mary Ann Baker left Brill and travelled to London, where the birth of William Collett was registered at Lambeth a year later when his parents were living at Waterloo Road in Lambeth. The only birth of a William Collett registered at Lambeth around that time was that of William Richard Collett (Ref. 1d 289) during the spring of 1867.

In 1871 William, at the age of four, and his parents, were still living at Waterloo Road although during the next ten years the family of three left Lambeth and was living at Featherstone Larches in Norwood by 1881, where William was still attending school at the age of 14. The census on the occasion gave his place of birth as Lambeth. However, in both the 1891 and 1901 census returns William gave his place of birth as being Brill in Buckinghamshire, not far from his father’s Oxfordshire roots.

The marriage of William Collett and Louisa Gates, who was born at Southgate in North London, was recorded at Edmonton (Ref. 3a 367) during the third quarter of 1886. It seems very likely it was at Southgate that the couple was married, since it was there that they settled and where all their children were born. By the time of the 1891 Census the family was living at Chase Road in Southgate and comprised William Collett from Brill who was 26 and working as a carman, his wife Louisa Collett who was 28, and their son William Collett who was three years old. Mother and son were both born at Southgate, within the Edmonton registration district of London. While the age difference between William and Louisa was correct, the ages they gave were in error. Completing the family that year, was Louisa’s nephew Ernest Gates who was one year old.

Ten years later the family was still living at Southgate, but at Avenue Road, and had been extended by the addition of a further four children. Therefore, the census for Southgate in 1901 listed the five Collett children as William who was 14, Percy who was nine, Sidney who was seven, Eva who was five, and Horace who was one year old. Louisa was 36, while her husband was two years younger at 34. Once again William was listed as being from Brill, and at that time his occupation was recorded as being that of a domestic gardener. Living with the family that day was Louisa’s brother George Gates who was 29.

Two more children were added to the family after 1901 and, again, they were born while the family was still living at Southgate. And it was at Southgate in Edmonton that the family was still living in April 1911. William Collett from Brill was 45 and still a domestic gardener, Louisa was 48, and their children were William (Percy William) aged 20, Sidney aged 18, Eva aged 17, Horace who was nine, Victor who was eight, and Ivy who was six. The couple’s eldest son had left home by then and was living and working in the St Marylebone area of London, while the family had a boarder staying with them; George Eater was 41 and born at Southgate.

William and Louisa continued to reside within the Edmonton area of Middlesex after 1911, and it was at Edmonton register office that the death of William Collett was recorded (Ref. 3a 899) during the second quarter of 1942. Louisa Gates was born at Southgate on 10^th November 1861 and her earlier death was recorded at Middlesex register office (Ref. 3a 1741) in 1940 when she was 79.

46Q1

William George Collett

Born in 1887 at Southgate

46Q2

Percy William Collett

Born in 1891 at Southgate

46Q3

Sidney Richard Collett

Born in 1893 at Southgate

46Q4

Ena Winifred Collett

Born in 1895 at Southgate

46Q5

Horace Collett

Born in 1900 at Southgate

46Q6

Victor Collett

Born in 1901 at Southgate

46Q7

Ivy Gwendoline Collett

Born in 1905 at Southgate

46P2

Emily Collett was born at Daventry in 1864 where her birth was registered (Ref. 3b 109) during the first quarter of that year. It was later that same year that she was baptised at Daventry on 16^th December 1864, the eldest of the nine children of Albert Collett of Fencott and his wife Elizabeth from Daventry. In the census of 1871, she was seven years old, and in 1881 she was 17 with no occupation, living at 24 Sheaf Street in Daventry with her family. The marriage of Emily Collett and Alfred Durbin was recorded at Marylebone, London (Ref. 1a 1140) during the second quarter of 1890.

Once they were married, they settled in Norwood, near Uxbridge in Middlesex, where the couple was recorded in the Norwood census of 1891. Alfred Durbin from Southall in Middlesex was 24, and Emily Durbin from Daventry in Northamptonshire was 27. Seven years later, their daughter Florence Ruby Durbin was born at Norwood and shortly after the family was residing at Featherstone Road in Norwood on the day of the census in 1901. Alfred was 35 and a grocer, Emily was 37, and Florence R Durbin was three years old. After a further ten years, they were still living in Norwood where Alfred Durbin was 45, his wife Emily Durbin from Daventry was 47, and their daughter Ruby Durbin was 13.

The death of Emily Durbin, who had been born in 1864, was recorded at Brentford register office (Ref. 5d 158) during the first three months of 1947 when she was 83. Alfred Durbin was born during the summer of 1866 and was the son of George and Selina Durbin, with whom he lived at Norwood up until he married Emily. Coincidentally, his death was also recorded at Brentford register office (Ref. 5d 92) during the same first three months of 1947 when he was 80. Twenty-three years prior to their passing Alfred and Emily attended the wedding of their daughter in the spring of 1924, when the wedding of Florence Ruby Durbin and William U Callard was recorded at Uxbridge register office (Ref. 3a 97).

46P3

Mary Ann Collett was born at Daventry in 1865 and her birth registered there (Ref. 3b 106) during the third quarter of the year. She was baptised there on 18^th October 1865, the daughter of Albert and Elizabeth Collett. Although she was known by the family as Polly, it was as Mary A Collett, aged five years, that she was listed in the Daventry census of 1871 when she was living with her family. On leaving school she entered domestic service and, according to the census in 1881, she was once again recorded as Mary Ann Collett from Daventry who was 16. She was employed as a general domestic servant at the home of retired bank manager Thomas Willoughby from Northampton and his wife Margaret Elizabeth from Daventry, where their two children had also been born. It was at 1 Wellesley Terrace, Higher Wellesley Road in Tormoham-with-Torquay, Devon that the family and Mary were living at that time.

By 1891 Mary A Collett was recorded in that year’s census as unmarried at the age of 25, while she was living and working in the Wandsworth & Putney registration district of London. It was six years after that when Mary Ann Collett and Joseph John Jenkins from Barnsbury in London were married, with their wedding recorded at Uxbridge register office (Ref. 3a 75) during the second quarter of 1897. Their daughter was born at Fulham, where the family was living in March 1901. Joseph Jenkins was 28 and was working as a messenger at London University, his wife Mary Jenkins from Daventry was 34 and their daughter Nora Jenkins was not yet one year old. By the time of the next census in 1911 the family of three was residing in the Brentford district of London, where Joseph John Jenkins was 38, Mary Ann Jenkins from Daventry was 45 and Nora Ethel Jenkins was 10 years of age.

46P4

Elizabeth Ann Collett was born at Daventry in 1868 where her birth was registered (Ref. 3b 103) during the last three months of that year. It was at Daventry that she was baptised on 12^th December 1868, another daughter of Albert and Elizabeth Collett. The Daventry census return for 1871 included Elizabeth, aged two years, living there with her parents, but ten years later, when he was recorded as Eliza Collett, aged 12, she was already working as a general domestic servant at the home of draper William Edgar and his family at 25 Sheaf Street in Daventry. It was also either next door to, or across the street from, the Edgar family that Elizabeth’s parents were living at 24 Sheaf Street at that same time.

Elizabeth Ann Collett married butcher George Sharp at Daventry in 1890, the wedding recorded at Daventry register office (Ref. 3b 224) during the third quarter of the year. That was confirmed by the Daventry census of 1891, when the childless couple was listed as George Sharp aged 25, and Elizabeth A Sharp who was 22. However, the marriage resulted in the birth of five children at Daventry before her tragic death just after the census day in 1901, possibly during the birth of a sixth child. In the Daventry census conducted on 31^st March 1901 the family was recorded as George Sharp aged 35, who was a butcher and a manager, his wife Elizabeth Sharp aged 33, and their five children. Albert George Spencer Sharp who was known as Bertie was nine, Harry Sharp and Dorothy Emily Sharp (see below), Arthur Sharp was three, and Hubert Sharp (sometimes called Herbert) was two years of age.

In all probability Elizabeth was not very well on that day, since two of her older children, Harry, and Dorothy, were staying nearby with Elizabeth’s parents at The Plume of Feathers Inn on Chapel Lane in Daventry. The two absent children who were living with their grandparents were Harry Sharpe who was five, and Dorothy Sharpe who was four. Not long after that, the death of Elizabeth Ann Sharp, nee Collett, was recorded at Daventry register office (Ref. 3b 62) during the second quarter of 1901 when she was only 33 years of age. The cause of death was tuberculosis, which she had suffered with for the previous two years.

A further tragedy struck the family a year after when, Elizabeth’s daughter Dorothy, died in 1902 from complications with whooping cough, and she was followed in 1903 by the death of her father George Sharp, who also died from tuberculosis. Those two tragic events left the four sons as orphans who, were initially taken in for a short while by their grandparents. However, none of them were living with the elderly couple in 1911. Perhaps because of their grandparents advancing years or their failing health, it is established that Arthur Sharp was sent away to Canada, most likely as Barnado boys. It was on board the ship Dominion, of the Dominion Line, that the passage of Arthur Sharp, aged just eight years, was recorded when the vessel sailed out of Liverpool on 2^nd August 1906, bound for Quebec. It was around 1960 that Arthur Sharp and his wife visited England from their home in America, when they were reunited with other members of their extended family.

It is now known that the name of Harry Sharp, the son of George Sharp and Elizabeth Ann Collett, appears on the Daventry War Memorial who died of his wounds on 11^th August 1917, his body being laid to rest in Etaples cemetery. Six years earlier, according to the census in 1911 Harry Sharp was 15 years old when he was living as a boarder in Croydon where he was training as a telegraphist with the General Post Office. It was a few years later that he enlisted with the Royal Engineers and served in a signals company. Upon joining the army, Harry gave his next-of-kin as Bertie Sharp who, he said, was a farmer in Ontario, together with his uncle Will Collett (Ref. 46P10) of Daventry (below).

This information also confirms that Harry’s brother Albert George Spencer Sharp (aka Bertie) was also sent away to Canada, and that the final brother Hubert Sharp was also living in North America later in his life – all as confirmed by Jan Dennis, who kindly provided all these new details in 2015.

46P5

Edith Collett was born at Daventry during the summer of 1870, the fourth daughter of Albert and Elizabeth Collett. Her birth was registered at Daventry (Ref. 3b 101) after which she was baptised there on 17^th July 1871, In the census earlier that year, she was recorded as being eight months old. Although absent from the family home at Daventry in 1881, she was back with her parents by 1891 when she was 20. It was a few months after that census day, when the marriage of Edith Collett and Tom Harris was recorded at Daventry (Ref. 3b 210) during the third quarter of 1891. Their wedding was conducted there on 10^th September 1891, when Tom was 23 and a mineral water manufacturer, the son of Thomas Harris, while Edith’s father was confirmed as Albert Collett, a gardener. At the time of the census in 1901, the couple was living in the Norwood area of North London, when Tom Harris from Northampton was 33 and employed as a porter at a local chemical works, his wife Edith Harris from Daventry was 30, and their one-year-old daughter Evelyn Harris had also been at Daventry. Boarding with the family was Thomas J Green from Leatherhead who was 21.

Ten years later the family of three was still residing in Norwood, Middlesex, by which time Thomas Harris was 43 and a factory hand working at a margarine manufacturer. His wife Edith Harris was 40 and their daughter Evelyn Harris was 11 years of age. The present-day family member, Janet Dennis, recalls that Evelyn was referred to as Eva, and that she had a brother-in-law by the name of William Harris. It seems likely that Evelyn was not their only child since, at Daventry in 1906, the birth of Lilian May Harris was recorded, with her death recorded there during the following year. Their only surviving child was born on 22^nd June 1899, the daughter of Tom and Edith Harris of High Street in Daventry, from where her father was a provisions merchant.

46P6

Spencer Collett was born at Daventry in 1872, the fifth child and eldest of four sons of Albert and Elizabeth Collett. His birth was registered at Daventry (Ref. 3b 110) during the third quarter of the year. Not long after, he was baptised at Daventry on 23^rd October 1872. In 1881 he was eight years old and attending the local school when he was living with his family at 24 Sheaf Street in Daventry. He was still living with his parents in Daventry ten years later when he was 18 in 1891, although it was eight years later during the summer of 1899 that Spencer Collett married Isabella Kate Simpson of Daventry and the following year their only known child was born at Daventry. Their marriage was recorded at Daventry register office (Ref. 3b 263) during the third quarter of the year in front of the witnesses John William C Elliott and Judith Alice Harris.

The young family was residing at a property that was 76 Warwick Street in Daventry in 1901, when Spencer Collett was 28 and a clothier with his own account, his wife Isabella Kate Collett was also 28, and their daughter Edith Simpson Collett was just six months old. According to the next census in 1911 Spencer Collett of Daventry was 38, as was his wife Isabella Kate Collett, and living with them at Daventry was their daughter Edith Simpson Collett who was 10.

Spencer Collett was 88 when he died at Daventry where his death was recorded (Ref. 3b 498) during the last three months of 1960. After all those years he was still living at 76 Warwick Street in Daventry when he passed away on 4^th November 1960. His Will was proved at Oxford on 1^st February 1961 when Alfred John Paxman, a surveyor, and John Waters, a chartered accountant, were named as the executors of his personal estate of £6,943 7 Shillings. His wife Isabella K Collett had passed away three years earlier when her death was recorded at Daventry on 26^th July 1957 at the age of 84 (Ref. 3b 400).

The Will of Isabella Kate Collett named her husband as Spencer Collett of 76 Warwick Street, who was a joint executor with the aforementioned surveyor Alfred John Paxman. Her estate was valued at £2,859 11 Shillings and 6 Pence, while Spencer Collett’s occupation was stated as being that of an outfitter. It should be noted here that Alfred John Paxman was the couple’s son-in-law, having married their daughter Edith in 1937.

46Q8

Edith Simpson Collett

Born in 1900 at Daventry

46P7

Clara Collett was born at Daventry in 1874 with her birth registered there (Ref. 3b 108) during the last three months of the year. She was baptised at Daventry on 28^th November 1874, another daughter of Albert and Elizabeth Collett. It is possible she was born at 24 Sheaf Street in Daventry, which is where she was living with her family in 1881 when she was six years old. At the age of 16 she was still living in Daventry with her parents, as she was ten years later in March 1901 when she was 26. By that time in her life her father Albert was the landlord at The Plume of Feathers Inn at Chapel Lane in Daventry and although Clara was not listed in the census as having an occupation, it seems likely that she was helping her parents manage the public house.

Just over a year later, the marriage of Clara Collett and William Biddel of Daventry, a clerk at a shoe factory, was recorded at Daventry register office (Ref. 3b 237) during the third quarter of 1902. Within the next nine years, Clara gave birth to two children, as confirmed in the Daventry census of 1911. By then William Biddel was 38 and a licence victualler’s clerk and boot manufacturer, his wife Clara Biddel was 36 and helping with her husband’s licence victualler’s business, and their two children were Ida Collett Biddle who was three years old, and Emily Mary Biddel who was eleven months old, both girls having been born at Daventry. Six years later, and at the age of 44, William Biddel died on 17^th March 1917 with his death recorded at Daventry register office (Ref. 3b 162) during the first quarter of the year. The Will of William Biddel was proved at Northampton on 11^th April 1917, when the main beneficiary was named as Clara Biddel, his widow. It was later, on 3^rd October 1953, that Clara Biddell died at Daventry, with her death recorded at Northamptonshire register office (Ref. 3b 419), when she was 78.

46P8

Edwin Collett was born at Daventry, either late in 1876 or early in 1877, since his birth was recorded there (Ref. 3b 116) during the first quarter of 1877. It was also at Daventry that he was baptised on 3^rd March 1877, the son of Albert and Elizabeth Collett. By 1881 he was already attending the local school in Daventry where he was living with his family at 24 Sheaf Street in the town. In the census of 1891, he was simply described as ‘Ed Collett’ while he was still living with his parents in Daventry at the age of 14. During the last quarter of 1899, Edwin Collett married Emily Katherine Smith, the event recorded at Daventry (Ref. 3b 247), where the childless couple was living on the day of the census in 1901, t Chapel Lane. Edwin was 24 and working as a boot clicker and Katherine was 25, both Edwin and Katherine confirmed that they had been born at Daventry.

Two years after that, the couple was still living in Daventry when their first child was born but, shortly after that, the family moved to Uxbridge, in Middlesex, where they were living in April 1911. It was at Uxbridge that their second child was born, although no further children for them have been found. According to the census that year, Edwin Collett from Daventry was 34 and a greengrocer living in the parish of Norwood, with the Uxbridge registration district. Living there with him was his wife Katherine Collett, also from Daventry, who was 35, and their two daughters Bertha Kate Collett who was eight years old, and Ivy Collett who was three years old.

As regards their daughters, the birth of Bertha Kate Collett was recorded at Daventry register office (Ref. 3b 98) during the second quarter of 1903. She was then baptised there on 6^th April 1903, when her parents were confirmed as Edwin and Emily Katherine Collett. There are two marriages for Bertha K Collett at Uxbridge, the first at the end of 1921 to Robert C Pickford, the second at the end of 1930 to Frederick D A Mason. The birth of younger daughter Ivy Collett was recorded at Uxbridge (Ref. 3a 53) during the third quarter of 1907. Her marriage to Ronald Sellars was also recorded at Uxbridge register office (Ref. 3a 381) during the third quarter of 1937.

46Q9

Bertha Kate Collett

Born in 1903 at Daventry

46Q10

Ivy Collett

Born in 1907 at Uxbridge

46P9

Arthur Albert George Collett was born at Daventry on 2^nd March 1879 when his birth was registered there (Ref. 3b 121) during the second quarter of that year. It was the Bishops Transcripts’ which confirmed he was baptised at Daventry on 26^th March 1879. The baptism recorded also confirmed that he was the son of Albert and Elizabeth Collett of Sheaf Street and that his father was a groom. It was at 24 Sheaf Street in Daventry where the family was living in 1881 when Arthur Collett was two years old. It was as Arch A G Collett that he was listed in the next Daventry census in 1891 when he was 11, but it was as Arthur Collett that he was recorded in 1901 when he was 22 and a clicker working in the shoe trade, like his older brother Edwin (above).

At that time, he was one of only three children still living with his parents at The Plume of Feathers Inn at Chapel Lane in Daventry, the others being Clara (above) and William (below). There were however, two other children living at the public house on that occasion and they were two of the three children of Arthur’s older married sister Elizabeth Ann (above), Harry and Dorothy Sharpe.

Just over three years later Arthur married Agnes Annie Smith at All Saints Church in Wellingborough on 1^st August 1904, with their wedding recorded at Wellingborough register office (Ref. 3b 309). Three years earlier, Agnes Annie Smith, aged 22 and a milliner from Northampton, was living in a Daventry boarding home on Warwick Street, where Arthur’s future sister-in-law Edith Walling was also staying who married his brother William (below) in 1906. Agnes was baptised at Northampton on 21^st November 1880, the daughter of Alexander and Agnes Annie Smith, whose birth was recorded just prior to that at Wellingborough (Ref. 3b 152).

The marriage of Arthur and Agnes produced just one child for the couple by the time of the census in 1911, when the family was living in Daventry, where the child had also been born. Arthur Collett was 32 and a pianoforte tuner, his wife Annie Collett from Wellingborough was 30, and their daughter Marjorie Collett was three years old. Arthur was 90 years old when he died at Brixworth, with his death recorded at Northampton register office (Ref. 3b 599) around Easter in 1969.

46Q11

Marjorie Agnes Collett

Born in 1908 at Daventry

46P10

William Collett was born at Daventry in 1882, the youngest of the nine children of Albert Collett of Fencott and his wife Elizabeth Tooby from Daventry. His birth was recorded there (Ref. 3b 122) during the second quarter of that year. The year before he was born his family was living at 24 Sheaf Street in Daventry, so there is a possibility that it was there also that he was born. It was also at Daventry that William Collett, the son of Albert and Elizabeth, was baptised on 24^th May 1882. Nine year later, in the census of 1891, William was entered on the census return as Wm Collett who was eight years old and born at Daventry. Ten years after that day, he was gainfully employed at a draper’s shop in the town and was described as William Collett aged 18 and from Daventry, whose occupation was that of a draper’s assistant. Also, at that time, in 1901, he was still living with his parents who were running The Plume of Feathers Inn at Chapel Lane in Daventry.

It was just over five years following that census day when William Collett married Edith Walling, the wedding recorded at Towcester (Ref. 3b 39), thirteen miles from Daventry, during the third quarter of 1906. Edith was born in Northampton on 1^st April 1882, the daughter of William and Elizabeth Walling who, in 1891, were residing at Brackley Road in Towcester. By 1901, the census that year placed Edith Walling from Northampton as working in Daventry as a dressmaker, while staying at a boarding house on Warwick Street at the age of 19. What is very intriguing about that particular census return is that, also a boarder at the same address was Agnes Annie Smith, aged 22, who three years later married William’s brother Arthur Albert George Collett (above). It therefore seems highly likely that Edith and Agnes were friends and perhaps even worked together.

One year after their wedding day, Edith gave birth to the first of their two known Daventry born children, although an alternative source suggests there was a third child, a son Peter, even though no such birth record has been found. The Daventry census in 1911 recorded the family as William Collett of Daventry who was 28 and employed at a men’s outfitters, his wife Edith Collett was 29 but said she had been born at Towcester, and their daughter Margaret Elizabeth Collett was three years old and born at Daventry. Her birth was recorded at Daventry (Ref. 3b 89) during the third quarter of 1907, while the birth of the second daughter was also recorded there (Ref. 3b 165) during the third quarter of 1916, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Walling. No other children with a Walling mother have been found.

However, within this family, there was talk about William and Edith having a son who was known as Peter, although that may not have been the name used when the birth was registered or when he was christened. The name of William Collett of Daventry was one of the next-of-kin of his orphaned nephew Harry Sharp when he enlisted with the Royal Engineers at the start of the Great War. Harry was a child of William’s older sister Elizabeth Ann Sharp nee Collett (above).

Margaret E Collett married Maurice H Smith, their wedding recorded at Daventry (Ref. 3b 277) during the third quarter of 1928. No such record has been found for daughter Florrie, who continued to live with her parents in Daventry up until 1975, when the death of Edith Collett nee Walling, was recorded at Daventry register office (Vol. 7 1909) during the summer of that year. For the last eleven years of her life, Edith had been a widow, following the death of William Collett at Daventry (Ref. 3b 583) during the first three months of 1964 when he was 81.

46Q12

Margaret Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1907 at Daventry

46Q13

Florrie J Collett

Born in 1916 at Daventry

46P11

Mary Elizabeth Collett was born at Peckham in 1868, the eldest child of David Collett and his much older wife Eliza Stennett, whose birth was recorded at Camberwell in south London (Ref. 1d 648) during the second quarter of that year. And it was at Peckham that Mary E Collett was two years old in the census of 1871. During the following years, the family moved to Maidstone in Kent, which was where the complete family was residing in 1881 at 55 Peel Street, where Mary Collett was 12 years of age. Unmarried Mary Elizabeth Collett was 23 in the Maidstone census of 1891, by which she was still living with her parents, but at Earl Street, when she was not credited with any occupation. It was just over three years later that Mary Elizabeth Collett married Sidney Horace Lane at Tunbridge Wells on 23^rd September 1894. As far as can be determined, the married produced just one child, their daughter Hilda M Lane, who was born at Tunbridge Wells in 1896.

Shortly before the next census in 1901, Mary’s father died in Maidstone, after which her mother Eliza Collett joined Mary and Sidney at their home on Newton Road in Tunbridge Wells. Sidney Lane was 35 and a grocer’s assistant from East Malling in Kent, Mary E Lane from Peckham was 32 and Hilda M Lane was five years old. Completing the household was widow Eliza Collett, who was 69 and living on her own means. After the death of her mother, it was simply the family of three that was again living in Tunbridge Wells in 1911, when Sidney was 45 and a grocer, Mary Elizabeth Lane was 42 and Hilda Mary Lane was 15.

46P12

Margaret Grace Collett was born at Peckham in 1870, the younger of the two daughters of David and Eliza Collett, her birth recorded at Camberwell (Ref. 1d 704) during the first three months of 1870. One the day of the Peckham census the following year, Margaret G Collett was one year old and living there with her family. Sometime after that, the family travelled to Maidstone and, in 1881, they were recorded in the census that year at 55 Peel Street, when Margaret Collett was 11. On just reaching the age of twenty, Margaret Grace Collett married Albert George Mannering, aged 25, the event recorded at Hollingbourne in Kent (Ref. 2a 1215) during the second quarter of 1890. The wedding took place at Boxley parish church near Maidstone on 11^th May 1890, when Margaret’s father was confirmed as David Collett and Albert’s father was named as Albert George Mannering, the groom having been baptised at Sandhurst in Kent on 21^st August 1864, the son of Albert and Ann Mannering.

In 1891, the childless couple was living in Maidstone where Albert was 37 and Margaret was 24. That was because just a few months earlier their baby son Albert George Mannering had died, his death recorded at Maidstone (Ref. 2a 461) during the last three months of 1890. On the day of the next census in 1901, they were residing at Union Street in Maidstone, with just Albert’s younger brother was staying with them. Albert George Mannering was 38, Margaret G Mannering was 31 and John Henry Mannering was 25. Thereafter the marriage seems to have failed and Albert appears to have left his wife, who had a relationship with his brother. This conclusion has been made from the fact that no record of the death of Albert George Mannering of the right age has been found and that Margaret Grace Mannering, aged 41 and from Peckham, had been married for 20 years during which time she had given birth to one child, who had not survived. She was also described as the sister-in-law of head of the household John Henry Mannering, aged 35 and from Boxley, in the Maidstone census of 1911.

Fourteen years after that day, and presumably after being divorced, the marriage of Margaret G Mannering and John H Mannering was recorded at Tonbridge register office (Ref. 2a 2036) during the second quarter of 1925. They were only married for five years, when the death of John H Mannering, aged 53, was recorded at Hastings register office (Ref. 2b 34) during the third quarter of 1930. Probate was conducted at Lewis in East Sussex on 31^st October 1930 in favour of his widow Margaret Grace Mannering, his home being at 75 Cavendish Avenue in Eastbourne. The notice also confirmed that John had died at Buchanan Hospital in St Leonard-on-Sea on 12^th August 1930, and had left an estate valued at £1,298 3 Shilling and 9 Pence. After a further nineteen years, when his widow Margaret was 79, the death of Margaret G Mannering was recorded at the Eastbourne Sussex register office (Ref. 5h 174) during the third quarter of 1949.

46P13

Ernest Edwin Collett was born at Warwick near the end of 1882 and was baptised at St Mary’s Church in Warwick on 21^st January 1883, the only known child of Edwin Collett and Sarah Ann Parsons. His birth was registered at Warwick (Ref. 6d 577) during the last quarter of 1882. As Ernest E Collett he was eight years old in 1891 at Warwick, and was 18 and a basket maker’s apprentice in 1901, by which time he and his parents were residing at Linen Street in Warwick. After his father died, Ernest Edwin Collett was 28 and living with his widowed mother in Warwick St Mary, when his occupation was that of a basket maker and chair re-seater.

One year later, the 1912 edition of Kelly’s Directory for Warwick included an entry for Ernest Edwin Collett of Linen Street who was a basket-ware maker. That was also his trade when he died on 22^nd April 1940, having been admitted to the Warwick Institution five days earlier, with his death recorded at Warwick register office (Ref. 6d 1378) at the age of 59.

46P14

Sidney Slater Collett was born at Wimborne Minster in Dorset on 16^th April 1874, his birth recorded at Wimborne (Ref. 5a 278) during the second quarter of that year. He was the first-born child of Philip Collett and Louisa Little, and was six years old in 1881 when he was living with his parents at Leigh Road in Wimborne Minster. His mother died during 1882 and in 1884 his father was remarried. Upon leaving school Sidney joined his father in the transportation and delivery business, but by 1891 Sidney Collett of Wimborne was 16 and was living and working in the Christchurch registration district of Bournemouth. The remainder of his family was still living at Wimborne on that day.

It was as Sydney Slater Collett, aged 24, that he married Marion Jessie Crosby in 1898, with their wedding recorded at St Georges Hanover Square in London (Ref.1a 871) during the second quarter of that year. By the start of the new century, the couple had been blessed with two children, with a third following shortly after the census day in 1901. On that day, the new Dad was working away from his wife and children, when married Sidney Collett was 26 and recorded at the home of delivery agent Philip Collett and his second wife Emma on The Square in Wimborne Minster. His sons Sidney and his unmarried brother Edgar (below), were working for their father as motorcar drivers.

That same day, Sidney’s wife, and his children, were living at Holly Park Road in Hanwell, Middlesex. Marion J Collett was 23 and was born at Hanover Square in London. The couple’s two children were Ethel Collett who was two, and Olive Collett who was not yet one year old, both born at Southall just a couple of miles to the east of Hanwell. Living with Marion and the girls was Marion’s maiden aunt Juliana Wheeler of Hatcham in London, who was 45.

Shortly after the census day in 1901 the family was reunited when they moved to Boscombe near Christchurch in Hampshire, where Sidney had been just over ten years earlier. Upon the death of his father in 1909, Sidney and his brother Edgar took over the management of the family motorcar business which was closed-down in Wimborne Minster and re-open at new premises in Salisbury.

By April 1911 Sidney and Marion and their children had left the Bournemouth area and were living at 88 Exeter Street in Salisbury, Wiltshire, where Sydney S Collett was 37 and a motor agent with a garage. Once again, his place of birth was confirmed as being Wimborne in Dorset. The census also confirmed that the couple had been married for thirteen years and that Sidney’s wife was Marion J Collett who was 33 and from St Georges London. Their three children were Ethel Collett who was 12, Olive M Collett who was 10, and Edward Collett who was eight years old, the two daughters having been born at Hanwell, while their son had been born at Boscombe, Bournemouth. And, as ten years earlier, Marion’s maiden aunt Juliana Wheeler, aged 55 and from Hatcham in Surrey, was still living with the family.

The death of Sydney S Collett was recorded at Salisbury register office (Ref. 5a 202) during the second quarter of 1932. Probate of his personal effects was granted at Winchester on 8^th July 1932 to Edward Crosby Collett, an engineer’s assistant. The same document included his full name as Sydney Slater Collett of Mount Pleasant, Elm Grove Road in Salisbury, and that it was on 22^nd June 1932 when he died at home.

46Q14

Ethel Collett

Born in 1899 at Southall

46Q15

Olive May Collett

Born in 1900 at Southall

46Q16

Edward Crosby Collett

Born in 1903 at Boscombe

46P15

Reginald Philip Collett was born at Wimborne Minster in 1876, when his birth was registered at Wimborne (Ref. 5a 259) during the last three months of that year. He was four years old in April 1881 while he was living with his family at Leigh Road in Wimborne Minster. After his mother Louisa died in 1882, his father Philip married for a second time in 1884, and seven years later Reginald was 14 years old and stilling living at the family home at Wimborne Minster with his father, brother Edgar, and sister Edith, and their stepmother Emma. On reaching adulthood he left Dorset to seek his fortune in Derbyshire and it was at Derby that the marriage of Reginald Philip Collett and Louisa Harrison was recorded (Ref. 7b 1167) during the second quarter of 1898. Louisa was the daughter of Herbert T Harrison and his wife Sarah and was in an advanced state of pregnancy, her son born just a few months thereafter. Following their wedding day, the couple settled in Belper where their only known child was born, his birth recorded during the second quarter of that same year.

According to the Belper census of 1901, the three members of the young Collett family were staying at the Belper home of Reginald’s parents-in-law. Son-in-law Reginald Collett from Wimborne said he was 29, instead of 24, perhaps to make him one year older than his wife, who was recorded as the daughter of farmer Herbert T Harrison and his wife Sarah. Louie Collett was 28 and from Stonebroom in Derbyshire, when Reginald’s occupation was that of the manager at a men’s outfitters. Listed with the couple was their two-year-old son Bertie Collett who had been born there. Completing the household was Mary Ann Harrison aged 48, a widow living on her own means, the sister-in-law of head of the household Herbert, who employed a maid and three male farmer workers.

Five months later, on 9^th September 1901, Reginald Philip Collett died (or was killed), although the exact circumstances behind that tragic event have still to be determined. What is known is that his death was recorded at Christchurch register office in Hampshire (Ref. 2b 452) during the third quarter of 1901, when he was only 24. It is established that his body was returned to Wimborne, where he was buried in the same grave as his mother, who had died just nineteen years earlier. The details of the headstone epitaph can be found under the name of his father.

Having lost her husband so early in their life together, it would also appear that their only child was not in the best of health, perhaps even suffering with whatever had taken her husband from her. That assumption has been made because Herbert (previously Bertie) was no longer with Louisa in 1911. Instead, Louisa Collett was still living with her parents at Belper, where she was described as a widow of 37 years of age who was working as a dairy housekeeper on her father’s farm. That same day her son was a patient at Westminster Hospital in London, at the age of 12 years. He was, however, reunited with his mother at Belper, upon being discharged from hospital.

Nine years later, following the death if her son in London towards the end of 1919, Louisa Collett, nee Harrison, married James Longden, the event recorded at Belper (Ref. 7b 2031) during the third quarter of 1920.

46Q17

Herbert Philip Collett

Born in 1898 at Belper

46P16

Edgar William Collett was born at Wimborne Minster in 1878 where he was living with his family a few years later. His birth was registered at Wimborne (Ref. 5a 285) during the second quarter of that year. The 1881 Census confirmed the address as Leigh Road in Wimborne Minster and that Edgar was three years old. Tragically, his mother died when Edgar was four years old and at the age of six, his father remarried. He was still living there ten years later when he was 13. Edgar followed his older brother into their father’s family delivery business, so by 1901, when he was 23, his occupation at Wimborne was that of a motorcar driver like his married brother Sidney (above).

It was during the second quarter on 1901 that the marriage of Edgar William Collett and Mable Apps was recorded at Wimborne register office (Ref. 5a 549). Edgar’s father died in 1909, at which point, Edgar and Sidney took over the motorcar business. The two brothers and their sister Louisa (below) then left Wimborne and re-established the Collett family business at 88 Exeter Street in Salisbury, where they continued to work in the motor trade.

The marriage of Edgar and Mabel produced a daughter for the couple, who was born after they had made the move to Salisbury. All of which was confirmed by the census of 1911, which listed the family living at Exeter Street in Salisbury as Edgar William Collett aged 33 and from Wimborne who was a motor agent and engineer, his wife Mabel Collett was 35 and from Swanmore in Hampshire, and their daughter Evelyn Collett who was six years old and born at Salisbury. Her birth was recorded at Salisbury (Ref. 5a 164) during the third quarter of 1904 and she later married Reginald F Jenkins at Salisbury (Ref. 5a 529) at the end of 1938.

Edgar and Mabel were residing at 6 Burford Avenue in Salisbury during the Second World War although, with Edgar in his sixties, it was at the Glenfulen Nursing Home that he was a patient when he died on 18^th November 1941. His death was recorded at Wiltshire register office (Ref. 5a 300) at the age of 63. The Will of Edgar William Collett was proved at Winchester on 5^th January 1942 when his widow Mabel Collett was named as the sole executor of his estate of £4,716 17 Shillings and 4 Pence.

46Q18

Evelyn Collett

Born in 1904 at Salisbury

46P17

Edith Louisa Collett was born at Wimborne in July 1880 and was nine months old at the time of the census the following year. Her birth was registered at Wimborne (Ref. 5a 278) during the third quarter of 1880. It seems very likely that she was born at Leigh Road in Wimborne Minster where the family was living in April 1881 and again in 1891 when she was 10 years old. After leaving school, Edith left Wimborne having secured employment as a draper’s assistant at Cirencester in Gloucestershire. It was at Dyer Street, Cirencester, in 1901 that 20-year-old Edith L Colett from Wimborne was described as a draper’s assistant, one of ten servants living at that address.

When her father passed away in March 1909, spinster Edith Louisa Collett was named in his Will, which was proved at Blandford St Mary on 13^th May 1909. Two years later she was a visitor at the Exeter home of Fred Kenyon Pook, a Woollen Merchants secretary, and his wife Mary and their two sons. That day Edith Louisa Collett from Wimborne was 30 and a baker’s assistant. Edith never married and was living in Devon when she died in 1951 at the age of 71.

46P18

Louisa Collett was born at Leigh Road in Wimborne Minster in the summer of 1882, the last child of Philip Collet and Louisa Little. Her birth was register at Wimborne (Ref. 5a 272) during the third quarter of the year. Sadly, her birth was the cause of the tragic death of her mother, after whom she was named. In 1891 she was eight years old and was still living with her family at Wimborne, by which time her father had married for a second time. By 1901 Louisa was 18 and was still living with her father and stepmother at The Square in Wimborne where her brothers, married Sidney, and bachelor Edgar, were working with their father in the family motor business.

Eight years later her father died, when the two brothers took over the business, which they moved from Wimborne to 88 Exeter Street in Salisbury, where they were established in 1911. However, Louisa and her stepmother remained living at Wimborne Minster, where they were recorded together in the census of 1911. With Emma Collett, a widow at 68, living on her own means, having benefited from her late husbands Will, spinster Louisa received nothing from her father’s estate, and that year was working as a railway delivery agent’s clerk at the age of 28.

When Emma died, unmarried Louisa Collett moved west along the south coast into Devon where she died. The death of Louisa Collett was recorded at Devon register office (Ref. 7a 445) during the first quarter of 1948, prior to which she was buried in the churchyard of the Church of St Margaret & St Andrew in Littleham near Exmouth at the end of 1947, when she was 65.

46P19

Albert Spencer Collett was born at South Stoneham near Southampton in 1876, his birth recorded at South Stoneham (Ref. 2c 67) during the third quarter of that year. He was baptised at Christ Church in Shirley within the Freemantle district of Southampton on 8^th October 1876, the eldest child of Spencer Collett and Alice Gubbins. On the day of the census in 1881, Albert S Collett was four years of age, when he and his family were living at 5 Osborne Road Hill in Millbrook, Southampton. On leaving school, he joined the General Post Office as a telegraph messenger when, at the aged of 14, he was still living with his family at Blechynden Terrace in central Southampton in 1891.

No record of Albert has been identified within the census of 1901, while it was three years later that the marriage of Albert Spencer Collett and Clara Jane Dixon was recorded at the Lancashire Lancaster register office (Ref. 8e 1497) during the third quarter of 1904. Clara was a Lancashire lassie, the daughter of William and Anne Dixon, who was baptised at Broughton-in-Furnace on 2^nd March 1878. Once again, no trace of Albert, or his wife Jane, have been found in the census of 1911, while it was on 11^th May 1925 that Albert Spencer Collett arrived at Southampton Docks on the Arundel Castle, of the Union Castle Mail Steamship Company, which had sailed from Durban in South Africa. It is not clear whether, or not, his wife accompanied him on the voyage, while his later death was recorded in South Africa.

Albert Spencer Collett died on 27^th July 1938 at Port Elizabeth in Cape Province when he was 62 years old and confirmed as born at Southampton in England. The Death Notice recorded the following information: his deceased parents were Spencer and Alice Collett; his occupation was a retired divisional superintendent of railways; his home address was “Clovelly” 15 Park Road in Port Elizabeth; his surviving wife was Clara Jane Collett, born Dixon, to whom he was married at Morecombe in Lancashire on 20^th July 1904. When Clara signed the form on 6^th August 1938, she confirmed she was with her husband when he died, that he made a Will, and that the couple never had any children.

46P20

Auten William Collett was born at Freemantle, Southampton, on 23^rd July 1877 and was baptised at Christ Church in the Freemantle on 25^th November 1877, the second son of Spencer and Alice Collett. His birth was recorded at South Stoneham (Ref. 2c 69) during the third quarter of that year. In 1881 he was living with his parents at 5 Osborn Road Hill in the Millbrook district of Southampton, where Auten William Collett was three years old. Over the following years the family left Millbrook when they moved from Millbrook to Blechynden Terrace in Southampton, where Auten W Collett was 13 and still at school in 1891. By 1901 the family was residing in the Shirley area of Southampton, from where Auten W Collett was 23 and a barman, most likely working alongside his father who was a licenced victualler. By that time, Auten’s mother had died and his father had remarried.

It was just twelve months after that when Autin (Auten) William Collett married Rose Eldridge, their wedding recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 2c 28) during the second quarter of 1902. Rose had been born on 9^th October 1878 and she gave birth to three children, two of them born prior to the next census and one afterwards. The census of Southampton in 1911 recorded the family living within the Parish of Shirley as Auten (Autin) Collett from Freemantle, Southampton, who was 33 and a shipping clerk and his wife Rose Collett, from Marchwood in Hampshire, who was 31. Their daughter Winifred Collett was eight years old and their son Donald Collett was two years of age.

In 1915, Auten William Collett was 39 when he enlisted with the Royal Engineers, service number 175999. His military record confirmed that he was residing at 7 Handel Terrace in the Polygon area of Southampton and had been married at St Lukes Church in Southampton on 30^th April 1902. At the time in his life his family was recorded as wife Rose and their three children, Winifred Alice Caroline Collett who was 12, Donald Stewart Collett who was seven and John Spencer Collett who was two.

Auten survived the First World War, while it was just after the Second World War that the death of Autin W Collett was recorded at the Hampshire New Forest register office (Ref. 6b 299) during the second quarter of 1947, when he was 69. Later that year, on 21^st June 1947, his Will was proved in Hampshire, with the beneficiaries named as Rose Collett and Donald Stewart Collett. In the 1939 Register Autin W Collett was working as a freight and customs shipping clerk, was married to Rose, who had their son John still living with them.

46Q19

Winifred Alice C Collett

Born in 1903 at Southampton

46Q20

Donald Stewart Collett

Born in 1908 at Freemantle

46Q21

John Spencer Collett

Born in 1913 at Southampton

46P21

Ernest Wilfred Collett was born at Southampton in 1879 and probably at the family home at 5 Osborn Road Hill in the Millbrook, where he was one year old in 1881. He was baptised at Freemantle on 22^nd June 1879, another son of Spencer and Alice Collett, and his birth was recorded at South Stoneham (Ref. 2c 64a) during the second quarter of that year. As Ernest W Collett he was 11 in 1891, by which time he and his family were residing at Blechynden Terrace in Shirley. At the age of 21 he had left the family home in Shirley and was a boarder at Radcliffe Road in the St Mary parish of Southampton from where he was employed by the London South Western Railway Company as a ticket collector. Two years after that, the marriage of Ernest Wilfred Collett and Alice Marguerite Hobbs was recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 2c 4) during the second quarter of 1903. Alice was born in Southampton in 1880 but, on being married, she and Ernest settled in Eastleigh, to the north of Southampton, where their children were born.

It was very likely Ernest’s work on the railway that resulted in the move to Eastleigh, where the family was still living in 1911 and where Ernest Wilfred Collett from Southampton was a railway signalman aged 31. His wife Alice Marguerite Collett was 30 and their four daughters were Elsie Marguerite Collett who was five, Violet Hilda Collett who was four, Lily Alberta Collett who was three and Ivy Amy Collett who was one year old.

Two more daughters were added to the family, with the birth of the first five girls recorded at South Stoneham register office, as follows. Elsie Marguerite Collett (Ref. 2c 65) during the second quarter of 1905, Violet Hilda Collett (Ref. 2c 66) during the fourth quarter of 1906, Lily Alberta Collett (Ref. 2c 67) during the fourth quarter of 1907, Ivy Amy Collett (Ref. 2c 102) during the fourth quarter of 1909 and Daisy E Collett (Ref. 2c 202) during the first quarter of 1913, when her mother’s maiden-name confirmed as Hobbs. The birth of the couple’s last child was recorded at Southampton (Ref. 2c 95) during the second quarter of 1919 when, once again, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Hobbs. It appears Ernest lived all his life in Hampshire, since it was at Southampton register office that his death was recorded (Ref. 6b 628) during the first quarter of 1960, when he was 80 years old.

Another Collett family with a link to South Stoneham was that of Bert Collett whose widow Gwendoline died there on 26^th April 2002. For completeness, and the chance to discover who there were, their brief details re provided in Appendix Three.

46Q22

Elsie Marguerite Collett

Born in 1905 at Eastleigh, Hampshire

46Q23

Violet Hilda Collett

Born in 1906 at Eastleigh, Hampshire

46Q24

Lily Alberta Collett

Born in 1907 at Eastleigh, Hampshire

46Q25

Ivy Amy Collett

Born in 1909 at Eastleigh, Hampshire

46Q26

Daisy E Collett

Born in 1913 at Eastleigh, Hampshire

46Q27

Iris M B Collett

Born in 1919 at Southampton

46P22

George Robert Collett was born at Shirley in 1881, his birth recorded at South Stoneham (Ref. 2c 71) during the last three months of that year. He was nine years old in the Shirley census of 1891, when George R Collett was living at Blechynden Terrace with his family. He was still living with his family at Shirley in 1901 when, at the age of 19, he was working as a picture frame maker. Four years later, the marriage of George Robert Collett and Alice Frances L Drew was recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 2c 47) during the second quarter of 1905. The marriage appears to have resulted in the birth of two daughters, although the first of them did not survive. It was in the All-Saints’ district of Southampton that the family was recorded in the census of 1911, when George R Collett was 29 and working as a picture frame maker alongside his brother Arthur (below), his wife Alice Frances Leah Collett was 30 and from Southampton and first daughter Kathleen Mary Leah Collett was just ten months old.

The birth of Rose Eileen Collett was recorded at Southampton (Ref. 2c 3) during the third quarter of 1908, with her death also recorded there (Ref. 2c 4) during the same quarter of 1908. Two years after that sad event, Alice gave birth to their second child, with the birth of Kathleen M L Collett being recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 2c 51) during the third quarter of 1910. At the end of his life, George was residing in Winchester, where the death of George R Collett was recorded (Ref. 2c 192) during the last months of 1937, when he was 56 years of age. Nine years prior to his passing, George Robert Collett was one of the two beneficiaries under the term of his father’s Will.

46Q28

Rose Eileen Collett

Born in 1908 at Southampton; died 1908

46Q29

Kathleen Mary Leah Collett

Born in 1910 at Southampton

46P23

Arthur Sydney Gubbins Collett was born at Shirley on 19^th November 1883, his third forename being his mother’s maiden-name. His birth was recorded at South Stoneham (Ref. 2c 82) during last three months of that year. It was as Arthur S G Collett, aged seven years, that he was living with his family at Blechynden Terrace in 1891. He was still living there in 1901, by which time, he was 17 and still living at the family home from where he was working with his older brother Ernest (above) as an apprentice frame maker. Six years later the marriage of Arthur Sydney G Collett and Florence Mary Ransom was recorded at South Stoneham register office (Ref. 2c 110) during the second quarter of 1907. Mary, as she was known, was born at South Stoneham on 27^th January 1883, the daughter of John and Elizabeth Ransom. One year after they were married Mary presented Arthur with a son, who appears to have been their only child. By 1911 the couple was still residing in the Shirley of Southampton, when Arthur Collett was 27 and a picture frame maker, like his older brother (above), with whom he was most likely working. His wife Mary Collett was 28 and from Southampton, as was their son George Collett, who was two years of age.

Around the start of the Second World War the couple was living at 12 Blechynden Terrace in Southampton, from where Arthur was a licenced victualler at The Railway Tavern and Florence was an unpaid domestic servant. Tragically, during the war, Arthur and Florence were both inside the Railway Tavern in Blechynden Terrace when it was razed to the ground during a bombing raid, resulting in the death of the couple. That happened on 22^nd June 1941 when Arthur was 57 and Florence was 58, following which they were buried at Southampton County Borough Cemetery. The death of Arthur S G Collett was recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 2c 70) during the second quarter of 1941, when Arthur’s father was confirmed as Spencer Collett.

Florence Mary Collett nee Ransom’s Will was passed through the probate office at Southampton on 24^th October 1941, when the two beneficiaries were named as Arthur Sydney Gubbins Collett and Bertie Harold Ransom. Four days later, at Llandudno, administration of the personal effects of Arthur Sydney Gubbins Collett was processed in favour of his son George Henry Spencer Collett, the value being £2,619 19 Shillings and 6 Pence.

46Q30

George Henry Spencer Collett

Born in 1908 at Southampton

46P24

Alice Elsie Collett was born in 1885 at Shirley, her birth recorded at South Stoneham (Ref. 2c 71) during the last quarter of 1885. It was at Blechynden Terrace in Southampton where the family was living in 1891, when Alice E Collett was five years old. Following the death of her mother, her widowed father returned with his family to Shirley where, in 1901, Alice was recorded in error as Elsie A Collett aged 15 in the census that year. Having left the family home, Alice Elsie Collett from Southampton was living and working in Bristol in 1911, where she was unmarried, aged 25, and employed as a draper’s assistant. That appears to have been a temporary arrangement since, two years later, the married of Alice E Collett and John D Storrie was recorded at Southampton (Ref. 2c 75) during second quarter of 1913.

46P25

Harold Philip Collett was born at Shirley on 26^th October 1889 and was one year old in 1891 when he was living at Blechynden Terrace, where he may have been born. His birth was recorded at Southampton (Ref. 2c 31) during the fourth quarter of 1889. Towards the end of the following decade his mother died and it was with his widowed father that he was living in Shirley in 1901, when Harold was eleven years old. His father remarried just after that census day and, after a further ten years, he was living in lodgings within the All-Saints’ parish of Southampton. By then he was simply named as Harold Collett from Southampton who 22 years old.

Just over three years later, Harold entered the first of his two marriages, with the marriage of Harold P Collett and (1) Nellie A Martin recorded at Southampton (Ref. 2c 60) during the third quarter of 1914. Nellie was born on 24^th November 1889. They were married for forty years, when the death of Nellie A Collett was recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 6b 545) during the last three months of 1954, when she was 65. Around eighteen months after being widowed, the marriage of Harold P Collett and Ada J Anderson was recorded at Southampton (Ref. 6b 1058) during the second quarter of 1956. In the end, it was also at Southampton register office that the death of Harold P Collett was recorded (Ref. 6b 711) during the fourth quarter of 1963, when he was 74.

According to the 1939 Register, Harold P Collett was a wine, spirits and beer retailer living at 141 St Marys Street with his wife Nellie A Collett, an unpaid domestic servant. Following the death of Harold Philip Collett at Southampton on 21^st December 1963, probate was proved at Winchester on 16^th January 1964.

46P26

Hilda Winifred Collett was born at Milford Place in Southampton in 1897, the last child of Spencer Collett and his first wife Alice Gubbins. Her birth was recorded at Southampton (Ref. 2c 38) during the first three months of 1897. In 1901 Hilda W Collett was four years of age and in 1911 as Hilda Winifred Collett she was 14 when she was living with her family in Southampton, where she was already employed as a draper’s apprentice.

46P27

Reginald Frank Collett was born at Millbrook in Southampton in 1903, the first of the two children of Spencer Collett and his second and much younger wife Amy Thomas, whose birth was recorded at South Stoneham (Ref. 2c 106) during the second quarter of 1903. Under his full name he was seven years old in the Southampton census of 1911. Nineteen years later the marriage of Reginald F Collett and Margery Judd was recorded at Southampton (Ref. 2c 83) during the third quarter of 1930. Their two children were born at Southampton during the next five years. Just after the Second World War, the death of Reginald F Collett, aged 43, was recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 6b 462) during the third quarter of 1946.

46Q31

Pauline M Collett

Born in 1933 at Southampton

46Q32

David Spencer Collett

Born in 1935 at Southampton

46P28

Amy Isabel Collett was born at Southampton in 1906, the last child of Spencer and Amy Collett. She was four years of age in the Southampton census of 1911.

46P29

Albert Edward Collett was born at Lambeth in 1878, where is birth was recorded (Ref. 1d 349) during the first couple of months of that year. He was baptised at the Church of St Andrew in Lambeth on 3^rd March 1878, the eldest child of Auten Collett and Elizabeth Maria Allsop who were married there nine months earlier. In 1881, when he was three years of age, and again in 1891, when he was 13, Albert was living with his family at 14 Hinton Road in Brixton. His father established a fruiterer’s and greengrocer’s business which Albert took over around the end of the century, when the family was living in Tunbridge Wells. That happened around that same time that Albert Edward Collett married Clara Mary Dartnell, their wedding recorded at Tunbridge Wells (Ref. 2a 1485) during the fourth quarter of 1900. A few months later, the couple was living at Camden Road in Tunbridge Wells, not far from Albert’s parents, his father then working as a licenced victualler.

On that census day in 1901 Albert Collett from London was 23 and his occupation was confirmed as a fruiterer, while his London born wife was 21 years of age and named as Edith. She was already expecting the birth of their only child, the birth of Albert Walter Collett being recorded at Tunbridge Wells register office (Ref. 2a 806) during the third quarter of 1901. Tragically, one year later, the death of Albert E Collett was recorded at Tunbridge Wells (Ref. 2a 400) during the third quarter of 1902, when he was only 24 years of age. No further record of mother and son has been found after that time, possibly because Albert’s widow remarried and her son took up her new husband’s surname.

46Q33

Albert Walter Collett

Born in 1901 at Tunbridge Wells

46P30

Arthur Ernest Collett was born at 14 Hinton Road in Brixton in 1883, his birth recorded at Lambeth (Ref. 1d 502) during the third quarter of that year, and it was at that address he was living with his family in 1891 when he was seven years of age. By 1901 he and his family were living at Upper Grosvenor Road in Tunbridge Wells, from where Arthur E Collett from Brixton was working as a carpenter at the age of 17. It was about two years later that he married Catherine with whom he had two children during the following four years, when they were still living in Tunbridge Wells. It has not been determined if the family was added to after 1911 but, by April 1911, the family of four was living at Hornsey, not far from where Arthur was born. Arthur E Collett from Brixton was 27 and an assistant working in an off-licence, Catherine Collett from Brighton was 28, their daughter Ivy Collett was six, and their son Arthur Collett was four years old.

Arthur was thirty when war was declared, at which time he joined the Queen’s Royal West Kent regiment where he was Private Collett 25936. Sadly, Arthur Ernest Collett died on 4^th October 1918, possibly from the injuries he sustained during the Great War. At the time of his death his wife Catherine Lilian Collett was living at 97 Sydney Road in Hornsey. She was named as his next-of-kin in his military records, where he was also described as the son of A & E Collett of 41 High Road in Wood Green in London, they being Auten and Elizabeth.

The birth of Ivy Catherine Collett was recorded at Tonbridge register office (Ref. 2a 857) during the first three months of 1905, while the birth of Arthur Collett was also recorded there (Ref. 2a 863) during the third quarter of the following year. Arthur Claude Collett served with the military sometime between 1921 and 1941. The marriage of Ivy Catherine Collett and Leslie L Luxford was recorded at Edmonton register office (Ref. 3a 2136) during the third quarter of 1929.

46Q34

Ivy Catherine Collett

Born in 1905 at Tunbridge Wells

46Q35

Arthur Claude Collett

Born in 1906 at Tunbridge Wells

46P31

Mary Maude Collett was born at 14 Hinton Road at Brixton in 1885, the eldest daughter and third child of Auten and Elizabeth Collett. That was how her named was recorded at Lambeth (Ref. 1d 534) during the first quarter of 1885, whereas in some census returns her two forenames were reversed. She and her family were still living at 14 Hinton Road in 1891, when Mary M Collett was five years old, while ten years later Maude Mary Collett was the family has settled in Upper Grosvenor Road in Tunbridge Wells. At sixteen years of age, Maude M Collett from Brixton, had no stated occupation.

46P32

Winifred Collett was born at 14 Hinton Road at Brixton, possibly at the end of 1889 or early in 1890, another daughter of Auten and Elizabeth Collett. Her birth was recorded at Lambeth (Ref. 1d 545) during the first three months of 1890. She was one year old in the Brixton census of 1891, when the family was still residing at 14 Hinton Road. However, during the following years the family temporarily moved to Reading before settling in Tunbridge Wells where in 1901 the family was recorded at Upper Grosvenor Road in the town, when Winifred Collett from Brixton was 11.

46P33

Harry Austin Collett was born at Brixton in 1894, possibly at 14 Hinton Road where his family had been living in 1881 and 1891. His birth was recorded at Lambeth (Ref. 1d 491) during the second quarter of 1894, the youngest son of Auten and Elizabeth Collett. At the age of six years, Harry A Collett from Brixton was living with his family at Upper Grosvenor Road in Tunbridge Wells, after the family had moved there from Reading where his younger sister was born. By the time of the next census in 1911, he was listed as Harry Austin Collett, aged 18, who was a boarder living and working at Wandsworth within the London Borough of Balham. On that occasion, in error, he gave his place of birth as Reading, where his youngest sibling (below) had been born.

Just over three years later, the marriage of Harry A Collett and Rachel Hindes was recorded at Barnet register office (Ref. 3a 952) during the third quarter of 1914. Although no issue has been found, the marriage seems to have last thirty-five years, when Harry Collett died at Edmonton within the London Borough of Enfield on 1^st March 1949, following which his body was buried at the Edmonton Federation of Synagogues Cemetery.

46P34

Florence Beatrice Collett was born at Reading in 1896, where her birth was recorded (Ref. 2c 353) during the second quarter of the year. Not long after she was born, her family settled in Tunbridge Wells, where Florence B Collett was four years old in 1901, at Upper Grosvenor Road. Another family move took place during the first decade of the new century, which resulted in Florence and her parents only, living at Wood Green, between Muswell Hill and Tottenham in 1911, when Florence Beatrice Collett from Reading was 15 with no occupation. She may have been helping her parents with the off-licence they ran.

46P35

Eleanor Mary Collett, who was later known as Nell, was born at Hampton Hill in 1872, the eldest child of Thomas Collett and Frances Isabella Muckle. Her birth was registered at Kingston-upon-Thames (Ref. 2a 295) during the third quarter of that year. According to the census in 1881, Eleanor Mary Collett was living with her parents at 9 Wolsey Road, Hampton Hill, in Hampton, just west of Bushey Park Teddington, when she was eight years old. Upon leaving school, and up until she was married, Eleanor was employed as a servant at Hampton Court, where she lived with her Granny Muckle at her ‘grace and favour’ apartment in 1891. Just less than five years after that census day, the marriage of Eleanor Mary Collett and Arthur George Pipe, from Suffolk, was recorded at West Ham register office (Ref. 4a 683) during the first three months of 1895. He was known as George and was born at Great Glemham during the summer of 1872, and five years after their wedding day the young couple was residing in Bermondsey when their daughter and only known child was born.

Arthur George Pipe was the son of a police inspector and was born at Wesselton in Suffolk. He trained as a schoolmaster, but then moved to work at Butler’s Wharf, near the Tower of London, where he was chief clerk. After he retired, he supplemented his pension by preparing financial accounts for various local doctors and by venturing. The census in 1901 identified Eleanor M Pipe from Hampton Hill aged 28, with her five-month-old daughter Ivy E Pipe as visitors at Ashley Place within the City of London, where Eleanor’s elderly maternal grandmother Elizabeth Muckle was still employed in domestic service. Another visitor that same day, was Eleanor’s widowed mother Frances I Collett, nee Muckle. Baby Ivy had been born at Bermondsey on 6^th November 1900, while Eleanor’s husband, on that census day, was a wharf clerk living and working in Bermondsey, where he was recorded as Arthur G Pipe, aged 28, from Suffolk.

Ten years later the family was living in East Dulwich, within the borough of Camberwell in London, where Arthur George Pipe from Great Glemham in Suffolk was 38 and a wharfinger’s ledger clerk [a wharfinger is a wharf owner/manager], and his wife of fifteen years was Eleanor Mary Pipe who was also 38. Their daughter Ivy Evelyn Pipe was 11 and attending school, who had been born at Bermondsey. Living with the family at that time in her life was Arthur’s mother-in-law Frances Isabella Colett, nee Muckle, who was 59 and a widow. Ivy Evelyn Pipe later married Jim Whiteway and they had two children, Daphne, and Dick. Daphne Whiteway died soon after the Second World War from tuberculosis of the stomach, while Dick and his wife Barbara were still living in East Dulwich up to 23^rd June 2011, when Dick passed away at the age of 82.

In 1955 the death of Eleanor Mary Pipe, nee Collett, was recorded at Camberwell register office (Ref. 5c 150) during the third quarter of the year, when she was 82 years old. She was then buried at Camberwell New Cemetery and Crematorium on 13^th August 1955. Seven years earlier, Arthur George Pipe died at Camberwell on 8^th June 1948, aged 75, following which his Will was proved on 13^th January 1949 at Canterbury in the Diocese of London in favour of his widow.

46P36

Elizabeth Frances Collett was born at Hampton Hill on 4^th October 1874. She was another daughter of Thomas and Frances Collett, whose birth was registered at Kingston-upon-Thames (Ref. 2a 301) during the last three months of the year. She was six years old in the census of 1881 when she was living with her family at 9 Wolsey Road in Hampton Hill. Upon leaving school, Elizabeth entered domestic service, and by the time of the next census in 1891, she was described as Elizabeth Frances Collett, aged 16, who had left the family home to be living and working at Godalming in Surrey. By the time of the March census of 1901, she was recorded as Elizabeth F Collett, aged 26 and from Hampton and unmarried, who was still living and working in Godalming at Hindhead Road, where she was employed as a domestic housemaid.

It was while she was at Godalming that she met William Henry Colpus, the son of George and Elizabeth Colpus of Manor Road in Godalming, who had been born at Farncombe in Surrey in 1874. Just over four years later, the marriage of Elizabeth Frances Collett and William Henry Colpus was recorded at the Middlesex Staines register office (Ref. 3a 12) during the last three months of 1905.

Their marriage produced no issue for the couple who were residing at Godalming in 1911, where William Henry Colpus from Farncombe was 37 and a leather finisher employed at a leather factory. His wife Elizabeth Frances Colpus from Hampton was 36, to whom he had been married for five years. It is reported by the family that William suffered shell-shock in the First World War, became a semi-invalid, and later died at Brookwood before the start of the Second World War – see details below.

Following the death of her husband, Bess, as she was more commonly known, let out her big front room to railway workers for some time. Her house at Farncombe in Surrey, also provided a country refuge and holiday base for various younger members of the family, whilst Dick and Daphne Whiteway, the children of Ivy Evelyn Pipe and Jim Whiteway, were evacuated there in the early part of the war. In addition to all of this, it was from that same house in Farncombe that Bess’ niece Isabel Doris Collett, the eldest daughter of Bess’ younger brother Andrew Ralph Collett (below) was married on 14^th December1940. Later in her life, Bess Colpus moved to 107 Crystal Palace Road, East Dulwich to live with her sister Nell Pipe, nee Collett, and her husband Arthur Pipe, and outlived them both.

Elizabeth Frances Collett died on 29^th April 1960 and was buried at Eashing Cemetery in Godalming at the age of 85. Her passing was recorded at London register office (Ref. 5c 173), while the last twenty-three years of her life she was a widow. William Henry Colpus died on 30^th October 1937 and was buried at Eashing Cemetery. He was born at Godalming on 14^th February 1884His death was recorded at Surrey register office (Ref. 2a 428).

46P37

William Thomas Collett was born at Hampton Hill, maybe at the end of 1875 or early in 1876, since his birth was registered at Kingston-upon-Thames (Ref. 2a 336) during the first quarter of the latter. He was five years old in 1881 when he was living at 9 Wolsey Road in Hampton with his family. Sometime towards the end of the 1880s William’s parents left the Teddington area when they moved to nearby Hanworth, where they were living in 1891 when William was 15. The census confirmed he had been born at Hampton and that, by then, he was working as a florist’s assistant, while living in the Hounslow Road, next to the Jolly Sailor Inn.

Once into his twenties, William continued his occupation as a florist when he was still living at the family home at Hounslow Road in Hanworth, the home of his widowed mother who, on the day of the census in 1901, was in the City of London visiting her mother Elizabeth Muckle. William from Hampton Hill was a temporary head of the family that day and a bachelor at 25, whose unmarried sister Isabel Collett (below) from Hampton Hill was 23 and a domestic servant. Boarding with the siblings was florist Albert Farmer from Kent who was 27, and his younger brother Aubrey Farmer aged eleven, a trainee florist. It was during the summer of the following year when the marriage of William Thomas Collett and Amelia Louisa Faulkner was recorded at Holborn register office (Ref. 1b 1409) during the third quarter of 1902. She was born at Marylebone during 1882, the daughter of Thomas and Amelia Faulkner of St Pancras. Although no record of the couple has been positively identified within the census of 1911, it is established that William eventually returned to Hanworth, since it was there that he bought land and set up his own market garden. That location was also confirmed within his military records, below.

William Thomas Collett of Hanworth in Middlesex served with the 10^th Battalion of East Surrey Regiment in 1916, service number 23092, when he was 39 and born at Hampton in Middlesex. Four years after that, he was 44 in 1920 when he was with 737^th Armourers Crew Company of the Labour Corps, service number 375606. The death of William T Collett was recorded at the Middlesex South register office (Ref. 5f 68) during the second quarter of 1950, when he was 74. Upon his death, the land at Hanworth was inherited by his children, and it was his two daughters who each had a house built on their plot, where they both continued to live next door to each other, right up to 2010.

46Q36

Maisie Collett

Born in 1911 at Hanworth, Staines

46Q37

Bert Collett

Date of birth unknown

46Q38

Mabel J Collett

Born in 1926 at Hanworth, Staines

46P38

Frances Jane Collett was born at Hampton Hill and that may have been late in 1876 in early in 1877, with her birth registered at Kingston-upon-Thames (Ref. 2a 341) during the first three months of 1877. She was four years old in the Hampton census of 1881, but by 1891, she and her family were living at Hounslow Road in Hanworth. Frances J Collett from Hampton was 14 and had left school but was not credited with an occupation. Frances was still unmarried by March 1901 when she was aged 24 and was living in nearby Feltham where she was working as a servant. Her place of birth was listed as Hampton Hill. By the end of 1901 she was a married woman.

The marriage of Frances Jane Collett and Daniel Wild was recorded at Staines register office (Ref. 3a 13) during the last three months of that year. Daniel was a charcoal burner from the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. He and Frances had three children prior to the census in 1911, by which time the family was living at Hanworth. On that occasion the Wild family was recorded as Daniel who was 30, Frances Jane who was 34, and their three children Thomas George Wild who was eight, Eleanor Elizabeth Wild who was six, and Wilfred Victor Wild who was two years old.

One of the later recollections of Edith Collett, the daughter of Andrew Ralph Collett (below), was that she only knew of three Wild cousins, and they were Bessie, Wilfred, and Bertha who was born around 1913. For about four months during 1923, and around the time when she was four years old, Edith Collett was staying with Granny Collett (Frances Isabella Collett nee Muckle) at The Rectory in Hanworth, where she was helping to look after two visiting missionaries. Edith recalls during that same time, that she was taken for walks by her older cousin Bertha who would have been about 15 years old and living nearby in the Feltham area.

46P39

Isabella Muckle Collett was born at Hampton Hill in 1878 with her birth registered at Kingston-upon-Thames (Ref. 2a 335) during the first three months of 1877and was three years old in 1881 when living with her family at 9 Wolsey Road in Hampton. By 1891 the family was living at Hounslow Road in Hanworth when Isabella M Collett, aged 13 from Hampton, was still attending the local school. Ten years later, the census in 1901 placed her as Isabel Collett, aged 23, still living at the family home on Hounslow Road, Hanworth where she was working as a domestic housemaid. The only member of her family listed with her that day was her brother William (above), both born at Hampton Hill, on a day when their mother, as head of the household, was visiting their grandmother Elizabeth Muckle in London. Eight years later, Isabella became an invalid after an accident on a flight of stairs, following which the death of Isabella Muckle Collett was recorded at Staines register office (Ref. 3a 3) during the fourth quarter of 1909 at the age of 31.

46P40

Andrew Ralph Collett was born at 9 Wolsey Road, Hampton Hill, on 31^st August 1880 whose birth was registered at Kingston-upon-Thames (Ref. 2a 328) during the last three months of that year. He was seven months old on 3^rd April 1881, the day of the national census, when he and his family were living at 9 Wolsey Road in Hampton. Some years later his family moved the short distance to Hanworth where, in 1891, he was 10 years old and attending school, while living there at Hounslow Road with his family.

By the time of the next census in 1901, Andrew Ralph Collett was in South Africa as part of the British Territorial Army fighting in the Boer War. Andrew was under age when he enlisted but managed to convince the army that he was a few years older. He was with the 20^th Battalion of the Imperial Yeomanry City of London Yeomanry, which was more commonly referred to as ‘Rough Riders’, a name adopted from the United States cavalry regiment that fought in the Spanish-American War. The 20^th Battalion was disbanded in 1901 and was replaced by the 22^nd Battalion of the City of London Imperial Yeomanry (Rough Riders). On his return to England, Andrew married (1) Edith Austin, a widow who already had a daughter, Irene Edith Austin, from her first marriage. Their wedding was recorded at Camberwell register office (Ref. 1d 1459) during the final quarter of 1908. He also took up work in London as a horse bus driver with Thomas Kellings, before switching to trams as a conductor, when Kellings changed to petrol buses. Photograph courtesy of Janet Wood

Edith Austin had been born at Bushey in Hertfordshire as Edith Narroway, the daughter of William Narroway and his wife Ellen. William was a City of London Missioner working amongst the poor of the city. By the time of the census in March 1901 Edith was married and was recorded living in the Camberwell area as Edith Austin, aged 21.

Ten years later the couple had their first two children living with them when the family at that time was living at East Dulwich in the Camberwell area of London, where Andrew Ralph Collett from Hampton was 30. His wife Edith Collett from Bushey was 31, and their two children were Thomas Ralph Austin Collett who was two years old, and Isabel Doris Collett who was only seven months old. Also living with the family was Edith’s six-year-old daughter Irene Edith Austin.

Three more children were added to the family during the next eight years, the first two being born before Andrew saw action in the Great War with the Royal Artillery, the third being born just nine months after his return from the campaign. Having survived through the war years, the young family was devastated when Edith died on 20^th December 1919 at the time of the birth of the couple’s last child. Her death was recorded at Camberwell register office (Ref. 1d 815) when she was 40 years old, after which she was buried at Camberwell Old Cemetery.

Edith’s daughter from her first marriage, who was known as Rene, had taken the name Irene Edith Austin Collett, although it was to her maternal grandparents that she went to live following the death of her mother. At that time, she was around 15 years of age. However, her departure from the family home at that critical time apparently caused a split in the family.

The children of Andrew Ralph and Edith Austin did occasionally visit their maternal grandparents after that time, and a few years later Andrew’s eldest daughter Isabel Doris Collett was a bridesmaid at the wedding of her half-sister Rene Austin Collett and even attended her funeral shortly after she had given birth to a son. The cause of death was tuberculosis, which had already taken her father around 1907. Contact was lost with her husband and his son during the Second World War and, it is feared that they may have both perished in the London Blitz.

It was two years after the death of his wife Edith, that widower Andrew Ralph Collett married (2) Mabel Farmer, their wedding recorded at Camberwell (Ref. 1d 1383) during the second quarter of 1921. Mabel was a war widow who had two daughters from her previous marriage, Dorothy Farmer, and Winifred Farmer. That second marriage for Andrew produced five children, the birth of all of them recorded at Camberwell register office when, in each case, the mother’s maiden-name was recorded as Norwood and not Farmer. Tragically, only one of the children, and that was the last of the five, Joan.

The house in London, in which the Andrew and his family were living at the start of the Second World War, was destroyed during the London Blitz which took place between September 1940 and May 1941. Andrew Ralph Collett died at Dulwich Hospital on 28^th March 1953 aged 72, and was buried at the Camberwell New Cemetery, while his first wife Edith had been buried Camberwell Old Cemetery which was also destroyed by a direct hit during the London Blitz of 1940-1941. The death of Andrew Ralph Collett was recorded at London register office (Ref. 5c 145) in 1953.

46Q39

Irene Edith Austin Collett (formerly Austin)

Born in 1904

46Q40

Thomas Ralph Austin Collett

Born in 1909 at Camberwell

46Q41

Isabel Doris Collett

Born in 1910 at East Dulwich

46Q42

Olive May Collett

Born in 1913 at East Dulwich

46Q43

Mabel Eileen Collett

Born in 1915 at East Dulwich

46Q44

Edith Collett

Born in 1919 at East Dulwich

The children of Andrew Ralph Collett and his second wife Mabel Farmer (Norwood) were as follows:

46Q45

Arthur H A Collett

Born 1922 at Camberwell; died 1928

46Q46

Stanley G B Collett

Born 1923 at Camberwell; died 1923

46Q47

Eric C Collett

Born 1924 at Camberwell; died 1928

46Q48

George F N Collett

Born 1925 at Camberwell; died 1925

46Q49

Joan Kathleen Collett

Born in 1926 at Camberwell

46P41

Arthur Montague Collett was born at Hanworth in November 1890, when his family was living at Hounslow Road in Hanworth, to where his parents had moved from Hampton. His birth was recorded at nearby Staines (Ref. 3a1) early in 1891 and he was the youngest child of Thomas Collett and Frances Isabella Muckle, and was recorded in the Hanworth census of 1891 at five months of age. Tragically, the infant death of Arthur Montague Collett was recorded at Staines register office (Ref. 3a 1) during the first three months of 1891, and his father died four years later.

46P42

Henry Herbert Thomas Collett was born at Newbold-on-Avon in Warwickshire in 1873 and was the only son and eldest of the three children of Henry Collett and his first wife Charlotte Osborne. His birth was registered at Rugby (Ref. 6d 506) during the last three months of the year, and he was baptised at Newbold-on-Avon on 2^nd November 1873 under his full name. In 1881 Henry Herbert was seven years old and with living his parents and his younger sister Anne at Church Terrace in Harbury, Warwickshire. Sadly, his mother died around four years later, following which his father Henry remarried. Upon leaving school Henry left the family home and moved to the Holy Trinity district of Coventry where he was lodging and working in 1891 at the age of 17, when he was recorded as Henry H T Collett .

Within the next decade he left Warwickshire and headed for the industrial north to find work. By the time of the 1901 Census, he was still a bachelor and was working as a stone miner while living at Woolley in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His place of birth was confirmed as Newbold-on-Avon although he gave his age as 24 rather than 27. So far, the whereabouts of Henry Herbert Thomas Collett of Newbold-on-Avon has not been discovered in the census of 1911, although his stepmother Eliza Collett was a widow by then and was living in the Warwickshire village of Knightcote, where members of the Kirtlington line of the Collett family were living. See Part 49 – The Kirtlington to California Line.

46P43

Anne Maud Mary Collett was born at Hillmorton in 1876 when her birth was registered at Rugby (Ref. 6d 568) during the second quarter of the year as simply Maud Mary Collett. However, on being baptised at Hillmorton on 25^th June 1876 she was named as Anne Maud Mary Collett, daughter of Henry and Charlotte Collett. Not long after she was born the family left Hillmorton when they moved to Church Terrace in Harbury and, because of that, later in her life she incorrectly gave Harbury as her place of birth. It was at Church Terrace that the family was recorded in 1881 when Anne Marie M Collett from Hillmorton was four years of age. Her mother died during the summer of 1883 and her father then married for a second time in 1884. It was simply as Maud Collett aged fourteen that she listed with her father and stepmother at Harbury in 1891, and ten years after that she was described as spinster Anne Maud Mary Collett aged 24 and born at Harbury, who was still living at Harbury with her family, when her occupation was that of a domestic servant.

46P44

Eliza Annie Collett was born at Harbury on 13^th September 1889, the only daughter of Henry Collett and his second wife Eliza Howkins. Her birth as Eliza Annie was registered at Southam (Ref. 6d 665) during the second quarter of that year. Her baptism at Harbury Church in 1889, again recorded her as Eliza Annie and confirmed her father was a police constable. And it was at Harbury that she was living with her parents in 1891 at the age of two years. She was still living there with her parents ten years later in March 1901 when Eliza Annie was 12 years old and still attending school in the village. Over the following years Eliza Annie Collett entered the teaching profession, as proved by the census in 1911.

By that time, Eliza Annie Collett from Harbury was 22 and a boarder with the large Tranter family at Baddesley Ensor, three miles west of Atherstone in Warwickshire. On that day she was employed by Warwickshire County Council as a school teacher. Five years later, the marriage of Elizabeth Annie Collett and William Middleton was conducted at Harbury during the month of July in 1916. After the Great War, Eliza gave birth to two sons, whose births were recorded at Atherstone register office, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.

They were Robert William Middleton born early in 1920 (Ref. 6d 1536), and Rex C Middleton who was born towards the end of 1926 (Ref. 6d 919). Their mother was 85 when she died, with the death of Annie Elizabeth Middleton recorded at Warwickshire register office (Vol. 31 0239) in 1974, when her date of birth was incorrectly recorded as 13^th September 1888.

46P45

Frederick William Clark Collett was born at Horton-cum-Studley in 1868 but was baptised at Piddington where his parents had been married during the previous year. He was baptised as Frederick William Clark Collett on 29^th November 1868, the first child born to William Collett, a labourer of Horton and his wife Emma Parker from Piddington. By the time he was two years old he and his parents were living at Fencott which was also named as his place of birth from that time onwards. He was 12 years old in the Fencott census of 1881 when he was still attending school, after which his family moved to Charlton-on-Otmoor. And it was there that, as Fred Collett aged 22, he was still living with his family in 1891.

Two years later, the marriage of Frederick William Collett and Alice Tipping was recorded at Thame register office (Ref. 3a 1231) during the second quarter of 1893. Alice was born at Worminghall in Buckinghamshire on 10^th June 1875 and was the daughter of Thomas and Lucy Tipping, those same names given to their eldest son and only daughter. By the time of the census in 1901, Alice had given birth to two children, when Frederick Collett from Fencott was 32 and a carpenter living in the Oxfordshire village of Glympton, and his wife Alice Collett from Worminghall was 25. On that day their two sons were Thomas Collett who was six and born at Charlton, and Albert Collett who was one year old and born at Glympton. During the next six years a further three children were added to the family while they were still residing in Glympton.

According to the next census in April 1911, the family was still living at Glympton and confirmed the births of the additional children. Head of the household Frederick Collett from Fencott was 42 and described as a carpenter on an estate, which may have been a reference to nearby Blenheim Palace. His wife of seventeen years, Alice Collett from Worminghall was 35, and their children were Thomas W Collett aged 16, Albert Edward Collett aged 11 and at school, Edward G Collett who was eight, Lucy Collett who was six, and George Collett who was three. It is possible, although not proved, that after the death of his father in 1918, Frederick’s widowed mother lived with him and his family at Glympton, and later at Woodstock, where she died in 1937.

The later death of Frederick William Collett was recorded at Oxfordshire register office (Ref. 6b 1134) in 1949. At that time in his life, he was residing in the South Oxfordshire village of Benson, where he was buried in the churchyard of St Helen’s Church at the age of 80. It was also at St Helen’s churchyard where his late wife had been buried in 1930. Curiously, her death was recorded across the River Thames in Berkshire (Ref. 2c 370) when she was 55.

46Q50

Thomas W Collett

Born in 1894 at Charlton-on-Otmoor

46Q51

Albert Edward Collett

Born in 1899 at Glympton

46Q52

Edward Collett

Born in 1902 at Glympton

46Q53

Lucy Collett

Born in 1904 at Glympton

46Q54

George Collett

Born in 1907 at Glympton

46P46

Ellen Rebecca Collett was born at Fencott at the end of 1872 when her birth was registered at Bicester (Ref. 3a 709) during the first quarter of 1873. She was the second of the eight children of William and Emma Collett who was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 23^rd February 1873. She was recorded as Ellen R Collett in the Fencott-with-Murcott census of 1881 when she was eight years old. On leaving school she also left the family home in Charlton-on-Otmoor and by 1891, when she was 19 years of age, Ellen Rebecca Collett was living and working as one of the two female servants at the home of the Hawse family at Launton just east of Bicester. She was still single and a servant ten years later when Ellen Collett from Fencott was 28 and living at Market End in Bicester at the London Road home of elderly widow Mary A Paxton.

It was around the time of the census in 1901, Ellen had an affair which resulted in the birth of a base-born son towards the end of the year, believed to be her only child. By April 1911, Ellen Collett was 38 and still a spinster working in domestic service, but at Headington Quarry an area to the east of the city centre of Oxford, when her son was living with Ellen’s parents at Charlton-on-Otmoor. Her employer that day was 57-year-old Chaloner Kemshead, a lecturer and a tutor at Magdalen College in Oxford, whose wife was Annie Kemshead and, completing the household at The Grey Cottage, was Pierre Gizard, an 18-year-old student from the University of Paris.

Ellen eventually returned to Bicester where in 1920 she became a married lady at the age of 47, when the marriage of Ellen Rebecca Collett and Richard J Palmer was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 2694) during the last three months of the year. Later on, the couple was living in London where the death of Ellen Rebecca Palmer was recorded at London register office (Ref. 5c 41) in 1958 when she was 85.

46Q55

Jack Collett

Born in 1901 at Charlton-on-Otmoor

46P47

Annie Elizabeth Collett was born at Fencott during 1875, another daughter of William and Emma Collett, whose birth was registered at Bicester (Ref. 3a 654) during the second quarter of the year. Annie was then baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 15^th August 1875 and, as Anne E Collett aged five years, she was living with her family at Fencott in 1881. Like her sister Ellen (above), on leaving school she entered domestic service and in 1891, at the age of 15, she was already living and working within the Headington area of Oxford.

Five years after that census day, as Elizabeth Annie Collett, she and Joseph Marriott were married at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 18^th March 1896. On that occasion she was described as spinster aged 21 and of Charlton, the daughter of carpenter William Collett, while bachelor Joseph was recorded as 27 and a mason’s labourer, the son of carter William Marriott. The witnesses were Annie’s sister Ellen Collett, and William Mouring. Their wedding was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 971) during the first quarter of 1896.

By March 1901 their marriage had given the couple four children, all born at Bicester, with a further two being added to their family during the first few years of the next decade. Head of the household Joseph Marriott from Bicester was 27 and a brewer’s drayman who was residing at St John’s Street, Market End in Bicester on that census day. His wife Annie E Marriott from Fencott was 26, when only three of their four children were living with them on that day. They were Joseph William Marriott who was four, Beatrice May Marriott who was two, and Arthur Edwin Marriott who was only a few weeks old. The missing child Ellen Marriott, aged three years, was staying with her grandparents William and Emma Collett at Charlton-on-Otmoor, the reason possibly being that she was a poorly child.

Ten years later the enlarged family was still living at Market End in Bicester, when Joseph was 37 and again working as a brewer’s drayman. Annie Elizabeth was also 37 and had been married to Joseph for fifteen years. Their children that day were Joseph William aged 14 who was a grocer’s errand boy, Beatrice May was 11 and at school, Arthur Edwin was 10 and attending school, Frederick Marriott was eight and also at school, and Florence Elizabeth Marriott who was six years old. Their sickly daughter Ellen had died by then.

46P48

Edwin Charles Collett was born at Fencott on 23^rd May 1877, when his birth was registered at Bicester (Ref. 3a 673) during the third quarter of the year. He was baptised on 8^th July 1877 at the parish church in Charlton-on-Otmoor, the son of William and Emma Collett. He was recorded as Edwin Collett aged three years in 1881 and, in the census of 1981, he was listed in error as Edward Collett who was 13. Ten years later, at the age of 24, Edwin was still living in Charlton-on-Otmoor where he was working as a yardman with cattle on a farm. It was during the final three months of 1904, when the marriage of Edwin Collett and Rose May Ransom was recorded at Westminster St Margaret in London (Ref. 1a 1073).

She was the daughter of Charles and Mary Ransom of Great Yarmouth, where she was born on 15^th July 1883. By 1911, Edwin Charles Collett from Fencott was 33 and was working as a general labourer in the building industry, when he was living at Finchley in London with his wife Rose May Collett from Great Yarmouth who was 27. With them that day was their first child, Edwin Collett who was four years old and born after the couple had settled in Finchley. Sadly, the couple had already suffered the loss of their second child, who had died around the age of two years in 1910. However, Rose was already pregnant with the couple’s third child on that census day, with three more added to the family during the remainder of the decade.

Later in their life, perhaps during the war years when London was the subject of the blitz, the couple moved to Hertfordshire, where Edwin Charles Collett, who was born in 1887, was 83 when his death was recorded at Hertfordshire register office (Ref. 4b 23) in 1960. When that happened, Rose most likely returned to Middlesex to live with one of her children, since it was there that the death of Rose May Collett, nee Ransom, was recorded (Ref. 5a 95) in 1965, when she was 81 and living in Barnet.

46Q56

Edwin Collett

Born in 1906 at Finchley

46Q57

Rose May Collett

Born in 1908 at Finchley

46Q58

Mary C Collett

Born in 1911 at Finchley

46Q59

William Collett

Born in 1913 at Finchley

46Q60

Charles Collett

Born in 1915 at Finchley

46Q61

Henry Collett

Born in 1919 at Finchley

46P49

William Collett was born at Fencott in September 1880 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 24^th October 1880, the son of William and Emma Collett. His birth, as Willie Collett, was recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 703) during the last three months of 1880. It was at Charlton-on-Otmoor that William was 20 and an under carter working with a horse on a farm, when he was still living there with his family. After a further ten years, unmarried William Collett was 30 and a farm labourer living and working with the Kirby family at Charlton-on-Otmoor. Three years later, he enlisted as Private Collett 12223 with the 6^th Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry at the outbreak of the Great War, but tragically William Collett died, aged 36, on 5^th September 1916 just a few weeks after the death of his younger brother Arthur (below).

46P50

Louisa Collett was born at Fencott in 1883, her birth recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 800) during the second quarter of the year. She was baptised on 27^th May 1883 at Charlton-on-Otmoor Parish Church and was living at Charlton with her family in 1891. She had left the family home in Charlton by 1901, when Louisa Collett from Fencott was 19 (sic) and a kitchen maid at a dwelling in Kings End, Bicester. Six weeks later, she was married at Bicester Parish Church on 18^th May 1901 to bachelor Albert Pitts of that parish, aged 24, a mason and the son of labourer William Pitts. Louisa was 20 and a spinster of the parish, the daughter of carpenter William Collett. The witnesses were Louisa’ brother Edwin Charles Collett, and Mary Ann Pitts.

During the following decade, Louisa presented Albert with six children, all of them born at Bicester. The family of eight was residing at Market End in Bicester in 1911 and was recorded as Albert Pitts aged 34 and a house painter working in the building industry, Louisa Pitts 27, Louisa Pitts who was nine, Ethel Pitts who was six, Nellie Pitts who was five, Albert Pitts who was three, Bertha Pitts who was two, and Frances Pitts who was under one year old.

46P51

Arthur John Collett was born at Charlton-on-Otmoor during 1885, his birth recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 781) during the third quarter of the year. It was also at Charlton where he was baptised on 1^st November that year, the son of William and Emma Collett of Charlton-on-Otmoor. He was five years old in 1891 and by March 1901, at the age of 16, he was working as a yardman with cattle on a farm in Charlton. Ten years later, in April 1911, unmarried Arthur John Collett was 26 and a farm labourer who was still living with his parents at Charlton-on-Otmoor. His father William was 73 and his mother Emma was 63 and, living with them, was the couple’s grandson Jack Collett who was nine years of age and born at Charlton. He was the base-born son as Arthur’s older sister Ellen Rebecca Collett (above).

During the First World War he joined the Middlesex Regiment as Private Collett G/4765. Tragically Arthur John Collett was killed while on active service on 18^th August 1916 at the age of 31, and his name appears on the Thievpal Memorial. His death was the first of two in the family, his brother William’s death being reported back to their family just three weeks later.

46P52

Beatrice Collett was born at Charlton-on-Otmoor in 1888, the youngest daughter of William Collett of Headington and his wife Emma from Piddington, who was baptised at Charlton on 14^th October 1888. Her birth was recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 793) during the third quarter of that year. In 1891 Beatrice was two years old and was living with her carpenter father and the rest of her family at Charlton. Beatrice was 12 years old in 1901 and was still living with her family in Charlton-on-Otmoor. Ten years later, she was living and working at St Aldates, within the City of Oxford, at the age of 23, when her place of birth was confirmed at Charlton-on-Otmoor, and when she was a general domestic servant at the home of Amos and Mary George.

46P54

Albert Collett was born at Murcott in 1874 and his birth was registered at Bicester (Ref. 3a 634) during the third quarter of the year. He was the eldest child of Lewis Collett and Mary Anne Selina Harris. At the age of six years, he was living with his family at South Street in Farthinghoe in Northamptonshire. Apart from his appearance with his family in the census of 1891, at Edgcote just to the north of Banbury, when he was 16 and an agricultural labourer from Market Street, no other record of Albert has so far been located. However, in 1911, an Albert Collett from Oxford was 36 and a domestic groom, living at Woodford-cum-Membris in the Daventry area of Northamptonshire, with his family. They were his wife Rachel Collett who was 32 and from Swerford, near Chipping Norton, Aubrey Charles Collett (Ref. 46Q61a) who was four and born at Paulerspury in Northamptonshire, Muriel Elizabeth Collett (Ref. 46Q61b) who was two and born at Towcester and Leah May Collett (Ref. 46Q61c) who was under one year old and born at Woodford.

46P55

Edith Elizabeth Collett was born at Farthinghoe, midway between Brackley and Banbury, in 1876 with her birth registered at Brackley (Ref. 3b 10) during the first three months of the year. She was the first-born child of Lewis Collett and Selina Harris. Edith was four years of age in 1881 when she was living at South Street in Farthinghoe with her family and, as Edith E Collett, she was 14 in 1891 when she and her family were living nearby at Edgcote. Just after the turn of the century unmarried Edith Elizabeth Collett from Farthinghoe was 24 and a domestic housemaid at the home of the Shatton family in the village of Turweston, which lies just north of Brackley on the county boundary between Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire.

46P56

Lewis Spencer Collett was born at Farthinghoe in 1879, the second child and eldest son of Lewis Collett and Selina Harris. His birth was registered at Brackley (Ref. 3b 11) during the second quarter of the year. He was just two years old in April 1881 when living at Farthinghoe with his family. They later moved to Edgcote when, in 1891, Lewis S Collett was 12 years of age. He followed in his father’s footsteps and in 1901, as Spencer Collett aged 21 and from Farthinghoe in Northamptonshire, he was working a carter working on a farm, when he was still living with his parents at Edgcote. After a further ten years, Spencer Collett from Farthinghoe was a bachelor of 31, who was a labourer on a farm in Towcester, when he was living with elderly couple Reuben and Ann Brice, Reuben being a retired shoemaker.

Twelve months later, the marriage of Lewis S Collett and Florence Hobbs was recorded at Towcester register office (Ref. 3b 51) during the second quarter of 1912. Once they were married, the couple settled in the Daventry area of Northamptonshire, where the births of their six children were recorded. In each case, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Hobbs. The later death of Lewis S Collett was recorded at Northampton (Ref. 3b 621) during the fourth quarter of 1961, at the age of 82.

46Q62

Lewis Henry Collett

Born in 1913 at Daventry

46Q63

George William Collett

Born in 1915 at Daventry

46Q64

Marjorie Collett

Born in 1918 at Daventry

46Q65

Arthur R Collett

Born in 1921 at Daventry

46Q66

Derrick Peter Collett twin

Born in 1923 at Daventry

46Q67

Spencer Collett twin

Born in 1923 at Daventry

46P57

Autin Collett was born at Farthinghoe in the summer of 1881, with his birth registered at Brackley (Ref. 3b 8) during the third quarter of that year. He was another son of Lewis and Selina Collett who, by the time of the census in 1891, was nine years old and was living with his family at Edgcote near Banbury as Austin Collett (sic). After a further ten years, he was still living in the family home at Edgcote where he was correctly recorded as Autin Collett from Farthinghoe who was 19 and working as a groom.

Four years after that census day, Autin Collett, as Austin, married Annie Elizabeth Stubbs at Boston Spa in Yorkshire on 15^th May 1905. Annie was much older than Autin and, whilst he admitted to being the son of Lewis Collett, he gave his age as 29, when he was only 23, when his place of residence was East Hamsey. That may have been a reference to Hamsey in East Sussex. Annie was 39 and residing at Boston Spa, where she was born in 1866, the daughter of William Stubbs, whose wife was Elizabeth.

At the end of his life, Autin was living in Hampshire where, at the age of 64, the death of Autin Collett was recorded at Hampshire register office (Ref. 2c 36) during third quarter of 1945. His Will was proved at Hampshire Cross in the parish of South Tidworth on 9^th February 1946 when the sole beneficiary was his widow Annie Elizabeth Collett. The probate documentation also confirmed that Autin had died six months earlier on 18^th August 1945. His widow survived for a further eight years, when the death of Annie E Collett, nee Stubbs, was recorded at Hampshire register office (Ref. 6b 962) in 1953 when she was 88 years old.

46P58

Mary Kate Collett was born at Farthinghoe in 1885, while her birth was registered at Brackley (Ref. 3b 4) during the third quarter of the year. As Mary K Collett, aged six years, she was listed in the 1891 Census for Edgcote, to where her family had moved after a short spell living in nearby Croughton. After a further ten years, she had completed her schooling and had entered domestic service, but was still living in Edgcote, just a short distance from where her family was still living. On the census day in 1901, she was described as Kate Collett from Farthinghoe who was 15 years old and employed as a domestic housemaid, one of nine servants at the home of Aubrey Cartwright from London. During the following decade Mary left Northamptonshire, when her work resulted in a move south to Crowthorne in Berkshire. According to the census return completed by her employers, sisters Florence and Frances Blair from Lancashire, unmarried Mary Emily Kathleen Collett from Farthinghoe was 27 in 1911, when she was the cook and one of five servants looking after the elderly sisters.

46P59

George Henry Collett was born at Croughton south-west of Brackley in 1887 where he and his family only stayed for a short while. His birth was registered at Brackley (Ref. 3b 6) during the third quarter of the year. By 1891 the family had moved the eight miles north to Edgcote where George was three years old. Ten years later he was still there when he was 13 and had not yet started work. Sometime early in the new century the family left Northamptonshire and moved across the county boundary to live in the Buckinghamshire village of Lillingstone Lovell. And it was there that George Collett from Croughton was 23 and a cowman working on a farm, when he was still living with his family at Kayes Farm in Lillingstone Lovell in 1911.

Very little else is known about him, except that it was at Buckinghamshire register office that his death was recorded (Ref. 6a 466) during 1967 when he was 79.

46P60

Frances Eliza Collett was born at Edgcote in Northamptonshire on 5^th March 1891 and was one month old in the census that year. It was as Fanny Collett that she was listed with her parents at Edgcote in 1901 when she was 10 years old. The family moved from Edgcote to Lillingstone Lovell during the next few years, where Frances Eliza Collett from Edgcote, aged 20 years and single, was living and working at the Lillingstone Lovell, Buckinghamshire, home of George and Ellen Robinson, where she was described as a general domestic servant. She eventually married Walter Beal at Great Gaddesden in Hertfordshire on 16^th June 1926, when Frances Eliza Collett was 35 and the daughter of Lewis Collett, and Walter was 38 and the son of Thomas Beal.

Their wedding was recorded at Hemel Hempstead register office (Ref. 3a 1993) during the second quarter of 1926. Three years after that day, Frances presented Walter with a son, with the birth of Cecil D Beal recorded at Buckingham register office (Ref. 3a 1716) during the second quarter of 1929. Walter Beal was born at Buckingham in 1887 and died in 1968, his death recorded at the North Bucks register office. After thirteen years as a widow, the death of Frances Eliza Beal was recorded at Buckinghamshire register office (Vol. 19 1027) in 1981, when she was 90.

46P61

Arthur Collett was born at Edgcote in 1892, another son of Lewis and Selina Collett. He was eight years old in the Edgcote census of 1901 and by 1911 he was 18 when he was living with his family at Kayes Farm in Lillingstone Lovell, Buckinghamshire. That day he was describe as born at Edgcote, a poultry man working on a farm, a part-time student. No record of his birth has been found, nor is it known what happened to him after 1911.

46P62

William Henry Collett was born at Edgcote in 1895 and was the youngest son of Lewis and Mary Collett. His birth was recorded at Banbury register office (Ref. 3a 938) during the third quarter of 1895. In 1901 he was still living at Edgcote with his family and was five years old. By 1911 he and his family were residing at Kayes Farm in Lillingstone Lovell, where 15-year-old William was a carter working on a farm, who was also a part-time student like his older brother Arthur (above). Around three years later, at the outbreak of World War One, William enlisted with the 547^th Agricultural Company Labour Corps in which he was Private 529075. During the war he transferred to the 3^rd Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry with whom he saw active service as Corporal 11239.

Tragically, it was as the campaign was ending that William Henry Collett died on 28^th October 1918 at the age of 23. He was not married, with his next-of-kin named as Lewis and Selina Collett of Lillingstone Lovell in Buckinghamshire. His mother Mary had used her alternative christian name of Selina since just before the turn of the century. The fact that he was buried at Lillingstone Lovell very likely indicates that he died from injuries he sustained in action and that it was in England that he passed away.

46P63

Minnie Collett was born at Edgcote in 1898, with her birth was recorded at Banbury register office (Ref. 3a 993) during the third quarter of 1that year. She was two years of age in the Edgcote census of 1901, the last child of Lewis Collett and Selina Harris. After that day, the family crossed the county boundary into Buckinghamshire when they made their new home at Kayes Farm in Lillingstone Lovell. By 1911 Minnie was 12 years of age and still attending school, while living there with her family.

46P64

William Collett was born at Horton-cum-Studley in 1888, his birth recorded at Headington (Ref. 3a 767) during the first three months of that year, the only known child of William Collett of Murcott and his second wife Charlotte Steggall from London. He was two years old in 1891 and was a scholar aged 12 years in 1901 when, on each occasion, he was living with his parents at Horton-cum-Studley. It was during the first quarter of 1911, when William Collett married Annie Elizabeth Buckle, the event recorded at Headington (Ref. 3a 1292). Annie’s birth was recorded at Headington during the last three months of 1890, the daughter of William and Rasehan Buckle. Shortly after their wedding day, William Collett was 23 and a wheelwright, working with his father at the family home in Horton in 1911. Living there with him was his wife Elizabeth Collett, who was 20 years of age with no stated occupation or job of work. On that census day, Elizabeth was already expecting the birth of the couple’s first child, who was born within the next six months.

Two more children followed, both of born at Horton-cum-Studley during the war years, with the birth of all three children recorded at Headington register office, when their mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Buckle. The details of their eldest child can be found later in this file, while the birth of Annie E Collett, most likely named Annie Elizabeth after her mother, was recorded at Headington (Ref. 3a 1951) during the last quarter of 1914. The birth of her younger brother Alfred was recorded there (Ref. 3a 1775) during the last three months of 1916. It may be that Alfred never married, and it was at Oxford register office (Ref. 6b 1243) that his death was recorded during the first quarter of 1951, when he was 34.

46Q68

William G Collett

Born in 1911 at Horton-cum-Studley

46Q69

Annie E Collett

Born in 1914 at Horton-cum-Studley

46Q70

Alfred S Collett

Born in 1916 at Horton-cum-Studley

46P65

Alfred Collett was born at Murcott near the end of 1893, his parents Alfred Collett and Alice Amelia Veary having been married earlier that same year, and recorded at Bicester during the second quarter of 1893. His birth was also recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 827) during the last quarter of the year. Alfred was six years of age in the Murcott census of 1901, when living there with his parents and younger sister Kate (below), both having been born at Murcott, together with half-brother Fred Veary, aged nine. While no record of Alfred Collett junior has been located anywhere in the census of 1911, it was later that year when the death of 17-year-old Alfred Collett was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 1088) during the last three months of 1911.

46P66

Kate Elizabeth Collett was born at Murcott during the summer of 1895, the daughter of Alfred Collett and Alice Amelia Veary, her birth recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 871) in the third quarter of the year. As simply Kate Collett, she was five years old in the Murcott census of 1901, when living there with her parents, her brother Alfred (above), and her older half-brother Fred Veary, the child from her mother’s first marriage. After leaving school, Kate entered domestic service and had left home by the time of the next census in 1911. At that time in her life, Kate Collett from Murcott was 15 years old and a servant living at the Cowley home of elderly widow Elizabeth Hutchins, aged 70, and her unmarried daughter Elizabeth Mary Hutchins, aged 38, both born in Oxford and both living on private means.

46P67

Walter John Collett was born at Murcott in 1892, his birth recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 858) during the third quarter of the year, the eldest of the four children of Walter Collett and Ellen Busby. It was simply as John Collett that he was eight years of age and 18 years old and a trunk maker in the Hendon census returns in 1901 and 1911, when he was living there with his family.

46P68

Florence May Collett was born at Murcott in 1895, her birth recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 881) during the second quarter of that year. Not long after she was born, her father’s work resulted in the family moving to Hendon in Middlesex where they were living in 1901 and 1911, when Florence M Collett from Murcott was six years old and Florrie Collett was 16 and working as a waitress.

46P69

William Collett was born at Hendon in 1898, the son of Walter Collett and Ellen Busby, whose birth was recorded at Hendon register office (Ref. 3a 263) during the first quarter of that year. He was three years old and 13 years of age when he was living with his family at Hendon in 1901 and 1911, and still attending school in the latter.

46P70

Harry Collett was the fourth and last child of Walter Collett and Ellen Busby. He was born at Hendon, where his birth was recorded (Ref. 3a 276) during the fourth quarter of 1900. He was six months old in the Hendon census of 1901 and was 10 years of age at school in 1911, when he and his family were still residing in the Hendon area of north London.

46P71

Lucy Ellen Collett was born at Elsfield in Oxfordshire in 1879, the older of the two daughters of Richard Collett and Florence Alice Arnatt. Her birth was registered at Oxford Headington (Ref. 3a 668) during the third quarter of 1879. By 1881 her family had left Oxfordshire and was living at Shootlands Farm in Wotton, near Dorking in Surrey, where her father was a farm bailiff. The census that year referred to Lucy as Lucy Helen who was two. A few years later the family moved again, that time to Ockley just south of Dorking, where they were living in 1891 when Lucy E Collett was 11. During the next decade the family moved the short distance to Capel in Surrey where, in 1901 Lucy was 21 and was working as a laundress. And it was at Holmwood, south of Dorking, that Lucy was still living with her parents in April 1911. By then, Lucy Ellen Collett, aged 31 was confirmed as having been born at Elsfield near Oxford.

Lucy never married and was 63 years old when she died, with her passing recorded at Oxfordshire register office (Ref. 3a 1463) during 1942.

46P72

Martha Alice Charlotte Collett was born at Ockley in Surrey in 1886, with her birth registered at Dorking (Ref. 2a 151) during the third quarter of the year. She was stilling living there with her family in 1891 aged four years, when she was listed as Martha A C Collett. At the start of the next century the family of four was living in the village of Capel, two miles to the east of Ockley. And, in the Capel census of 1901, Martha was recorded as Martha A C Collett, aged 14, who was still attending school. Upon leaving school or sometime thereafter, Martha returned to Oxfordshire where, in April 1911 she was living at Charlton-on-Otmoor with her eighty-year-old grandmother Lucy Collett. She was 24 years old and was listed as Martha Alice C Collett of Ockley in Surrey. Also living at the same address were two of Martha’s aunties, they being Esther Collett, and Beatrice M Collett.

Nine years after that census day, the marriage of Martha A C Collett and Thomas H Cuckson was recorded at Dorking register office (Ref. 2a 415) during the last three months of 1920. After a further forty-four years, the death of Martha Alice Charlotte Cuckson, nee Collett, was recorded at Oxfordshire register office (Ref. 6b 783) in 1953 when she was 66.

46P75

Lucy Ruth Collett, who was known as Ruth, was born at Old Arngrove Farm in Boarstall on 20^th November 1896, whose birth was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 897) during the first quarter of 1897. Lucy R Collett was 22 years of age when she married Charles H Edginton, with their wedding recorded at Thames register office (Ref. 3a 2879) during the summer of 1919. Two years later the birth of the couple’s only known child, son Gerald E Edginton, was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 1986) during the third quarter of 1922. Upon the death of his father-in-law, John Edwin Collett in 1943, his Will was proved in Oxford on 24^th February 1944, which named Charles Haddon Edginton as the main beneficiary. Almost thirty-seven years later, when Lucy Ruth Edginton, nee Collett, died on 9^th February 1981, her passing at the age of 88 was recorded at Abingdon-on-Thames.

46P76

Annie Elizabeth Collett was born at Old Arngrove Farm in Boarstall towards the end of century, whose birth was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 919) during the fourth quarter of 1899. She was the second surviving child of John Edwin Collett and Mary Jennings. Ten years after the census in 1911, when Annie was still living at Boarstall with her family, she married Frederick Shirley and their wedding was recorded at Thame register office (Ref. 3a 2745) during the summer of 1921. Their marriage produced three children for the couple, and they were: Colin L Shirley who was born in 1922 and died in 2004; Mary E Shirley who was born in 1924 and died in 2005; and Margaret A Shirley who was born in 1926. All three births were recorded at Thame register office, where their mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.

46P77

Mary Margaret Collett was born at Old Arngrove Farm in Boarstall on 3^rd June 1901 and her birth was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 1003) during the third quarter of that year. She was nearly thirty years old when the marriage of Mary M Collett and Henry J S Honour (James) was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 2799) during the final three months of 1929. The marriage produced two children for the couple; Mary Ellen C Honour in 1930, and John M S Honour in 1938. The births were recorded respectively at Bicester register office and at the Bicester Ploughley register office, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett. See earlier references to connections between the Collett and Honour families. Mary Margaret Honour nee Collett was 85 years old when she died in 1986, with her passing recorded at Oxfordshire register office (Vol. 20 2551).

46P78

Hilda Maud Collett was born at Old Arngrove Farm, Boarstall on 4^th October 1902 with her birth recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 992) during the last three months of the year. She later married Horace Busby at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 25^th November 1926. Horace was the son of James Percival Jones and Helen Franklin, who were not married. After Albert Edward Busby married Helen Franklin on 29^th December 1903, Albert informally adopted Horace, who was henceforth known as Horace Busby. The marriage of Hilda Collett and Horace Busby produced two children for the couple, they being Dorothy Maud Busby born in 1927, and John Horace Busby born in 1934.

Upon the death of his father-in-law, John Edwin Collett in 1943, his Will was proved at Oxford on 24^th February 1944, when Horace Busby was the second named beneficiary, behind the husband of Hilda’s eldest surviving sister Lucy Ruth Edginton (above).

Horace Busby died at Culworth on 2^nd February 1977 and was buried there six days later. His widow survived him by nearly fourteen years when Hilda Maud Busby nee Collett died at Banbury on 8^th December 1993 and was later buried with Horace at Culworth on 17^th December. Culworth (in Northamptonshire) lies close to the Edgcote Battle site mentioned earlier in this family line. And it was the aforementioned John Horace Busby’s son Stephen John Busby of Findhorn in Scotland, who kindly provided the details of his family line which has made it possible for this branch of the Collett family to be developed.

46P81

Lilian Edith Collett was born at Old Arngrove Farm in Boarstall on 19^th November 1908, the last child of John Edwin Collett and Mary Jennings. Her birth at Lilian Edith Collett was recorded at Thame register office (Ref. 3a 1021) during the first quarter of the following year. Lilian was 28 when she married Henry William Haynes at Charlton-on-Otmoor in 1937, with the event recorded at the Bicester Ploughley register office (Ref. 3a 2789) during the first three months of the year. Henry was the son of William Haynes and Ann Franklin, and the couple’s three children were William Haynes who was born in 1938 at Redhouse Farm, Panshill in Boarstall - who later married Betty Shurrock in 1953, Angela Haynes who was born in 1944, and Susan Haynes who was born in 1949. Lilian Edith Haynes, nee Collett, died on 29^th April 1995 and was buried at Charlton-on-Otmoor at the age of 86.

46P82

William John Collett was born at Clew Hill Farm in Arncott only a few months after his parents, William Foster Collett and Mary Leach were married. The record of his birth as William John Collett was made at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 864) during the first quarter of 1890. It was a William J Collett that he was recorded with his parents at Clew Hill Farm in the 1891 at the age of just one year. Ten year later, following the deaths of his sister Lilian (below) and then his mother, the family had moved to Boarstall where, at the age of 11, William was living with his widowed father and younger brother Richard (below). However, while William’s two younger brothers, Richard, and Hubert (below), were both living and working with their father at Panshill Farm in Boarstall in 1911, no such census record has so far been found to locate the whereabouts of William Collett at that time in his life, even though he died in Oxford during 1962.

46P83

Lilian Esther Collett was born at Clew Hill Farm in Arncott during the fourth quarter of 1891, with the birth recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 811). Sadly, she survived for less than three years when she died at Boarstall in 1894 where she was buried. The death of two-year-old Lilian Esther Collett was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 435) during the second quarter of the year.

46P84

Richard James Collett was born at Clew Hill Farm in Arncott in 1893, another child of William and Mary Collett. His birth was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 887) during the second quarter of the year. One year after he was born his sister Lilian (above) died at Arncott and her death was followed by that of Richard’s mother Mary, when he was two years old. Possibly a result of those tragic events, the family left Arncott and moved to Boarstall. By March 1901 Richard was eight years old and was living with his widowed father and older brother William (above) at Boarstall. In the spring of 1906 Richard’s father William was married for a second time and, five years later, the new family was living at Panshill Farm in Boarstall in 1911. That year’s census return confirmed that Richard J Collett of Arncott was 17 and living with his father, his stepmother Eva, and half-brother Leslie, at Panshill Farm where he and his brother Hubert (below) were both working on the farm with their father.

Just over nine years later, the marriage of Richard J Collett and Elsie K Read was recorded at Thame register office (Ref. 3a 2525) during the last three months of 1920. Their daughter may have been a honeymoon baby, with the birth of Winifred M Collett recorded at Thame register office (Ref. 3a 1908) during the third quarter of the following year.

Richard James Collett died on 23^rd October 1965 at Bucknell, just north of Bicester, at the age of 72.

46Q71

Winifred Mary Collett

Born in 1921 at Thame

46P85

Hubert Walter Collett was born at Clew Hill Farm in Arncott on 20^th October 1894, with his birth recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 827), but as Walter Hubert Collett. He was the youngest of the four children of William Foster Collett and Mary Leach. His mother suffered a premature death when Hubert was one-year-old, leaving his father with two older brothers to look after, resulting in baby Hubert being taken into the care of his father’s younger unmarried sister Edith Bessie Collett (Ref. 46O41). That was the situation until Hubert was around eleven years of age, when he returned to live with his father after he was re-married in 1906. Five years earlier, for the census conducted in March 1901, six-year-old Hubert W Collett from Clew Hill was a visitor at The Limes in Tetsworth, three miles south of Thame, where his maiden-aunt Edith Collett was employed as the housekeeper of James Griffin, a 76-year-old widower.

His reunion with his family was confirmed in the next census of 1911, when Hubert W Collett from Arncott was 16 and working on the family’s farm at Panshill, Hubert was once again living with his father and his step-mother, who had settled at Brill. On that occasion alongside his father and his older brother Richard (above). Many years later Hubert Walter Collett, a farmer, was named as one of the joint executors of the Will of his aunt Edith Bessie Harding nee Collett (Ref. 46O41) who died in 1939. Eight years later Hubert Walter Collett was one of the two beneficiaries in the 1947 Will of his father’s second wife Eva Annie Jane Collett.

He was eight days short of his 79^th birthday when Hubert Walter Collett died on 12^th October 1973 at Easington, a Buckinghamshire hamlet just three miles north of Thame. His death was recorded at the Oxfordshire register office (Ref. 6b 2797).

46P86

Leslie Percival Collett was born at Panshill Farm, midway between Murcott (Oxon) and Boarstall (Bucks) on 3^rd December 1909, the youngest child of William Collett, and the only known child by his second wife Eva Annie Jane Malin. His birth, under his full name, was recorded at the Buckinghamshire Thame register office (Ref. 3a 985) during the first quarter of 1910. Not much more is known about him, apart from the record of him in the Thame district census in 1911 when Leslie P Collett was one year old, and the record of his death at Buckinghamshire register office (Vol. 19 1100) in 1976, after he had died in North Buckinghamshire on 9^th January 1976. Also, following the death of his mother Eva at Aylesbury in the spring of 1947, and the proving of her Will at Oxford in October that year, Leslie Percival Collett was named as one of the two beneficiaries, the other being his half-brother Hubert (above).

46P87

Murray James Collett was born at Murcott on 12^th December 1896 and was living at nearby Arncott with his parents at the time of the 1901 Census. His birth was registered at Bicester during the first three months of 1897, the first child of James Bottrell Collett and his wife Ellen Martha Cox. Murray would have only been a few years old when his family left Oxfordshire and moved to Warwickshire, since it was within the Rugby area that they were living in April 1911. Murray James Collett of Murcott was 14 at that time. It was twelve years later, when the marriage of Murray James Collett and Kathleen Mary Coles was recorded at Lutterworth (Ref. 7a 16) during the second quarter of 1923. The births of both of their known children were recorded at Leicester, the first of them during the third quarter of 1928 (Ref. 7a 332), and the second also during the third quarter, but in 1934 (Ref. 7a 318). On each occasion, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Coles.

At some time later, Murray and Kathleen moved down to the West Country, and it was at Launceston in Cornwall, that the death of Murray J Collett was recorded (Ref. 7a 171) during the early months of 1970, when he was 73. Murray had already been a widower for three years when he passed away, the death of Kathleen M Collett also recorded at Launceston (Ref. 7a 64) during the first three months of 1967, when she was 70.

46Q72

Geoffrey K Collett

Born in 1928 at Leicester

46Q73

Pamela C Collett

Born in 1934 at Leicester

46P88

Cyril John Collett was born towards the end of 1901 and after his parents had left Murcott and had settled in nearby Arncott. His birth was registered within the Bicester registration district between October and December 1901 when he was confirmed as the second son of James and Ellen Collett. Shortly after he was born his family left Oxfordshire and moved to the village of Willoughby in Warwickshire where they were living in 1911 when Cyril John Collett was recorded as being nine years old and born at Arncott. It was during the last three months of 1926, when the marriage of Cyril J Collett and Doreen H Selley was recorded at Rugby register office (Ref. 6d 1515). The married is believed to have produced two children, although only the first one survived. The birth of Joy M R Collett was recorded at Rugby (Ref. 6d 1256) during the second quarter of 1928. The birth of their son was recorded at Daventry (Ref. 3b 133) during the second quarter of 1932, where his death was also recorded (Ref. 3b 94) during the third quarter of 1933, when he was one year old. On both occasions, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Selley.

46Q74

Joy M R Collett

Born in 1928 at Rugby

46Q75

Godfrey D C Collett

Born in 1932 at Daventry

46P89

Rowland Thomas Collett was born at Willoughby in Warwickshire during 1904, the third son James and Ellen Collett. By April 1911 Rowland Thomas Collett was seven years old when he was living with his family in the village of Willoughby. It was during the first three months of 1930, when Rowland T Collett married Gladys Frost, the event recorded at Daventry register office (Ref. 3b 143). Over the next ten years, Gladys presented Rowland with two sons. Rowland Thomas Collett lived a long life and died on 16^th December 1998 aged 94.

46Q76

Roy Allan Collett

Born in 1934 at Northampton

46Q77

Brian Rowland Collett

Born in 1941 at Brixworth

46P90

Basil Dean Collett was born at Willoughby in 1906 and was four years old at the time of the Willoughby census of 1911 when he was recorded as Bazil Dean Collett from Willoughby. He was the youngest son of James and Ellen Collett and his birth was recorded at the Rugby register office (Ref. 6d 626) during the third quarter of 1906 under the name Basil Deane Collett. He was twenty-two when he married Olive M Goode at Rugby, the event being recorded at the Rugby register office (Ref. 6d 1649) during the second quarter of 1929. Olive Mary Goode was born in 1909 and was the daughter of Charles and Judith Mary Goode and over the eight years following their marriage she presented Basil with three children. The only other known fact at this time, is that the death of Basil Dean Collett was recorded at Warwick (Ref. 9c 1246) during the last quarter of 1957 when he was 51.

46Q78

Gordon Dean Collett

Born in 1931 at Rugby

46Q79

Eileen R Collett

Born in 1933 at Rugby

46Q80

Alice M Collett

Born in 1937 at Rugby

46P91

Margery Lucy C Collett was born on 20^th October 1914 and her birth was recorded at Rugby register office (Ref. 6d 1505) during the final three months of that year, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Cox. She was the last child of James Bottrell Collett and his wife Ellen Martha Cox. Margery never married, and her death was recorded at Rugby (Ref. 7701 68d) during the summer of 1996 when she was nearly 82.

46P92

Winifred Eva Beatrice Collett was born in 1891 at Blackthorn, just south-east of Bicester, where her birth was registered (Ref. 3a 834) during the last three months of that year. She was the eldest of the four children of Walter George Collett and Ellen Parker. At the age of nine years, Winifred Eva was living at Tiddington near Waterstock in Oxfordshire with her recently widowed father and her three younger siblings. Looking after the four children was for their father, while he was at work, was unmarried aunt Esther Collett, their father’s younger sister. Her father was re-married in 1904 and, by 1911, Winifred was working as an elementary schoolteacher employed by the Oxford Education Committee. On that census day she was described using her full name as being 19 years old, born at Blackthorn, and a boarder at the Marston, North Oxford, home of elderly married couple John and Selina Honour.

Just over five years later, the marriage of Winifred E B Collett and Henry J Broughton was recorded at Thame register office (Ref. 3a 2109) during the last three months of 1916. Winifred gave birth to two children whose births were recorded at the Headington register office when, on both occasions, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett. The first of them was Henry Walter Broughton who was born on 25^th June 1918, who died in Oxford at the end of 1996. The birth of their daughter Jean H Broughton was recorded during the third quarter of 1923 (Ref. 3a 1796).

46P93

Walter Cecil F Collett was born at Blackthorn on 22^nd February 1893, the eldest son of Walter and Ellen Collett, his birth was curiously recorded at Henley register office (Ref. 3a 819) during the second quarter of the year. Two weeks before his seventh birthday, his mother died giving birth to the fourth child in the family. It was at Tiddington, near Waterstock, that Walter C F Collett was eight years of age in the census of 1901. Three years after that census day his father was re-married and on the day of the next census in 1911, Cecil Collett aged 18 and from Pyrton near Thame in Oxfordshire was a boarder at the Oxford Summerton home of Richard Clinkard, a gardener and a florist, when Cecil was working as a grocer’s assistant. Another boarder at the same address was his younger brother Percy Collett. It is established that Walter Cecil F Collett later married Edith Balchin in Sussex during the summer of 1927, the event recorded at Petworth register office (Ref. 2b 857).

Once they were married, the couple travelled north and settled in Buckinghamshire, the births of their four children recorded at the Wycombe register office and, in each case, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Balchin. Their youngest child was only fifteen years old when Edith Collett nee Balchin passed away at Aylesbury (Ref. 6a 284) during the fourth quarter of 1955, at the age of 59. Many years after being widowed, the death of Walter Cecil F Collett was recorded at Buckinghamshire register office (Vol. 19 1450) during the 1979, at the age of 86.

46Q81

John F Collett

Born in 1928 at Wycombe

46Q82

Margaret M Collett

Born in 1931 at Wycombe

46Q83

Peter M Collett

Born in 1936 at Wycombe

46Q84

Roger J Collett

Born in 1940 at Wycombe

46P94

Percival James Collett was born on 13^th September 1894 at the village of Southmoor, within the Berkshire parish of Kingston Bagpuize. He was another son of Walter George Collett and Ellen Parker who died giving birth to his youngest sibling. His birth was recorded at the Abingdon-on-Thames register office (Ref. 2c 280) during the last quarter of 1894. In 1901, when he was six years old, he and his three siblings were recorded with their widowed father at Tiddington, near Waterstock, when the housekeeper for the family was Esther Collett, his father’s youngest sister. After a further three years, his father was married for a second time, with only the youngest child of Walter George Collett still living with him in 1911. On the census day that year, the three older siblings were living and working in the in Oxford, to the north of the city centre. It was at Summertown that Percy, together with his older brother Cecil, were staying at the same boarding house, when Percy Collett from Kingston Bagpuize was 16 and a domestic gardener.

By the time war in Europe had started, Percy would have been twenty years of age, and ready to serve King and Country. The information extracted from his completed military record in 1920, confirmed that Percival James Collett had been a member of the 7^th Battalion of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, service number 13789. His place of birth was stated as being Kingston Bagpuize, where he was born in 1894, and that his place of residence in 1920 was Wheatley.

Twelve years later, Percival James Collett aged 37, a garage proprietor at Waterstock, and the son of farm bailiff Walter George Collett, married Mabel Earl aged 36 and the daughter of hotel proprietor Albert John Earl, on 9^th January 1932 at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Mill Lane, Iffley, south Oxford. The witnesses were Hannah Earl and Walter George Collett. Their marriage was recorded at Headington register office (Ref. 3a 2087) during the first three months of 1932. Mabel Earl was born in Oxford, her birth also recorded at Headington early in 1896, the daughter of Arthur John Earl of Oxford and his London born wife Hannah. After being married for just less than fifteen years, the death of Percival J Collett was recorded at the Bicester Ploughley register office (Ref. 6b 828) during the second quarter of 1947, when he was 52 years of age. His Will was proved at Oxford on 28^th August 1947, when the sole beneficiary was his widow, Mabel Collett. The probate documents also confirmed that he died at Ploughley on 12^th April 1947.

As far as can be determined, Percy and Mabel never had any children. However, for clarity’s sake, the child Angela R Collett, whose birth was recorded at Ploughley register office (Ref. 6b 1348) during the second quarter of 1952, when the mother’s maiden-name was recorded as Earl, was the eldest child of Ronald E Collett (Ref. 38Q51) and his wife Maureen E Earl whose earlier marriage was recorded at Oxford register office (Ref. 6b 1774) during the last three months of 1948.

Interesting Footnote: Prior to the wedding of Percy and Mabel Earl, the marriage of William Joseph Collett (Ref. 38Q25) and Elsie Earl was also recorded at Headington register office in 1918, with a later marriage of Ronald Eldred Collett (Ref. 38Q51) and Maureen E Earl also conducted at St Mary the Virgin on Mill Lane in Iffley, Oxford in 1948. Which raises two questions. Were the Earl girls related, and were the two branches of the Collett family known to each other, with two of them having a connection with the same church.

46P95

William John Collett was born at Waterstock in 1901, the last of the four children of Walter George Collett and his first wife Ellen Parker, who tragically died during the birth. His birth was recorded at Thame register office (Ref. a 935) during the first quarter of that year. He was around three months old, when William J Collett from Waterstock was living with his widowed father at Tiddington village, adjacent to Waterstock. At the age of 10 years, schoolboy William Collett of Waterstock was the only child still living with his father at Waterstock, who had remarried when William was four years of age. Up to then, and following the premature death of his mother, William and his older siblings had been cared for by their aunt Esther Collett, their father’s slightly younger unmarried sister.

He was 28 years old, when William J Collett married Margaret A Dennis during the fourth quarter of 1929, the event recorded at Thame register office (Ref. 3a 2652). Maggie Alice Dennis was born at Wheatley at the end of 1903, the daughter of farmer William Dennis and his wife Ada of Wheatley Farm. Over the next five years, Maggie presented William with two daughters. The birth of Ann Collett was recorded at Headington register office (Ref. 3a 1850) during the second quarter of 1932, while the birth of Wynn Collett was recorded at Ploughley register office (Ref. 3a 1756) during the last three months of 1934. On both occasions, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Dennis.

46Q85

Ann Collett

Born in 1932 at Headington

46Q86

Wynn Collett

Born in 1934 at Bicester

46P96

Herbert Collett, who was known as Bert, was the son of Herbert Spencer Collett of Fencott and his wife Mary from Fencott. It seems likely that Bert was born at Murcott where his parents were residing in April 1911, perhaps indicating that he was born later that same year. What is known is that he later married Lizzie.

46P98

Elsie Victoria Collett was born at Ludgershall, just before the end of March 1901, with her birth recorded at Aylesbury register office (Ref. 3a 843) during the second quarter of 1901, the second of the three known children of Herbert James Collett and Emma Kilby. Elise was living with her farming family at Ludgershall in the census of 1901 and was baptised there just over one year later, on 8^th April 1902. The only possible record of her, in the census of 1911, was as granddaughter Eton Collett aged 10 years, when she was living with her widowed father Herbert Collett at the Fencott home of his parents Thomas and Annie Collett. Elsie never married, with the death of Elsie Collett recorded at North Buckinghamshire register office (Vol. 19 1323) just after the start of 1980.

46P101

Edith Margaret Collett was born at Piddington in 1895, with her birth recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 869) during the second quarter of 1896, the eldest child of Albert John Collett and Maud Agnes Cox who were married at Upton-on-Severn in Worcestershire within the six months prior to her birth. In 1901, Edith M Collett was five years old when she and her family had a farm at Tubney, north of Abingdon-on-Thames. Not long after that census day, the family travelled north to Shotteswell near Banbury, where her father took over Edgehill Farm, and it was there that Edith Margaret Collett from Piddington was 16, when she was described as a farmer’s daughter working at home.

46P102

Cecil John Collett was born in 1898 at Piddington, south-east of Bicester, where his birth was recorded (Ref. 3a 897) during the second quarter of that year. He was the second child of Albert and his first wife Maud Cox. By the time of the census in 1901 Cecil, aged three years, was living with his family on their farm at Tubney. Cecil was around eight years old when his mother died during childbirth, after which his father remarried. Her death may have also prompted the next move for the family, since they were living at Shotteswell near Banbury in April 1911, when Cecil John Collett was 13.

Cecil was married twice in his life, the first of them recorded at Woodstock register office (Ref. 3a 1593) during the first three months of 1926, when he married (1) Josephine Edith May Hedges. That marriage produced four known children with their first child born at Oddington, just east of Kidlington, and to the south of Bicester where the birth was recorded. It was there also that the birth of the couple’s second child was recorded, with the third child’s birth recorded at Woodstock register office, by which time the family had taken on the family farm at nearby Hampton Poyle.

Hampton Poyle lies three miles west of Oddington, just outside Kidlington, and it was the farm and land there that Cecil had inherited from his grandfather John Collett (Ref. 46N24), following his death in 1930. Cecil worked on the farm up until it was sold during the late 1940s and, around ten years after the end of the Second World War, Cecil was living in the Brighton area on the south coast of England. During his life, Cecil was a tennis umpire at Wimbledon and members of the family often played tennis with the grandparents of Tim Henman.

Although only four children are shown below, it is possible that there were others, including Cyril, Thomas Collett, and Richard Collett, about whom nothing is known. The birth of William A Collett in 1927 and Edith P Collett in 1928, took place at Henley and, in both cases, the mother’s maiden-name was Hedges. However, they both conflict with the Bicester birth records in 1928 and 1929 of Bernard and Barbara Collett (below). It was understood, within the family, that the children of Cecil John Collett had a very tough up-bringing, which may have caused problems for them in their later life.

New information was received in early 2017 from Cecil’s granddaughter Frances, the daughter of his second son Gerald, which revealed that Edith eventually divorced Cecil because of his womanising, following which he was married for a second time. The marriage of divorced Cecil J Collett and (2) Kathleen M Cave was recorded at Oxford register office (Ref. 6b 1773) during the second quarter of 1953. By the time their daughter was born, three years later, Cecil and Kathleen were residing in Brighton, with the birth of Susan Collett recorded at Surrey twenty years after the birth of Cecil’s previous child.

46Q87

Bernard John Collett

Born in 1928 at Oddington

46Q88

Barbara J Collett

Born in 1929 at Oddington

46Q89

Gerald Albert Collett

Born in 1931 at Hampton Poyle

46Q90

Cecily M Collett

Born in 1936 at Hampton Poyle

The following is the child from Cecil’s second marriage to Kathleen M Cave:

46Q91

Susan Collett

Born in 1956 at Brighton

46P103

Winifred Maud Collett was born at Piddington in 1900, with her birth recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 8970) during the second quarter of the year, another child of Albert and Maud Collett. Almost immediately after she was born, her farming family took up a short-term lease on a farm in Tubney and after that, made a more permanent move to Edgehill Farm in Shotteswell near Banbury. She entered boarding school in the Neithrop district of Banbury before 1911, where she was described as Winifred M Collett aged 10 years from Piddington in the census that year.

Sixteen years later, the marriage of Winifred M Collett and Thomas A Hedges was recorded at Woodstock register office (Ref. 3a 2692) during the second quarter of 1927. The marriage produced three children for Thomas and Winifred whose births were all recorded at Woodstock. They were Jean E M Hedges (Ref. 3a 1800 in Qtr 2 1928), Thomas J A Hedges (Ref. 3a 1928 in Qtr 2 1930), and Olive M Hedges (Ref. 3a 1939 in Qtr3 1931). In each case, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.

46P104

Percy Thomas Collett was born in Warwickshire at Edgehill Farm in Shotteswell, to the north of Banbury, in 1902, with his birth recorded at the Warwickshire register office in Shipston-on-Stour (Ref. 6c 747) during the second quarter of the year. Percy was four years old when his mother died giving birth to his younger sister Maud, following which his father later remarried. By April in 1911 Percy who was nine years old, together with his sister Edith who was sixteen, and brother Cecil (above) who was 13, had moved north with their father and stepmother and were living in the village of Shotteswell, just north of Banbury.

As a young man Percy emigrated to America where he was a minister who travelled widely across the country preaching the word of God. It is established that he became a married man, and that the marriage produced at least one child for the couple. Percy’s known daughter was the grandmother of Erica Robinson of Orient in Ohio who kindly provided the above details on his life in America. Prior to that contact with Erica, it was believed within the Collett family in England that Percy was someone who had a dubious international reputation, whatever that meant. The only other known detail regarding Percy Thomas Collett, is that he died at Palm Beach in Florida.

46P105

Maud Agnes Cox Collett was born at Edgehill Farm in Shotteswell in 1906, with her birth recorded at Shipston-on-Stour register office (Ref. 6d 752) during the first quarter of the year, the last child of Albert John Collett by his first wife Maud Agnes Cox Collett, who died shortly after the birth. It is now established that Maud junior did survive after the death of her mother and that by 1911 she was no longer living with her father and his second wife, perhaps because he blamed Maud for the death of her mother. On that occasion, Maud A C Collett from Banbury was five years old and the niece of Fredrick C Ryder from Bicester, who was 46 and a life insurance agent, and his wife Elizabeth H Ryder from Horton-cum-Studley, who were living with their family at Great Malvern in Worcestershire.

It was much later in her life when Maud A C Collett married Edward G Standhaft at Upton-on-Severn during the second quarter of 1943 (Ref. 6c 489). The couple’s only child was born during the following year, when the birth of Edward C P Standhaft was recorded at Upton-on-Severn register office (Ref. 6c 333) during the third quarter of 1944, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.

46P106

Robert John Collett was born at Shotteswell near Banbury on 3^rd October 1911 after his father Albert John Collett had married Mary Edith Stanger, who was his second wife. In 1947 Robert married Margaret Cossar who was born at Oxford in 1927 and with whom he had four children. Just prior to the couple’s thirtieth wedding anniversary Margaret passed away in 1976 and was followed five years later by Robert John Collett who died during 1981 aged 79. During his life Robert followed in the family tradition and was a farmer, as were many generations of his family before him, and in 1951 he was farming at Henfield in Sussex, having previously farmed land at Hampton Poyle, that farm being sold in the late 1940s to Bill Rogers whose family farmed there until 2009.

46Q92

Aubrey Collett

Born in 1949 at Henfield

46Q93

Stephen Collett

Born in 1951 at Henfield

46Q94

Rachel Collett

Born in 1954 at Henfield

46Q95

Sarah Collett

Born in 1963 at Henfield

46P114

James Thomas Collett was born at Bicester in 1870, the eldest child of George Thomas Collett and Fanny Stone. It was also at Bicester where his birth was recorded (Ref. 3a 624) during the second quarter of 1870. It was simply as James Collett that he was recorded with his parents at Market End in Bicester in 1871 when he was eight months old. The family home at that time was two doors from the Rose & Crown Inn. Ten years later the family’s home was in Water Lane at Market End where James Collett, aged 10 aged years, and it was there also that he was still living with his parents in 1891. On that occasion the census return confirmed that James T Collett was 20 years old.

Midway through the next decade James met and married Emily Smith who was born at Worthing in Sussex. They were married at Horsham in Sussex with the event recorded at Horsham register office (Ref. 2b 675) during the last three months of 1896. The witnesses at the wedding on 3^rd October were George Frogley and Minnie Parker. Once married the couple settled in Cirencester, where their two sons were born during the next four years.

According to the next census in March 1901 the completed family was still living in Cirencester at 7 Queens Street, where James T Collett from Bicester was 30 and a shoeing smith, his wife Emily Collett from Worthing was 26, William G Collett of Cirencester was three and James F Collett, also of Cirencester, was one year old. Living with the family on that occasion were the two youngest sisters of James, they being Emily J Collett who was 26 and Julia S Collett who was 24, both of whom were working as laundresses and both of whom had been born at Bicester. Lodging with the family as a boarder was George Webb who was 23 and a boilermaker with the Great Western Railway.

During the following months the family moved to Emily’s home county of Sussex and in 1902 the couple’s third and last child was born at Chichester, after which the family eventually settled in Horsham. By April 1911 the family of four was residing at 4 Victoria Street in Horsham, Sussex, when James Thomas Collett, aged 40 and from Bicester, was a blacksmith. His wife Emily was 35 and their two sons were recorded as William George Collett who was 13 and James Frank Collett who was 11 years old, both confirmed as being born in Gloucestershire. However, the same census return also stated that James and Emily had given birth to three children, with only the two eldest sons surviving. The registration of the birth of the couple’s eldest son William George Collett took place at the Cirencester register office (Ref. 6a 348) during the first quarter of 1898.

The photograph above was taken during 1945 and shows James with his wife Emily holding their first great grandchild Peter Gwyn Collett, the child of John James Peter Collett. One year after the photograph was taken James and Emily celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary, the event reported in the local newspaper, as follows: “When Mr and Mrs James Collett, 5 Trafalgar Road in Horsham celebrate their Gold Wedding on Thursday, over 20 members of the family will be present. Mr Collett, who was born at Bicester, Oxon, married Miss E Smith at Horsham Parish Church on October 3^rd 1896. Immediately after the marriage they went to live in Cirencester, Glos, returning to Horsham seven years later. For several years Mr Collett was employed by Messrs H & E Lintott Ltd, and in 1930 he became blacksmith at the West Sussex County Council depot at Horsham. He was forced to give up through ill-health in November last year.

There are two sons, Mr William Collett, who is an engine drive with the Southern Railway, and Mr Frank Collett, a service representative of Hoovers. They also have a grandson, an Old Collyerian who, until last year, was in the R.A.F. who is now at Queen’s College, Cambridge, and one great grandson who is 14 months old. Mr Collett had one brother living in Horsham who died several years ago from wounds inflicted during the 1914-18 war. His widow will be present at the Gold Wedding celebrations. Mr and Mrs Collett, both came from families of 13 children, are 76 and 73 years respectively”.

It was nine years later that James Thomas Collett died at the age of 85 while he was living at Chanctonbury near Pulborough in West Sussex, where his death was recorded (Ref. 5h 484) during December 1955.

46Q96

William George Collett

Born in 1898 at Cirencester

46Q97

James Frank Collett

Born in 1899 at Cirencester

46Q98

Arthur Thomas Collett

Born in 1902 at Chichester

46P115

Lucy Ellen Collett was born at Bicester in 1871, the eldest daughter of George and Fanny Collett, her birth recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 630) during the last three months of that year. As Lucy Collett she was nine years old in 1881 and it was as Lucy E Collett aged 19 in 1891 that she was working as a dressmaker, while living at Church Lane, Market End in Bicester with her parents. It seems highly likely that she later entered domestic service and secured a position at the Oxford home of solicitor Frederick P Morrell, a member of the wealthy Morrell Brewery family of Oxford. From 1871 to 1901 the family employed around five or six servants, one of which in the latter half of the 1890s may well have been Lucy Ellen Collett. It is therefore believed that, when Lucy gave birth to a base-born son in 1898, the father was Philip Edward Morrell who was born at Oxford in 1870.

When Lucy realised that she was with-child, she returned home to Bicester, where her son was born and where he was raised by her parents. Even after she was married, her son continued to be looked after by his paternal grandparents. It was over one year after giving birth, when Lucy Ellen Collett married Henry Walduck of Bicester in 1900, the marriage being recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 1047) during the first three months of the year. The two witnesses were John Bates and Florence Ellen Kirby. Once again Lucy was already with-child on the day they married, as the couple’s daughter and first child was born at Bicester not long after.

At the time of the census in 1901 Lucy, her husband and Lucy’s two children were living with Lucy’s parents at Church Lane, Market End in Bicester. On that occasion Lucy was described as Ellen Walduck from Bicester who was 28, her husband Henry Walduck was 33 and a carter on a farm, her son was Herbert Collett who was two, and her daughter was Louisa Walduck who was one year old. It was over three years later that Louisa Emily Walduck died at Church Lane on 6^th November 1904 aged four years, and the daughter of Henry Walduck, a farm labourer, who was present when she passes away, the cause of death being cerebral effusion. Her death was subsequently recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 576) during the last three months of 1904. That same year Lucy also gave birth to the couple’s second daughter.

The census in 1911 recorded the family still living at 2 Church Lane, the Market End home of Lucy’s parents George and Fanny Collett. The family was recorded as farm labourer Henry Walduck who was 42, his wife Lucy Ellen Walduck who was 38, and their daughter Doris May Walduck who was six and born at Bicester. Also residing with the two families was Lucy’s base-born son Herbert John Collett of Bicester who was 12 years old.

That same census return also stated that Lucy and Henry had been married for eleven years and that Lucy had given birth to four children, of which only two were still alive, which would perhaps indicate that she gave birth to another Walduck child around 1903. The birth of Doris May Walduck was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 1077) during the first three months of 1905 and she later married Ernest Turner at Bicester during the summer of 1927. It was twenty-two years later that the death of Lucy E Walduck, nee Collett, was recorded at the Bicester Ploughley register office (Ref. 6b 897) in the last three months of 1949 when she was 78. Eight years prior to that, the death of Henry Walduck was also recorded at Ploughley register office (Ref. 3a 2215) during the fourth quarter of 1941, at the age of 74.

46Q99

Herbert John Collett

Born in 1898 at Bicester

46P116

Emily Jane Collett was born at Bicester in 1874, where her birth was recorded (Ref. 3a 675) during the first quarter of the year, a daughter of George Collett and Fanny Stone. It was at Water Lane in Bicester that she was seven years of age, while ten years later, she had left school and was a general servant of 17 years living with her family at Church Lane in Bicester.

46P117

Julia Susan Collett was born at Bicester in 1877 the third daughter of George and Fanny Collett. She was four years old in 1881 when Julia and her family were living at Water Lane in the Market End area of Bicester and was 14 in 1891 when the family was recorded at Church Lane in Market End. By March 1901 she was one of two sisters living at 7 Queens Street in Cirencester, the home of their married brother James. At that time in her life Julia S Collett from Bicester was 24 and a laundress working with her sister Emily.

It was at Cirencester that Julia Susan Collett married Arthur Edwin Spackman, their wedding being recorded at Cirencester register office (Ref. 6a 655) during the first three months of 1902. The marriage produced two sons for Julia and Arthur, both born at Cirencester, before the family moved to Coventry. The Coventry census of 1911 confirmed the family as Arthur Edwin Spackman, who was 32, Julia Spackman from Bicester who was 33, William George Spackman who was seven and Henry John Spackman who was six, Cirencester being confirmed as the birthplace of both sons.

46P118

Thomas Collett was born at Bicester in 1879, the youngest of the five children of George Collett and Fanny Stone, his birth recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 724) during the last three months of the year. He was one year old in 1881 when he was living at Water Lane in Market End Bicester with his family, and he was still living with his family in 1891 when he was 11. No record of him has been found anywhere in Great Britain in 1901, when he would have been 21. It was seven years later, that the marriage of Thomas Collett and Ada Glossop was recorded at Sheffield register office (Ref. 9c 1057) during the second quarter of 1908. As far as can be determined, they had three daughters, of which only two survived. Prior to being married, Thomas Collett was serving with the King’s Yorkshire Hussars, when he was based in Yorkshire. It is therefore possible that his absence in 1901 might mean that he was again serving with the army, but overseas.

It was at Dronfield, midway between Sheffield and Chesterfield, that the family of four was residing on the day of the census in 1911, their youngest daughter having just been born there, where she was baptised four months later. On that day, Chesterfield registration district of Derbyshire listed the family as Thomas Collett from Bicester who was 31 and a railway drayman employed by the Midlands Railway Company, his wife Ada Collett was also 31 but born in Sheffield, and their two daughters were Nellie Collett who was two years of age and Ida Collett who was two months old. Both daughters were recorded has having been born at Dronfield. Tragically, two years later, the couple’s second daughter died, her death, like the children’s birth, was recorded at Chesterfield, and four years later their third child was born.

It is evident that Thomas served King and Country during the Great War of 1914-18, during which he was severely wounded and made bedbound for the rest of his life. It was for that reason that Thomas, Ada, and daughters Nellie ad Edith, moved south to Horsham in Sussex, where Thomas’ eldest brother James Thomas was already living, and where Thomas and his family could be supported by his brother. And it was at Horsham in 1933, at the time of his death, that the local newspaper there reported that Thomas Collett had died as a result of the injuries he had sustained during the First World War.

46Q100

Nellie Collett

Born in 1908 at Dronfield

46Q101

Ida Collett

Born in 1911 at Dronfield

46Q102

Edith Mary Collett

Born in 1915 at Sheffield

46Q1

William George Collett was born at Southgate in Edmonton in 1887, his birth recorded at Edmonton (Ref. 3a 374) during the third quarter of the year. As simply William, he was three years old in the census of 1891, the only child living with his parents at Chase Road in Southgate. Ten years later he was recorded in the 1901 Census for Southgate as being aged 14, by which time the family was residing in Avenue Road. During the next decade he left the family home in Southgate and by April 1911 he was living and working in the St Marylebone area of London. It was at the home of Thomas Francis, the Earl of Lichfield, that William Collett was employed as a groom at the age of 23. Also living at St Marylebone that day, was Dorothy Collett who was also 23, an unmarried fashion artist born at Brixton. She was living with her mother Alice Rolandi, aged 45 and born at Chelsea.

Seven years later the marriage of William G Collett and Gwendolen L Burnage was recorded at Edmonton register office (Ref. 3a 1358) during the last three months of 1918. It would appear that they had no issue, with the death of William G Collett recorded forty years later at Barnet (Ref. 5a 599) during the second quarter of 1958 when he was 70 years old.

46Q2

Percy William Collett was born at Southgate in 1891 but after the 5^th April that year. He was still living at Southgate in 1901, at Avenue Road, when he was referred to as Percy Collett aged nine years. In the census of 1911, there was no Percy Collett of the right age who was born at Southgate but, as his older brother William had left home by then, it must have been Percy who was referred to as William Collett, aged 20 of Southgate, who was a nursery gardener still living there with his family. Rather curiously, Percy is the only child of William Collett and Louisa Gates for whom no record of birth has been found, nor is it known what happened to him after 1911.

46Q3

Sidney Richard Collett was born at Southgate in 1893, another son of William and Louisa Collett, whose birth was recorded at Edmonton (Ref. 3a 395) during the fourth quarter of the year. He was seven years of age in 1901 when he and his family were living at Avenue Road in Southgate. At the age of 18 in 1911, Sidney was still living at the family home in Southgate, from where he was working as domestic gardener. Ten years after that day, Sidney R Collett married Annie Holmes, the event recorded at Edmonton (Ref. 3a 1648) during the third quarter of 1921. Just over a year after they were married, Annie gave birth to a daughter, the birth of Pamela B Collett was recorded at Edmonton (Ref. 3a 713) during the last quarter of 1922, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Holmes. His daughter was nearly thirty years old, when the death of Sidney R Collett was recorded at Barnett register office (Ref. 5a 479) during the third quarter of 1952, when he was 58.

46R1

Pamela B Collett

Born in 1922 at Edmonton

46Q4

Ena Winifred Collett was born at Southgate on 23^rd September 1895, her birth recorded at Edmonton (Ref. 3a 392) during the final three months of the year. Ena Collett was five in the census of 1901 when living at Avenue Road in Southgate and was 17 years of age in 1911 when she was still living with her family, by which time she was working as a domestic servant. Just over eleven years later, Ena W Collett married Harold E Hibbett, their wedding day recorded at Edmonton (Ref. 3a 1069) during the last three months of 1922. Their daughter Dorothy E Hibbett was born eighteen months after the couple’s special day, her birth recorded at Edmonton (Ref. 3a 1041) during the second quarter of 1924. The child’s mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett. It was at Enfield in 1973 that Ena Winifred Hibbett nee Collett passed away, her death recorded there (Ref. 5b 594) during the early months of the year.

46Q5

Horace Collett was born at Southgate in 1900, one of the sons of William Collett and Louisa Gates, his birth recorded at Edmonton register office (Ref. 3a 464) during the last three months of that year. Horace Collett and Mary Egan were married during 1929, the event recorded at Edmonton (Ref. 3a 1330) in the last three months of the year. As far as can be determined, there were no children and, at some time in their life, the couple resided at 35 Chimes Avenue in Southgate, while the death of Horace Collett was recorded at Edmonton in London (Ref. 5e 235) during the third quarter of 1959 when he was 59. Horace died in The North Middlesex Hospital on 16^th July 1959, when his home address was 28 Sutherland Road in Edmonton. Administration of his personal effects, valued at £653 15 Shillings and 5 Pence, was granted to his widow Mary Collett on 4^th September 1959.

46Q6

Victor Collett was born on 9^th September 1901 at Avenue Road in Southgate, his birth recorded at Edmonton (Ref. 3a 511) during the fourth quarter of the year. He was eight years old in 1911 when living in Southgate with his family. No record of him ever becoming a married man has been discovered, while the death of Victor Collett, aged 86, was recorded at Enfield (Vol. 12 440) during the first months of 1987.

46Q7

Ivy Gwendoline Collett was born on 5^th April 1905 at Southgate, possibly at Avenue Road, with her birth recorded at Edmonton (Ref. 3a 610) during the second quarter of the year. It seems highly likely, as the two youngest children of William Collett and Louisa Gates, that Ivy and her brother Victor (above), may have shared the same accommodation throughout their lives. This is purely an assumption based on the fact that neither of them was married and that their deaths were recorded at Enfield within a year of each other. The death of Ivy Gwendoline Collett was recorded there (Vol. 12 508) during the first months of 1988, with her brother having passed away one year earlier.

46Q8

Edith Simpson Collett was very likely a honeymoon baby born at Daventry in 1900 following the marriage of her parents Spencer Collett and Isabella Kate Simpson at Daventry during the summer of 1899. Edith was six months old in the Daventry census of 1901 when she and her parents were living at 76 Warwick Street, where her parents lived for all their married life. She was 10 years old in 1911 although it was not until 1937 that she eventually became a married woman. Her marriage to Alfred John Paxman was recorded at Daventry register office (Ref. 3b 181) during the second quarter of 1937. Alfred was a surveyor and was named as a joint executor of the Will of his mother-in-law who died in 1957, and again in 1961 following the death of his father-in-law.

46Q11

Marjorie Agnes Collett was born at Daventry in Northamptonshire on 27^th January 1908, the only child of Arthur Albert George Collett and his wife Agnes Annie Smith. Although her birth was recorded at Daventry (Ref. 3b 91) during the first quarter of 1908, it was at Wellingborough where she was baptised on 8^th March 1908, when her parents were confirmed as Arthur and Agnes Collett. That move to Wellingborough was short-lived because, by 1911, three-year-old Marjorie Collett was again living in Daventry with her parents. It was twenty-six years later when Marjorie married John Hubert Reynolds in Daventry on 14^th August 1937, and it was her daughter Janet Reynolds, later Janet Dennis of Swindon, who kindly supplied the latest information about the family of her great grandfather Albert Collett (Ref. 46O3) in 2011.

46Q14

Ethel Collett was born at Southall in 1899, the eldest of the three children of Sydney Slater Collett and Marion Jessie Crosby. Her birth was recorded at Uxbridge register office (Ref. 3a 44) during the second quarter of the year. In 1901 Ethel and her family were residing at Holly Park Road in Hanwell, Middlesex, when she was two years of age. On that census day, her father was visiting Ethel’s grandfather. Sometime within the next two years the family moved to Hampshire where Ethel’s brother was born. That was confirmed in the next census of 1911, when the family was living at 88 Exeter Street in Salisbury, when 12-year-old Ethel was attending school.

46Q15

Olive May Collett was born at Southall in 1900, her birth also recorded at Uxbridge register office (Ref. 3a 89) during the fourth quarter of the year. She was only a few months old on the day of the census in 1901 at Holly Park Road in Hanwell and was 10 years of age in 1911, by which time the family was recorded at 88 Exeter Street in Salisbury.

46Q16

Edward Crosby Collett was born at Boscombe, near Bournemouth, on 23^rd March 1903, the son of Sydney and Marion Collett, who also had his mother’s maiden-name as a second forename. His birth was recorded at Christchurch register office (Ref. 2b 661) during the second quarter of 1903. As simply Edward Collett he was eight years old in the Salisbury census of 1911, while it was twenty-two years later, that the marriage of Edward C Collett and Ruth Bowyer was recorded at Southampton (Ref. 2c 32) during the second quarter of 1933. Their marriage produced four children for Edward and Ruth and, during the previous year, following the death of his father in June 1932, Edward Crosby Collett was named as the administrator of his father personal effects of £294. His occupation was that of an engineer’s assistant.

The births of the first three children were all recorded at Southampton, after which the couple’s fourth child birth was recorded at the New Forest register office. In every case, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Bowyer. Over thirty years later, the death of Edward Crosby Collett was recorded at Southampton register office (Vol. 20 1256) towards the end of 1975.

46R2

a Collett daughter

Born in 1935 at Southampton

46R3

a Collett daughter

Born in 1936 at Southampton

46R4

a Collett son

Born in 1938 at Southampton

46R5

a Collett son

Born in 1942 at New Forest

46Q17

Herbert Philip Collett was born at Belper in 1898, where his birth was recorded (Ref. 7b 647) during the third quarter of that year. He was living with his parents Reginald Philip Collett and Louisa Collett nee Harrison at the Belper farm of his maternal Harrison grandparents in 1901, when he was referred to as Bertie Collett aged two years. It was just five months later when his father died at the age of twenty-four, leaving Bertie and his mother still residing in Belper. A little while later there appears to have been a problem with his health since, on the day of the next census in 1911, a poorly Herbert Collett aged 12 years and from Belper in Derbyshire, was a patient at Westminster Hospital. The hospital was situated by the Broad Sanctuary and on the northern side of the nave of Westminster Abbey within the St George area of London. On that same census day Bertie’s widowed mother was still living on her parents’ farm in Belper. After treatment, he eventually returned to Belper, where the death of Herbert P Collett was recorded (Ref. 7b 744) during the final three months of 1919, when he was 21.

46Q19

Winifred Alice C Collett was very likely a honeymoon baby, having been born at Southampton, either at the end of 1902 or early in 1903, with her birth recorded there (Ref. 2c 33) during the first three months of 1903. She was the eldest of the three children of Auten William Collett and Rose Eldridge, who was eight years old in the Southampton Shirley census of 1911. It was also at Southampton register office that the marriage of Winifred A C Collett and Henry Bartlett was recorded (Ref. 2c 112) during the third quarter of 1924. No record of any children has been found, with the death of Winifred A C Bartlett recorded at Southampton (Ref. 6b 688) during the fourth quarter of 1966, when she was 63.

46Q20

Donald Stewart Collett was born on the 17^th June 1908 at Freemantle in Southampton, like his father and, also like his father, his birth was recorded at South Stoneham register office (Ref. 2c 92) during the third quarter of the year. He was two years old in the Shirley census of 1911, when living there with his old sibling (above) and his parents Auten and Rose Collett. Donald did not move far from where he was born, with his death recorded at the Hampshire New Forest register office (Ref. 6b 1255) in early 1974.

46Q21

John Spencer Collett was born at Southampton on 29^th January 1913, his second forename taken from his paternal grandfather. When his birth was recorded at Southampton register office Ref. 2c 123) during the first quarter of 1913, his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed at Eldridge. In 1939 he was still living with his parents, while working as the chief clerk with an insurance company. Upon the death of his father in 1947, John was not mentioned in his father’s Will proved later that same year in favour of his mother Rose and his older brother Donald Stewart Collett (above). However, he was still alive, because the death of John S Collett took place on 22^nd March 1983, when he was residing at Redhill, off Winchester Road in the Bassett district of Southampton. His Will was later proved in London on 15^th June 1983.

46Q30

George Henry Spencer Collett was born at Southampton on 21^st April 1908, his birth recorded at South Stoneham register office (Ref. 2c 97) during the second quarter of the year. He was the only known child of Arthur Sydney Gubbins Collett and Florence Mary Ransom, with whom he was living in Southampton in 1911 at the age of two years. It was in 1933 that she married, the wedding of George H S Collett and Elizabeth Wood recorded at Southampton (Ref. 2c 76) during the second quarter of that year. At least one child followed and, in 1941, both of his parents were killed in the German air-raids on Southampton, and it was George who was named as the sole beneficiary under the terms of his father’s Will passed through probate on 28^th October 1941.

The birth of their daughter Anne was recorded at Southampton (Ref. 2c 134) during the first three months of 1936, while it was sixty-four years later that the death of George H S Collett was recorded at the Hampshire New Forest register office in early 2000 (Vol. 4941a), when he was 91 years old.

46R6

Anne Collett

Born in 1936 at Southampton

46Q31

Pauline M Collett was born at Southampton in 1933, the eldest of the two children of Reginald Frank Collett and Margery Judd, her birth recorded there (Ref. 2c 125) during the first three months of the year. It was during the first three months of 1956, when the marriage of Pauline M Collett and John R Aslin was recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 6b 1409).

46Q32

David Spencer Collett was born at Southampton on 25^th October 1935, the son of Reginald and Margery Collett, his birth recorded there (Ref. 2c 112) during the last three months of that year. He was still residing in Hampshire, when the death of David S Collett was recorded at Southampton (Vol. 5001 e68) during the summer of 1996, when he was 61.

46Q36

Maisie Collett was born in 1911, but after the census day that year, the eldest child of William Thomas Collett and Amelia Louisa Faulkner. She later married Horace with whom she had a son Geoff. Upon the death of her father, Maisie, and her sister Mabel (below) inherited the land at Hanworth that he had used as a market garden. Both Maisie and her sister had a house built on the land where they were still living in 2011 when Maisie Collett died just a few weeks after celebrating her one-hundredth birthday.

Each day Mabel popped across the back garden to check that her older sister Maisie was alright. Sadly, on Monday 11^th July 2011, Mabel discovered Maisie lying on the floor, having had a stroke. She called the emergency services but, by the time the paramedics arrived, Maisie had suffered a second stroke. She was subsequently rushed to hospital where she died later that same day.

46Q37

Bert Collett, whose date of birth is not known, later married Ethel from the West Country. Since they did not have children of their own, the couple adopted.

46Q38

Mabel J Collett was born at Staines in 1926, her birth recorded there (Ref. 3a 25) during the second quarter of that year, her mother’s maiden-name being Joyes. She later married Cyril M Freeman, with their marriage recorded at the Middlesex South register office (Ref. 5f 43) during the first three months of 1949. The married produced two children for the couple, they being Marion Freeman whose birth was recorded at Middlesex (Ref. 5f 37) during the third quarter of 1951 and Stuart Freeman whose birth was recorded at Middlesex (Ref. 5f 64) during the third quarter of 1954. Following the death of her father, the market gardener William Thomas Collett, Mabel and her sister Maisie (above) were bequeathed the land, upon which the two sisters built two separate dwellings, in which they were still living in 2011. It was Mabel who alerted the emergency services on 11^th July 2011, when she found her sister Maisie on the floor of her home, having suffered the effect of a stroke, from which she died in hospital later that day.

46Q40

Thomas Ralph Austin Collett, who was known as Tom, was born within the borough of Camberwell, London on 16^th March 1909, the eldest child of Andrew Ralph Collett and his first wife Edith. In the East Dulwich census of 1911, he was two years and was living there with his family, which also included his stepsister Irene Edith Austin, his mother’s daughter from her first marriage. Thomas married Amy Maud Arthey, but sadly the marriage produced no children for Thomas and Amy. When that happened, the couple adopted a daughter. Thomas Ralph Austin Collett, whose forenames derived from his grandfather, his father, and his mother, died on 13^th January 1990.

Tom’s wife Amy survived him by just over ten years, when she died in July 2000. The funeral for Tom took place at Forest Hill Methodist Church 24^th January 1990, following which his ashes were placed in his father’s grave at Camberwell New Cemetery. Following the passing of his widow, when her ashes were also placed there, a memorial stone was erected on the grave, and contains the following inscription.

In Loving Memory Of

My Dear Husband Thomas R A Collett (Tom) who died on 13^th Jan 1990 Aged 80

Amy Maud Collett who died 30^th July 2000 Aged 95

Together at Last

46Q41

Isabel Doris Collett was born at East Dulwich on 27^th August 1910 and was seven months old in early April 1911. She was the eldest daughter of Andrew and Edith Collett. Her mother died in 1919, following which her father remarried. Isabel attended St John's NP School in Northcross Road, and then won a scholarship to James Allen's Girls' School. It was while she was at St John’s School that she fell out with her stepmother, which resulted in her going to live with her aunt Nell Pipe (formerly Eleanor Mary Collett Ref. 46P35) and her husband, uncle Arthur Pipe. And it was with them that she lived through to her twenties.

On leaving school she worked for Unilever and was a teacher of evening classes at the Comptometer School where she had previously completed her education. From the late 1930s to the start of the Second World War, Isabel was involved with the Red Cross, eventually working the night-shift at Dulwich Hospital. During that same time in her life, she joined the St John’s Ambulance Brigade as a first-aider at Unilever House and became engaged to her future husband in November 1939.

It was also around that time when Isabel was staying at the Farncombe Surrey home of widow Elizabeth (Bess) Frances Colpus nee Collett, her father’s older sister, which was where she was living immediately prior to her wedding day. That took place on 14^th December 1940, under a special licence from the Army, when Isabel Doris Collett married Richard Alfred Wood at Compton in Surrey, just two miles from Farncombe. Because of the war, Richard had to return to camp the day after they were married. He was later posted to Ripon in Yorkshire as an RSME Instructor, causing Isabel to request a transfer to the Unilever office in Leeds.

The marriage produced two children for Isabel and Richard, the first being Edith Janet Wood who was born in 1942, while the couple were living at Ripon, and Nigel Richard Wood who was born in 1946, after the family had returned to London at the end of the war. Sadly, Nigel died from cancer on 23^rd September 1991 while he was living at Bath. In May 1947 the family moved again, that time to ‘Failand’ at 5 Bray Road in Stoke d’Abernon near Cobham in Surrey.

Isabel Doris Wood nee Collett died at Markfield near Leicester on 24^th January 2000, following a nasty fall on the night of 15^th December 1999, from which she never recovered. Her husband Richard Alfred Wood survived her by nearly five years, when he passed away on 20^th November 2004. It was Isabel’s daughter Janet Wood of Hinckley, who first made contact to extend this branch of the Collett family, and it was also Janet who arranged for contact to be made with her Auntie Edie, Edith Ballard nee Collett (below).

46Q42

Olive May Collett was born at East Dulwich on 1^st January 1913. She later married a widower by the name of Nip West, who was a farm labourer. The wedding of Olive M Collett and Hubert F West was recorded at the Surrey South-Western register office (Ref. 2a 1525) during the third quarter of 1941. The couple lived at Horley in Surrey and had five children, three boys and two girls. In each case, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett. Olive later became a matriarch with both grandchildren and great grandchildren and it was on 2^nd September 2004 that Olive May West nee Collett passed away. Her eldest child, Geoffrey A West, was born in 1943, his birth recorded at Horsham Sussex register office (Ref. 2b 438) during the second quarter of that year. He died on Saturday 24^th August 2013 aged 70, when the cause of death was lung cancer following a short illness, while he was staying at a hospice, having lived most of his life in the town of Horley in Surrey.

The other four children of Olive May and Hubert F West were: Derek W West whose birth was also recorded at Horsham register office (Ref. 2b 400) during the third quarter of 1945; Kathleen P West whose birth was again recorded at Horsham register office (Ref. 5h 652) during the last quarter of 1946; Peter B West whose birth was recorded at the Surrey South-Eastern register office (Ref. 5g 961) during the fourth quarter of 1948; and Audrey M West whose birth was also recorded at Surrey South-Eastern register office (Ref. 5g 872) during the third quarter of 1950.

46Q43

Mabel Eileen Collett was born at East Dulwich in 1915 and died in 1926, the cause of death being diphtheria.

46Q44

Edith Collett was born at East Dulwich on 16^th December 1919, the youngest of the five children of Andrew and Edith Collett. Tragically, her mother died during the birth, so for almost two years Edith and her siblings were looked after by their father and their grandmother, until he remarried in 1921. Edith married Ernest James Ballard on 29^th November 1947 and their marriage produced two children for Edith and Ernest. Colette Frances Ballard was born in 1952, and Howard Andrew Ballard was born in 1959. Colette married Ronald James Cook with whom she had two children Heather Louise Cook who was born in September 1985 and Douglas Edward Cook who was born in November 1988.

Howard Andrew Ballard married and had three children, Miriam Ballard born in 1992, Joshua Ballard born in 1995 and Benjamin Ballard who was born in 1998. Sadly, it was between the births of those latter two grandchildren that Ernest James Ballard passed away on 6^th September 1996 at the age of 81. In the autumn of 2010, Edith Ballard, who is Auntie Edie to the aforementioned Janet Wood of Hinckley, was living in the Chingford area of Essex, and it is thanks to her and Janet that the story of their family can be told. At the age of 97, Edith Ballard nee Collett passed away on 7^th September 2017, having spent much of the last year of her life in and out of hospital. Such was her frailty, that her last few months were spent in a nursing home in Upminster, close to her daughter Colette. Her funeral service was conducted just a month and two days later at the South Chingford Methodist Church.

46Q49

Joan Kathleen Collett was the last child of Andrew Ralph Collett and his second wife Mabel Farmer and was born on 14^th October 1926, her birth recorded at the London Camberwell register office (Ref. 1d 1038). It was also at Camberwell that her marriage to Cyril Stanley Carr was recorded (Ref. 5c 513) during the third quarter of 1947. It was during the following year that their only child was born, with the birth of Alan M Carr recorded at Lambeth register office (Ref. 5c 2078) during the second quarter of 1948, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett. Cyril Stanley Carr was born on 14^th October 1923 his birth recorded in London at St George Hanover Square (Ref. 1a 616) during the third quarter of that year, when his mother’s maiden-name was said to be Luxton. Sometime after the birth of their son, the family left London, when they moved to the Midlands.

In their later years, Cyril and Joan were residing in the county of Leicestershire, when the death of Cyril Stanley Carr was recorded at Leicester register office (Vol. 6001a a17d) during the summer of 2005. Joan continued to live in the county after losing her husband and nearly fifteen years later, during the night of 15^th/16^th May 2019, she passed away at the age of 92. Sadly, she had been bed-ridden since Christmas 2018 with carers going in double handed, four times a day. There was a slight delay in arranging the funeral due to the coroner having to be involved since the last GP visit was conducted by a registered nurse practitioner and not an actual doctor. As a result, her funeral at Loughborough Crematorium was delayed until Wednesday 5^th June. It was also at Loughborough, in Leicestershire, that her son Alan was also living in 2019.

46Q51

Albert Edward Collett was born at Glympton during 1899, the second of the five children of Frederick William Clark Collett and his wife Alice. He was one year old and 11 years of age in the Glympton census returns for 1901 and 1911. Nothing more about him or his life is known at this time except that it seems highly likely that the death of a certain Albert Edward Collett at Reading, was a reference to this particular gentleman.

Albert Edward Collett was 61 years old when he died on 13^th March 1961, his death being recorded at Reading register office (Ref. 6a 202) that same month. Although it was in the Royal County of Berkshire that he died, it was at Oxford that his Will was proved on 11^th July 1961. During the probate process it was confirmed that Albert Edward Collett had died when he was a patient at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, while his home address recorded as 13 Wakemans at Upper Basildon in Berkshire. It was also confirmed that he died on 13th March 1961 and that administration of his personal effects, amounting to £647 9 Shillings, was Edith Collett widow.

46Q55

Jack Collett was born at Charlton-on-Otmoor in 1901, most likely at the home of his Collett grandparents, when his birth was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 967) during the last quarter of that year. He was the base-born son of Ellen Rebecca Collett and was baptised at Charlton on 10^th November 1901, when the only parent named was his mother, Ellen Collett. It was eight months later that he was received into the congregation of the parish church in Charlton on 20^th July 1902. On the day of the next census in 1911, Jack Collett was living with his elderly grandparents William and Mary Ann Collett at their home Charlton-on-Otmoor. Grandson Jack was nine years of age, had been born at Charlton, and was attending school at that time.

Fifteen years later Jack Collett married Freda Charlotte Anne Honour, aged 24, a spinster of Fir Tree House in Murcott, and the daughter of Herbert Edwin Honour, a hay-dealer. The wedding ceremony took place in the Charlton parish church on 14^th July 1926, when Jack was recorded as being a bachelor of 24, who was a Metropolitan Police Constable of 58 Sirday Road in Notting Dale, W11. Interestingly, the section where it usually states ‘the groom was the son of’ was left blank. Notting Dale lies just west of Notting Hill.

The marriage of Jack and Freda produced four children, the births of which were all recorded at Kensington register office between 1928 and 1936, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Honour.

46R7

Montague A H Collett

Born in 1928 at Kensington

46R8

Theodore William H Collett

Born in 1930 at Kensington

46R9

Murray Noel Collett

Born in 1933 at Kensington

46R10

Kathleen R Collett

Born in 1936 at Kensington

46Q56

Edwin Collett was born at Finchley in London, the first of the five children of Edwin Charles Collett and Rose May Ransom. His birth was recorded at Barnet (Middlesex) register office (Ref. 3a 431) during the third quarter of the 1906. It was also at Finchley that he was the only child living with his parents in 1911, following the death of his baby sister during the previous nine months. Many years later, an Edwin Collett, who may have been this Edwin Collett, died on 3^rd September 1948 at 143 Oxford Road in the London area of East 17. He was married to Florence Hannah Collett who was the administrator for his personal effects of £366 3 Shillings and 2 Pence, his Will being proved in London on 26^th October 1948. The earlier marriage of Edwin Collett and Florence Hannah Gibbs was recorded at Wandsworth register office (Ref. 1d 1644) during the third quarter of 1930.

46Q57

Rose May Collett was born at Finchley in 1908 and was named after her mother Rose May Ransom, the wife of Edwin Collett, from Fencott. Her birth was recorded at Barnet register office (Ref. 3a 461) during the second quarter of the year, where her death was recorded two years later (Ref. 3a 169) during the second quarter of 1910.

46Q58

Mary C Collett was born at Finchley in 1911 and was the third child of Edwin and Rose Collett, her birth recorded at Barnet register office (Ref. 3a 865) during the third quarter of the year, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Ransom. Mary was twenty-six when she married William L Robinson, the event recorded at Barnet register office (Ref. 3a 1507) during the second quarter of 1937.

46Q59

William Collett was born at Finchley in 1913, his birth recorded at Barnet register office (Ref. 3a 782) during the last quarter of the year, his mother’s maiden-name confirmed as Ransom. It is possible, although not proved, that William Collett married Ivy P Ginn, the event recorded at Hendon register office (Ref. 3a 1468) during the second quarter of 1941.

46R11

Ray William Collett

Born in 1943 at Hendon

46Q60

Charles Collett was born at Finchley in 1915, his birth recorded at Barnet register office (Ref. 3a 705) during the final three months of that year.

46Q61

Henry Collett was born at Finchley in 1919, his birth recorded at Barnet register office (Ref. 3a 666) during the third quarter of the year. He was the last child of Edwin Collett and Rose May Ransom. It is possible, although not proved, that Henry Collett married Ada F Bryant, the event recorded at Hendon register office (Ref. 3a 1538b) during the third quarter of 1941.

46Q62

Lewis Henry Collett was born on 6^th July 1913, the eldest child of Lewis Spencer and Florence Hobbs, his birth recorded at Daventry register office (Ref. 3b 168) during the third quarter of the year. No record has been found to suggest that he was ever married, and the death of Lewis Henry Collett was recorded at Northampton during the summer of 1993, when he was around 80 years of age.

46Q63

George William Collett was born in 1915 and his birth, like those of his siblings, was recorded at Daventry (Ref. 3b 164) during the first three months of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Hobbs. He was twenty-five years old when he married Gwendoline Ashby, the event recorded at Northampton register office (Ref. 3a 140) during the third quarter of 1940. No record has been found to indicate they had any children.

46Q64

Marjorie Collett was born in 1918, her birth recorded during the first quarter of the year at Daventry register office (Ref. 3a 124), when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Hobbs. Marjorie would have been around twenty-two years old when her marriage to Sidney G Ward was recorded at All Saints Church in Brixworth (Ref. 3b 369) during the first quarter of 1940.

46Q65

Arthur R Collett was born in 1921 and his birth was also recorded at Daventry (Ref. 3b 164) during the last quarter of the year, his mother’s maiden-name confirmed as Hobbs.

46Q66

Derrick Peter Collett was the twin brother of Spencer Collett (below), whose births were recorded at Daventry register office (Ref. 3b 144) during the third quarter of 1923. He was born on 6^th July 1923 and, although no record of him being married has been discovered, his death recorded at Northampton towards the end of 1990, reversed his forenames. So, it was as Peter Derrick Collett, aged 67, that his passing was recorded there (Vol. 7 2793).

46Q67

Spencer Collett was the last child of Lewis Spencer Collett and Florence Hobbs. As the younger twin brother of Derrick Peter Collett (above) his birth was recorded at Daventry register office (Ref. 3b 144), during the third quarter of 1923, just after the entry for his twin brother, when their mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Hobbs.

46Q68

William G Collett was born at Horton-cum-Studley after the census day in 1911 and was a honeymoon baby who birth was recorded at Headington register office (Ref. 3a 2114) during the third quarter of the year. He was the eldest of the three children of William Collett, a wheelwright, and his wife Annie Elizabeth Buckle. The marriage of William G Collett and Lilian L King was recorded at Oxford register office (Ref. 3a 3496) during the last quarter of 1935, and produced three children. It was also at Oxford where the births of the three children were recorded, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as King. The first during the second quarter of 1936 (Ref. 3a 2099), the second during the third quarter of 1937 (Ref. 3a 2194) and the last during the third quarter of 1944 (Ref. 3a 2677).

46R12

William J Collett

Born in 1936 at Oxford

46R13

Susan A Collett

Born in 1937 at Oxford

46R14

Hazel Collett

Born in 1944 at Oxford

46Q71

Winifred Mary Collett was born on 14^th August 1921, around nine months after her parents Richard James Collett and Elsie K Read, were married with their wedding recorded at Thame, where Winifred’s birth was also recorded (Ref. 3a 1908) during the third quarter of 1921, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Read. Winifred was nearly 21 years of age when she married Thomas W Ward. Their marriage was recorded at the Bicester Ploughley register office (Ref. 3a 4557) during the second quarter of 1942, following which they had three daughters. All three birth were recorded at Ploughley, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett. They were Janet M Ward (Ref. 3a 2769) during the first three months of 1944, Margaret Ward (Ref. 6b 1555) during the summer of 1947, and Dorothy Ward (Ref. 6b 1314) during the third quarter of 1950. Winifred Mary Ward, nee Collett, was 84 when she died, with her passing recorded at Oxfordshire register office (Vol. 6951i i04d) during the month of October in 2005.

46Q76

Roy Allan Collett was born in 1934, his birth recorded at Northampton (Ref. 3b 88) during the last three months of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Frost. Roy was around thirty-three-years of age when he married Evelyn P West, the event recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 9c 2985) during the third quarter of 1968. The births of their son and daughter were both recorded at Solihull (Vol. 34 605) during Qtr 3 in 1982 and (Vol. 34 720) during Qtr 2 in 1983, then their mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as West.

46R15

Peter John Collett

Born in 1982 at Solihull

46R16

Jane Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1983 at Solihull

46Q77

Brian Rowland Collett was born in Northamptonshire during the first quarter of 1941, the younger of the two sons of Rowland Thomas Collett and Gladys Frost. His birth, as Brian R Collett, was recorded at Brixworth (Ref. 3b 300), when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Frost. Brian later married Susan A Coles, the wedding recorded at Towcester register office (Ref. 3b 1583) during the first months of 1973. Their two sons were born in the village of Moreton Pinkney, with their births recorded at Northampton register office (Vol. 7 2516) in Qtr 3 1978 and (Vol. 7 3213) during Qtr 2 1980. In September 2015, Brian and his wife Sue, were still living in Northamptonshire when their son Martin made contact and offered to provide information currently missing for this particular family. All that is known, at the moment, is that Martin lives in Forest Hill in London, while his older brother Gary lives in the Clerkenwell area of the city.

46R17

Gary John Collett

Born in 1978 at Moreton Pinkney

46R18

Martin Brian Collett

Born in 1980 at Moreton Pinkney

46Q78

Gordon Dean Collett was born in Warwickshire on 27^th August 1931 and his birth was recorded at the Rugby register office (Ref. 6d 1093) during the last three months of that year. He was the eldest of the three children of Basil Dean Collett and Olive M Goode. Gordon was married in 1953 to (1) Gladys M Goode from whom he was later divorced, but with whom he had four children. It was during the fourth quarter of 1953 that the marriage was recorded at Rugby register office (Ref. 9C 1531) when, it would appear, his wife was related to a member of Gordon’s mother’s family. Much later in his life he married (2) Patricia Bidwell, that wedding taking place during July 1993 and recorded at the Mid-Warwickshire register office (Vol. 31 688). The children from his first marriage are as listed below.

Gordon was a colourful and well-respected, high-powered figure within the local politics of Warwickshire for a great many years. He was twice the Leader of Warwickshire County Council, from 1978 to 1987 and again from 1989 to 1995, while holding the office of Mayor of Rugby in the year 1977/78. During that year his name was included on a brass plate to mark the opening of St Andrews Garden in Rugby to commemorate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. He was a champion for climate change and, in the council chamber, he was known for his quips, often referred to as Collettisms, such as ‘a pig with one ear can't walk straight’. He farmed at Malvern Hall Farm in Broadwell, Warwickshire, up until the time he moved into the town of Dunchurch. Gordon Dean Collett died at Rugby on 4^th November 2012.

The following day the article below was published in the Rugby Advertiser newspaper. “Gordon Collett has sadly died aged 81. The former Rugby borough councillor died yesterday (Sunday) after battling with cancer. Rugby MP Mark Pawsey led the tribute to Mr Collett saying ‘I was very sad to hear the news about Gordon. It came as a shock. I was very involved on a couple of local political issues. We have a lot to be grateful to Gordon for. It’s a great sadness.’ Mr Collett from Dunchurch served as a borough councillor for 34 years.

Gordon, who was also a Warwickshire county councillor, is chiefly remembered as one of the forerunners who fought off plans to build a huge airport on two Rugby villages. When Mr Collett stepped down from his borough councillor role in May 2007 he said ‘It has been an extraordinary experience. I took on the role of councillor in 1973 to help ensure that people living in rural parishes get a fair crack of the whip, and I hope I have achieved that. I came into the council as an independent but later became a Conservative councillor. But I have never been one to agree to things just because it was a Conservative idea. The two biggest things I will take away with me is being a small cog in a big wheel which help resist the development of Rugby Airport, and helping to keep Leamington Hastings School open against all the odds.”

46R19

Valerie A Collett

Born in 1955 at Warwick

46R20

Philip Gordon Collett

Born in 1956 at Warwick

46R21

David E Collett

Born in 1958 at Warwick

46R22

Angela Muriel Collett

Born in 1966 at Warwick

46Q79

Eileen R Collett was born in 1933, her birth recorded at Rugby (Ref. 6a 1123) during the third quarter of that year, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Goode.

46Q80

Alice M Collett was born in 1937 and her birth, like those of her two older siblings, was recorded at Rugby register office (Ref. 6d 1164) during the first three months of the year, where her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Goode. She was the youngest child of Basil Dean Collett and Olive M Goode and was around eighteen years of age when her marriage to John D Goode (a relative of her mother?) was recorded at Rugby (Ref. 9c 2615) during the first quarter of 1956.

46Q81

John F Collett was born in 1928, his birth recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1541) during the third quarter of the year. He was the eldest of the four children of Walter Cecil F Collett and Edith Balchin. The marriage of John F Collett and Mabel J Forbes was also recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 6a 1261) during the first three months of 1956. The births of their two daughters were likewise recorded at Wycombe, where their mother’s maiden-name was confirmed a Forbes.

46R23

Shirley J Collett

Born in 1959 at Wycombe

46R24

Amanda J Collett

Born in 1961 at Wycombe

46Q82

Margaret M Collett was born in 1931, another daughter of Walter and Edith Collett, whose birth was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1592) during the first quarter of that year, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Balchin. She was twenty years of age when her marriage to Terence F Williams was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 6a 1394) during the third quarter of 1951. Their two children were born during the next eight years, the births of both of then recorded at Wycombe register office, where their mother’s maiden-name was confirmed at Collett. Janet M Williams was born in 1955 Qtr 3 (Ref. 6a 653) and David J Williams was born in 1959 Qtr 4 (Ref. 6a 733).

46Q83

Peter M Collett was born in 1936 and was the third child of Walter and Edith Collett. His birth, like those of his siblings, was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1699) during the last three months of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed ad Balchin. Peter M Collett was 31 when his marriage to Nita Fodden was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 6a 1746) during the third quarter of 1968.

46Q84

Roger J Collett was born in 1940, the last of the four children of Walter Cecil F Collett and Edith Balchin. His birth was also recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 2859) during the third quarter of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Balchin.

46Q87

Bernard John Collett was born at Oddington on 23^rd May 1928, the son of Cecil John Collett and Josephine Edith May Hedges. It was at the Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 1746) that his birth was recorded a little while later during the start of the third quarter of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Hedges. He later married Mavis Heritage at the end of the 1940s with whom he had eleven children, the first of them born prior to their wedding day. The couple’s seventh child Nicholas Mark Collett was born on 23^rd June 1960 at Banbury and he confirmed that his father came from a farming background at Hampton Poyle. Bernard John Collett died on 27^th March 1980 at Weedon Bec in Northamptonshire.

His son Nicholas recalls that he and his family lived at Culworth in Northamptonshire for a short period before moving to Preston Fields Farm, between nearby Preston Capes and Charwelton. In addition to this, when the family was living at Preston Capes it was known that the inn at Moreton Pinkney was managed by Brian Collett who, in 2013, was a member of the Parish Council in Moreton Pinkney. He is Brian Rowland Collett (Ref. 46Q64), a distant cousin of Bernard John Collett.

46R25

Maureen Jane Collett

Born in 1948 at Brighton

46R26

Penelope Louise Collett

Born in 1953 at Bromsgrove

46R27

Catherine Collett

Born in 1954 at Guildford

46R28

Diana Lesley Collett

Born in 1956 at Guildford

46R29

David John Richard Collett

Born on 21.09.1957 at Banbury

46R30

Sally Ann Collett

Born in 1959 at Banbury

46R31

Nicholas Mark Collett

Born in 1960 at Banbury

46R32

Isabel Bernice Collett

Born in 1961 at Banbury

46R33

Sarah Rose Collett

Born in 1963 at Banbury

46R34

Michele Caroline Collett

Born in 1964 at Banbury

46R35

Suzanne Josephine Collett

Born in 1966 at Banbury

46Q88

Barbara J Collett was born at Oddington in 1929, her birth recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 1825) during the third quarter of 1929, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Hedges. She was the eldest of the two daughters of Cecil and Josephine Collett. It was also at Oxford register office that the marriage of Barbara J Collett and Clifford H Austin was recorded during the third quarter of 1950 (Ref. 6b 2294), following which Barbara presented Clifford with a son and a daughter. Philip J Austin was born in 1952 and Rosemary J Austin was born eighteen months after in 1953, when the children’s mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett

46Q89

Gerald Albert Collett was born at Oddington on 11^th January 1931, the third of the four children of Cecil Collett and Josephine Edith May Hedges. His birth as Gerald A Collett was recorded at Woodstock register office (Ref. 3a 1816) during the first three months of that year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Hedges. The marriage of Gerald A Collett and (1) Lilian Joyce Lester was recorded at Ploughley (Bicester) register office (Ref. 6b 2297) during the first quarter of 1951. Later that same year their daughter was born in her grandmother's cottage at Hampton Poyle, just north of Kidlington in Oxfordshire. Four years later the family moved north to Chacombe, just over the county boundary into south Northamptonshire. It was while they were living at Grange Farm in Chacombe that the couple’s remaining three children were born, the first two of them born in the Neithrop Hospital at Banbury, while the last of them was born in the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford.

A few years after the birth of their fourth child, Gerald left the family home, when he moved to Aylesbury with another woman, leaving Lilian to bring up her fourth children alone. It was also at Aylesbury register office (Ref. 19 0909) that the marriage of Gerald A Collett and (2) Deanna J James was recorded during the spring of 1974, presumably following his divorce from Lilian. Deanne was much younger that Gerald, her birth having been recorded in Oxford (Ref. 3a 3255) during the first three months of 1940. Sometime after they were married, the couple travelled south to Sussex on the south coast, where Gerald’s father had been living since the 1950s. The death of Gerald Arthur Collett was recorded at the Brighton register office (Vol. 4521a a53a) during the summer of 1996, aged 65. Although not proved, it seems that before the end of that same year, Deanna J Collett married Stephen A Osborne, the event possibly recorded in Hampshire.

Lilian Joyce Collett, nee Lester, was still living in Oxfordshire when she died in Witney Hospital on 22^nd March 2010.

46R36

Frances A D Collett

Born in 1951 at Hampton Poyle

46R37

Andrew J G Collett

Born in 1956 at Banbury (Chacombe)

46R38

Peter T Collett

Born in 1958 at Banbury (Chacombe)

46R39

Michael James Collett

Born in 1968 at Oxford (Chacombe)

46Q90

Cecily M Collett was born at Hampton Poyle in 1936, the youngest of the four known children of Cecil and Josephine Collett, whose birth was recorded at Ploughley (Bicester) register office (Ref. 3a 1825) during the last quarter of the year, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Hedges. It was during the second quarter of 1961, also at Ploughley register office (Ref. 6b 1877), that the marriage of Cecily M Collett and Richard W Kimber was recorded. Richard was born in 1937, when his birth was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1702) at the start of 1937. After they were married, the couple initially settled in Henley, although it was at High Wycombe register office that the births of their two sons were recorded. They are Richard James Kimber in 1968 Qrt 3 (Ref. 6a 1021), a farmer in West Wales, and Robert Edward Kimber in 1974 Qrt 1 (Ref. 6a 2124), a school teacher. For both births, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett. Cecily M Kimber died peacefully at home on 15^th July 2023.

46Q91

Susan Collett was born at Brighton in 1956, the daughter of Cecil J Collett and his second wife Kathleen M Cave. Susan’s birth was recorded at the Surrey South-Western register office (Ref. 5g 1107) during the second quarter of the year, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Cave. She later married Paul E Alexander during the summer of 1977, the marriage recorded at Reading & Wokingham register office (Vol. 19 0408). The marriage produced two sons for the couple who were thought to be living in Oxford during 2013. Their births were recorded at the Reading & Wokingham register office, where their mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett, the first of them being Matthew James Alexander (Vol. 19 446) during the first quarter of 1983, the other Michael David Alexander (Vol. 19 413) during the second quarter of 1985.

46Q93

Stephen Collett was born at Henfield in Sussex during 1951, the youngest of the two sons of Robert John Collett and Margaret Cossar. He later married Christine Cole at Olney in Buckinghamshire in 1980, Christine having been born at Bedford in 1956. The marriage produced two children for Stephen and Christine while they were living at Filgrave near Newport Pagnell, and both children were born at the Barrett Maternity Hospital in Northampton. Stephen had been a farmer like his father before him, but had retired by 2009, when he and Christine were living at Ixworth in Suffolk.

In June 2011 Stephen was hoping to write a book about his experiences surrounding his attempts to secure the release of his sister, Rachel (below), and her husband Paul, from Somali pirates who had kidnapped them in October 2009. However, by 2015 and after giving up on the book, Stephen had established a company investing in solar power. He and Chris love to travel and recently visited Cuba and Vietnam, while Stephen and his son Oliver spent two weeks cycling in Japan in the early 2015.

46R40

Leah Collett

Born in 1981 at Northampton

46R41

Oliver Collett

Born in 1983 at Northampton

46Q94

Rachel Collett was born at Henfield in 1954, the eldest of the two daughters of Robert John Collett and Margaret Cossar. She later married Paul Chandler and upon their retirement they embarked on a sailing trip around the world. However, during October 2009, the couple and their yacht were taken by Somali pirates off the coast of the African continent. For thirteen months they were held captive, until their release in November 2010, thanks to the tremendous efforts of Rachel’s brother Stephen (above). Due for release in September 2011 is Rachel’s account of their ordeal, which is entitled ‘Hostage – A Year at Gunpoint with Somali Gangsters’. Rachel and Paul are still sailing in 2015, but now in the safer waters of the Caribbean, after having sailed much of the east coast of South America down to Argentina.

46Q96

William George Collett was born at Cirencester in 1898 where his birth was recorded (Ref. 6a 348) during the first quarter of 1898. He was the eldest of the two sons of James Thomas Collett from Bicester and Emily Smith from Worthing and was three years old in March 1901 when he and his family were living at 7 Queens Street in Cirencester. However, by the time of the next census in 1911 the family was living at 4 Victoria Street in Horsham where William George Collett was 13. It was at Wood Green in Haringey, London where on 21^st December 1918, he married Gwendoline Lily Burage the daughter of William Burage, a house decorator, Gwendoline having been born on 18^th March 1897. At that time in his life William was a locomotive fireman living at 13 Station Road in Wood Green, and his father was confirmed as James Thomas Collett, a blacksmith. There is a strong indication that the marriage produced no children for the couple.

In April 1940 William was employed by the London & Brighton South Coast Railway Company at Horsham, and it was at a property by the name of ‘Highlands’ on Highland Avenue in Horsham that William George Collett, aged 53, died on 24^th October 1951, the death being recorded at Horsham (Ref. 5h 507). His Will was proved in London on 29^th December 1951 when his widow Gwendoline Lily Collett was the sole executor of his personal effects which amounted to £648 3 Shillings and 8 Pence. It was many years later, during the first three months of 1965, that Gwendoline remarried to become Gwendoline Lily Smithers, which was how she was recorded at the time of her death at Crawley in West Sussex during March 1977 when she was 80 years of age.

46Q97

James Frank Collett was born at Cirencester on 22^nd December 1899, the second son of James and Emily Collett. He was one year old in the Cirencester census of 1901 when he and his family were living at 7 Queens Street in the town, although the family later moved to Horsham in Sussex, where James Frank Collett was 11 years old in the census of 1911. During the early months of 1918 James joined the Royal Flying Corps, where he served as an air mechanic, having been a motor mechanic prior to enlisting. He later married Isabel Mary Pelling at Horsham during the third quarter of 1922, the wedding being recorded at the Horsham register office (Ref. 2b 788). Their marriage produced a son, and at some time later in their life Frank and Belle, as they were known, took over the running the Fox and Hounds at Small Dole in Sussex, where Frank was the publican for a number of years. James Frank Collett died at Horsham on 30^th May 1975.

46R42

John James Peter Collett

Born in 1924 at Horsham

46Q98

Arthur Thomas Collett was born at Chichester during July 1902, just after his family had moved there from Gloucestershire. Not long after he was born the family went to live in Horsham, and it was there that Arthur Thomas Collett died at the age of five years during 1907.

46Q99

Herbert John Collett was born at Bicester in 1898, the base-born son of Lucy Ellen Collett, his birth recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 871) during the last three months of that year. His mother married Henry Walduck of Bicester during 1900 and it was as Herbert Collett aged two years that he was living at the Church Lane home of his grandparents with his mother, his stepfather, and his half-sister, on the day of the census in 1901. It was the same situation ten years later when grandson Herbert John Collett, aged 12, was still living at 2 Church Lane in Market End, Bicester with his grandparents. At that time in his life the census return indicated he was still attending school, whilst holding a part-time job as page boy.

All that is currently known about Herbert J Collett after 1911, is that he was a young recruit when he signed up for service in the First World War. At the age of eighteen, Trooper Herbert Collett was mentioned in despatches, with the following item printed in the local press under the headline “Tpr H Collett gains a distinction – from letters which have lately been received from the Front, it appears that Tpr Herbert Collett, of 2 Church Lane in Bicester, has distinguished himself. An NCO of his regiment, the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars (on active service in France & Belgium, later to be part of the Royal Artillery) has written home as follows: I am pleased to tell you that H Collett, the son of Mrs Collett, has been mentioned for good work done at our last affair, and was publicly thanked by the Company Commander. He is only 18 years of age.”

Later, on 18^th May 1917, a follow-up article appeared in the Bicester newspaper as follows: “Trooper Hector Haynes, of the same regiment, writes home that Trooper Collett has had two horses shot under him, probably referring to the same occasion, and we are pleased to state that Trooper Collett has now received an official recognition of his conduct by the receipt of a certificate signed by W H Greenly, Major General Commanding 2^nd Cavalry Division, which states, C O and Brigade Commander have informed me that you have distinguished yourself by gallant conduct near Neuville Vitesse on 10^th April 1917. Promotion and distinction cannot be given in every case, but I should like you to know that your gallant conduct is recognised.”

Three years after the war, Herbert John Collett married Lilian Mary Ayris at Bicester (Ref. 3a 16) during the third quarter of 1921, with whom he had four children. The birth of Lilian Mary Ayris was recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 28) at the end of 190, the daughter of James and Margaret Ayris of Market End in Bicester. It is also established that at some time in his life Herbert John Collett was a groundsman for Bicester Sports Association's playing fields, off Oxford Road. At the end of 2018, Herbert’s great-granddaughter Karen Musilova nee Simons, through his daughter Joyce, provided a valuable insight into the adult life of Herbert John Collett. Firstly, he died during the summer of 1939, with a second world war looming in Europe. The death of Herbert J Collett was recorded at the Bicester Ploughley register office (Ref. 3a 1547) during the third quarter of the year.

Herbert had been acting rather oddly prior to his death, possibly because he had already seen active service during the First World War when, as a teenager he had seen the horrors of war and did not wish to have fight again. For his time in the Great War, he had been awarded a medal for courage/bravery, although it is not known what he did to be honoured in that way. It is now understood that it was his fear of being called up again that caused him to commit suicide, as confirmed by his death certificate. This stated that “Herbert John Collett, aged 40 and a groundsman, died on 4^th July 1939 after self-inflicted injuries to the neck with a scythe whilst his mind was temporarily unbalanced, caused by worry over his work”. An inquest was held on the 5^th July and the death registered the following day.

Five years after being widowed, the second marriage of Lilian Mary Collett and Wilfred S Rees was recorded at the Bicester Ploughley register office (Ref. 3a 3) during the second quarter of 1944. The tragic death of Herbert John Collett, together with his health problems, also apparently affected his son John, who is known to have been a patient at the Littlemore Mental Health Hospital in Oxford, receiving treatment over many years, while John’s own son Gilbert Desmond also took his own life when he was also forty-one like his grandfather.

In addition to this, Herbert’s daughter Joyce, was convinced that her grandfather, the unknown man who had an illicit relationship with her unmarried grandmother Lucy Ellen Collett when she was 27, was solicitor Philip Edward Morrell, two years before she married Henry Walduck. Philip was the son of Frederic Morrell, a solicitor of Black Hall, Oxford, by his wife Harriette Anne Winter, daughter of the President of St John's College, Oxford and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, the Reverend Philip Wynter. The Morrell family had made its fortune as brewers of beer, and Philip Morrell's grandfather was a trustee of the family brewery. Philip was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, who eventually became Liberal Member of Parliament for Henley and later Burnley. He was a notorious womaniser and is known to have fathered many children before and after he married society hostess Lady Ottoline Cavendish-Bentinck. Following his extramarital affairs, his wife often cared for his illegitimate children.

46R43

Joan Mary Collett

Born in 1922 at Bicester

46R44

George Herbert Collett

Born in 1927 at Bicester

46R45

John William Collett

Born in 1928 at Bicester

46R46

Joyce Margaret Collett

Born in 1932 at Bicester

46Q100

Nellie Collett was born at Dronfield in Derbyshire on 24^th July 1908, her birth recorded at Chesterfield register office (Ref. 7b 896) during the third quarter of that year. She was two years old in the Dronfield census of 1911, and was one of two surviving daughters of Thomas Collett and Ada Glossop, her sister Ida (below) suffering an infant death in 1913. After her father sustained a serious injury in the war, Nellie’s parents made the move south to Horsham in Sussex, where Nellie Collett married Frederick Alexander Worrall during 1931. Their only known child, Josephine Worrall, was born at Horsham during 1934 when the child’s mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett. Nellie lived a long life and was residing in North Yorkshire during 1999, where the death of Nellie Worrall nee Collett was recorded at the age of 91.

The marriage of Nellie’s daughter was recorded at the Surrey South-Western register office (Ref. 5g 2076) during the third quarter of 1958, when Josephine Worrall married Michael J Chadwick. In 2019 Jo and Mike were 84 years old, and Mike has a photograph of Thomas Collett, his wife’s grandfather, who was a member of the Yorkshire Hussars stationed at York in 1908.

46Q101

Ida Collett was born at Dronfield in January or February 1911 and was two months old in the Dronfield census of 1911. She was the second daughter of Thomas Collett from Bicester and Ada Glossop from Sheffield and was baptised at Dronfield on 7^th August 1911. Sadly, Ida Collett was only two years of age when her death was recorded at Chesterfield register office (Ref. 7b 827) during the second quarter of 1913.

46Q102

Ethel Mary Collett, who was known as Mary, was born at Sheffield on 16^th March 1915, the third child of Thomas Collett and Ada Glossop. The birth of Ethel M Collett was recorded at Sheffield register office (Ref. 9c 1423) during the first three months of the year, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Glossop. When she was still very young, Mary’s family journeyed south to Horsham where her invalid father, injured during the war, could be supported by her father’s older brother. It was also at Horsham that the marriage of Ethel M Collett and Joseph Sutton was recorded during the second quarter of 1937 (Ref. 2b 721). Three years later their son Thomas Sutton was born, his birth recorded at Horsham register office (Ref. 2b 816) during the first quarter of 1940, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.

46R7

Montague A H Collett was born at Kensington in 1928, his birth recorded there (Ref. 1a 133) during the first quarter of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Honour. It was during the second quarter of 1950 that the marriage of Montague A H Collett and Myrtle W Adgie was recorded at Kensington register office (Ref. 5c 2126). Myrtle was born in the Chelsea area of London in 1927, and it seems strange that the only child of the marriage was born after the couple had been married for fifteen years. The birth of Sarah J Collett was recorded at Hatfield (Ref. 4b 142) in Hertfordshire during the last three months of 1965, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Adgie.

46S1

Sarah J Collett

Born in 1965 at Hatfield

46R8

Theodore W H Collett was born at Kensington in 1930, his birth recorded there (Ref. 1a 175) during the first quarter of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Honour. The marriage of Theodore W H Collett and Elizabeth T Hopkinson took place at Hemel Hempstead in early 1958, the event recorded there (Ref. 4b 196) during the first quarter of that year. As Bessie T Hopkinson her birth was recorded at Hemel Hempstead (Ref. 3a 1423) during the second quarter of 1928. Six years prior to her marriage to Theodore, it seems that Elizabeth had already marriage Colston G Luxton t Hemel Hempstead in 1952 (Ref. 4b 128). That arrangement did not last very long and, in early 1957, Colston G Luxton married Doreen Benns at Watford in 1957, one year before Elizabeth married Theodore.

Thanks to Dave Considine we now know a little more about Theodore, who was known as Ted by his colleagues in the government department of Customs & Excise, where he held the position of OXC (Officer of Customs & Excise), a rank used prior to a reorganisation in 1972. He was appointed OCX in 1951 and served at Heathrow Airport in the cargo clearance area (as opposed to the 'preventive' uniformed officers who manned the terminals and dealt with passengers). Talk amongst his colleagues suggests that Ted was ‘somewhat an eccentric boss’. Dave also confirmed that he had first married Elizabeth T Hopkinson but, that later on, he married (2) Edith (Liz) M T Phipps, nee Osborne, in 1981. They were only married for nine years when Ted passed away in 1990 at Banbury in Oxfordshire. It is also known that Theodore’s nephew Ian Collett also worked for the same government department, his position there possibly secured with the help of his uncle.

46R9

Murray Noel Collett was born at Kensington in 1933, his birth recorded there (Ref. 1a 164) during the first quarter of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Honour. Murray married Moya J Nimmo during the second quarter of 1957, the event recorded at Kensington (Ref. 5c 1834). Within the next twelve months Moya presented Murray with a son, the only child found with a mother whose surname was Nimmo, this despite the suggestion that Murray and Moya had three children.

46S2

Ian K Collett

Born in 1958 at Ealing, London

46R10

Kathleen R Collett was born at Kensington in 1936 and her birth was recorded there (Ref. 1a 189) during the fourth quarter of that year, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Honour. She was still residing in the Kensington area of London when she married William J H Davies, their wedding recorded there (Ref. 5c 2583) during the first three months of 1959.

46R11

Ray William Collett was born at Hendon in 1943, where his birth was recorded (Ref. 3a 1133) during the second quarter of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Ginn, his father being William Collett. It was during the third quarter of 1967, when the marriage of Ray W Collett and Janet K Short was recorded at Hasting register office in Sussex (Ref. 5h 128). Janet was well into the pregnancy for their only known child, whose birth was also recorded at Hasting (Ref. 5h 365) during the last three months of 1967.

46S3

Andrew William Collett

Born in 1967 at Hastings

46R19

Valerie A Collett was born in 1955, the eldest of the four children of Gordon Dean Collett and his first wife Gladys M Goode. Her birth was recorded at Warwick register office (Ref. 9c 1624) during the first three months of the year, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Goode. Valerie was around twenty-two years of age when she married Thomas H Bostock, the event recorded at Rugby register office (Vol. 31 0212) during the early months of 1977.

46R20

Philip Gordon Collett was born in Warwickshire during 1956, the eldest son of Gordon and Gladys Collett, his birth recorded at the Warwick register office (Ref. 9c 1701) during the third quarter of that year. Philip later married Wendy P Hall during the third quarter of 1978 at Market Harborough (Vol. 6 2734). The marriage produced twin sons for Philip and Wendy and their births were recorded at the Rugby register office (Vols. 31 0390 and 31 0391) during the first three months of 1983. Following the death of his father in November 2012, Philip drove his thirty-five-year-old classic Ford 4600 Tractor from John O’Groats to Lands’ End, during seven days in April 2013, to raise money for MacMillan Cancer Support which had cared for his father during the last few weeks of his life.

46S4

Adam Philip Collett twin

Born in 1983 at Rugby

46S5

Robin Philip Collett twin

Born in 1983 at Rugby

46R21

David E Collett was born in 1958, his birth recorded at Warwick register office (Ref. 9c 1737) during the third quarter of the year, where his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Goode. The marriage of David E Collett and Jane C Phipps was recorded at Southam register office (Ref. 31 0313) towards the end of 1981. The birth of their son was recorded at the Warwick & Leamington register office (Vol. 31 554) near the end of 1984, while the birth of daughter Lydia was recorded at Rugby register office (Vol. 31 450) during the early weeks of 1988. The mother’s maiden-name on both records was confirmed at Phipps.

46S6

Daniel David E Collett

Born in 1984 at Warwick

46S7

Lydia Jane Collett

Born in 1988 at Rugby

46R22

Angela Muriel Collett was born in 1966 and her birth was also recorded at Warwick register office (Ref. 9c 2120) during the second quarter of that year. She was the fourth and last child of Gordon Dean Collett and Gladys M Goode, who were later divorced.

46R23

Shirley J Collett was born in 1959, her birth recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 6a 865) during the second quarter of that year, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Forbes. She was the eldest of the two daughter of John F Collett and Mabel J Forbes. Her marriage to Brian Ricketts was recorded at the Chiltern and Beaconsfield register office (Vol. 19 0684) during the early months of 1983.

46R24

Amanda J Collett was born in 1961, the youngest daughter of John F Collett and Mabel J Forbes, her birth also recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 6a 928) during the third quarter of 1961. The marriage of Amanda J Collett and Richard D Lloyd was recorded at the Chiltern and South Bucks register office (Vol. 19 1539) during the summer of 1991.

46R25

Maureen Jane Collett was born at Brighton on 15^th November 1948, the first child of Bernard John Collett and Mavis Heritage who were not married at the time of her birth. The marriage of Maureen J Collett, aged 19, and Brian W Keeves was recorded at Daventry (Ref. 3b 1555) during the first quarter of 1968. It was also during that same quarter of 1968 that Maureen gave birth to the couple’s first child, Susannah Jane Keeves, whose birth was recorded at Northampton (Ref. 3b 959). Two more children were added to the family at Northampton, and they were Michael James Keeves (Ref. 3b 2315) in the spring of 1971 and Samantha Louise Keeves (Vol. 7 2860) in the summer of 1977. The mother’s maiden-name in every case, was confirmed as Collett.

46R26

Penelope Louise Collett was born at Bromsgrove in Worcestershire on 18^th February 1953, the daughter of Bernard and Mavis Collett, whose birth as Penelope L Collett was recorded at Bromsgrove register office (Ref. 9d 26), her mother’s maiden-name being Heritage. She was twenty-one when the marriage of Penelope L Collett and Douglas J Woolliscroft was recorded at Daventry (Vol. 7 2694) during the summer of 1974. The birth of their first child, Louise Mary Woolliscroft, was recorded at Corby in Northamptonshire (Vol. 7 2115) during the first months of 1977, while it was in Kettering that the birth of Victoria Jane Woolliscroft was recorded during the spring of the following year (Vol. 7 2370). In both cases, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.

46R27

Catherine Mary Collett was born at Guildford on 7^th December 1954, another daughter of Bernard and Mavis Collett. She later Michael J Belcher at Daventry (Vol. 7 2694) during the summer of 1974. Fifteen year later their only known child, John Bernard Belcher, was born at Banbury in early 1989, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.

46R28

Diana Lesley Collett was born at Guildford on 25^th July 1956, the fourth child of Bernard and Mavis Collett. It was at Daventry where the marriage of Diana L Collett and Robin Lewis was recorded (Vol. 7 2793) during the summer of 1975.

46R29

David John Richard Collett was born on 21^st September 1957, his birth recorded at Banbury register office (Ref. 6b 1238) during the first three months of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Heritage. He was twenty-one years old when the marriage of David J R Collett and Carol A Brown was recorded at Daventry register office (Vol. 7 1725) towards the end of 1978.

46R30

Sally Ann Collett was born at Banbury on 11^th January 1959, the daughter of Bernard John Collett and his wife Mavis Heritage. It was under her married name of Sally Harris that she and her brother Nicholas Mark Collett (below) kindly provided details of her family during the summer of 2013. Sally has six children, including a set of twins. The first of them was Daniel James Collett who was born at Banbury on 7^th May 1975, who sadly died there just five days later, on 12^th May 1975. Sally’s second child was born at the Barratt Maternity Hospital in Northampton, and that was Claire Louise Collett who was born on 26^th June 1976. Her next child was Joanne Marie Lee who was born on 17^th February 1982, the father being Christopher John Lee. Just over two years later Sally Ann Collett married Steven Michael Lister Scott on 8^th September 1984, with whom she had three more children. The first of them was Isobel Ann Bernadette Scott who was born on 20^th December 1984, who tragically suffered a premature death when she died on 16^th October 2017. Sally’s last two children were twins Stephanie Jayne Scott and Dianne Kayleigh Scott who were born on 28^th March 1986. Sally and Steven were divorced in 2008, after which Sally Ann married David William Harris in 2010.

Three years later, by 2013, Sally had seven grandchildren who, with one exception, were all born at the Barratt Maternity Hospital through four of her five daughters: (a) Claire married Antony Bazeley and has three children, Owen Nathan Bazeley (born 07.05.2000), Megan Joyce Bazeley (born 09.08.2001), Luke Antony Bazeley (born 27.11.2003); (b) Joanne married Adam Clifford and has one child, Grace Alice Persephone Clifford (born 10.10.2002); (c) Stephanie married Daniel French and has one child, Jackson Raymond French (born at Kettering on 07.09.2013); and (d) Dianne married Elliott Badger they have two children, Willow Danielle Badger (born 25.0.2011) and Darcie Jayne Badger (born 24.06.2013).

46S8

Daniel James Collett

Born in 1975 at Banbury; died 1975

46S9

Claire Louise Collett

Born on 26.06.1976 at Northampton

46R31

Nicholas Mark Collett was born at Banbury on 23^rd June 1960, the son of Bernard and Mavis Collett. One week short of his twenty-fourth birthday he married Helen Zambo on 16^th June 1984, following which the couple settled in the Duston area of Northampton. Over the subsequent years Helen presented Nicholas with three children, all of whom were born at the Barratt Maternity Hospital in Northampton. It is thanks to Nicholas that he and his family and his siblings have been added to this family line.

46S10

Andrew Mark Collett

Born on 29.07.1986 at Northampton

46S11

Zoe Margaret Rose Collett

Born on 23.10.1988 at Northampton

46S12

Thomas Nicholas Collett

Born on 16.10.1998 at Northampton

46R32

Isabel Bernice Collett was born at Banbury on 5^th November 1961 and was the daughter of Bernard and Mavis Collett, and she married James A W Wright at Daventry (Vol. 7 2821) during the summer of 1990.

46R33

Sarah Rose Collett was born at Banbury on 12^th July 1963, the daughter of Bernard and Mavis Collett, and she married Stanley Yarlett at Northampton (Vol. 7 2506) in the spring of 1980.

46R34

Michele Caroline Collett was born at Banbury on 10^th December 1964, another daughter of Bernard and Mavis Collett. It is possible that she was twice married, the first time to Mark T Stanyon, when the event was recorded at Daventry (Vol. 7 2947) during the summer of 1987, and later, when she became Michele Chapman.

46R35

Suzanne Josephine Collett was born at Banbury on 23^rd September 1966, the youngest of the eleven children of Bernard John Collett and his wife Mavis Heritage. She was twenty-two when the marriage of Suzanne J Collett and Philip J Dunn was recorded at Daventry register office (Vol. 7 2391) during the spring of 1989.

46R36

Frances A D Collett was born at Hampton Poyle near Kidlington in 1951, the first of the four children of Gerald Albert Collett and Lilian Joyce Lester. Her birth was recorded at Ploughley (Bicester) during the last three months of 1951 (Ref. 6b 1209) when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Lester. It was in 1970 when she married John Gilman, with whom she has four children. They are: Michelle Gilman who was born in 1971; Ann-Marie Gilman who was born 1972; Philip Gilman who was born in 1981; and Clare Gilman born in 1984. From their four children, Frances and John now have five grandchildren - two granddaughters and two grandsons. And it was Frances who made contact in early 2017, when she kindly supplied new details relating to her immediate Collett family. The latest grandchild is Rose, who was born on 11^th August 2018, the daughter of Frances’ youngest child Clare.

46R37

Andrew J G Collett was born at Neithrop Hospital in Banbury in 1956, when the family home was Grange Farm in Chacombe, to the north-east of Banbury. It was also at Banbury that his birth was recorded (Ref. 6b 1137) during the first quarter of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Lester. The marriage of Andrew J G Collett and Terina E Nash was recorded at Ploughley (Bicester) register office (Vol. 20 1660) during the early period of 1984, following which Terina presented Andrew with two sons and two daughters. The births of all four children were recorded at Oxford (Vols. 20 3586, 20 3141, 20 3287 & 20 3515) when their mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Forster on each occasion.

46S13

Thomas Edward Collett

Born in 1985 at Oxford

46S14

Sally Anne Collett

Born in 1987 at Oxford

46S15

Marcus Peter Collett

Born in 1990 at Oxford

46S16

Francesca Louise Collett

Born in 1991 at Oxford

46R38

Peter T Collett was born at Neithrop Hospital, Banbury, in 1958, the third child of Gerald and Lilian Collett of Grange Farm in Chacombe. His birth was recorded (Ref. 6b 1164) during the last three months of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Lester. Peter married Susan B Forster towards the end of 1979, the event recorded at Oxford register office (Vol. 20 1983). Today, in 2017, Peter and Susan have three sons and seven grandsons. The births of their three sons were recorded at Banbury (Vol. 20 2475) and at Oxford (Vols. 20 3436 & 20 3783), in each case the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Forster.

46S17

Simon David Collett

Born in 1982 at Banbury

46S18

Richard Peter Collett

Born in 1985 at Oxford

46S19

Adam John Collett

Born in 1988 at Oxford

46R39

Michael James Collett was born at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, the last child of Gerald Albert Collett and Lilian Joyce Lester of Grange Farm in nearby Chacombe. The birth was registered at Oxford register office (Ref. 6b 1684), under his full name, during the third quarter of 1968, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Lester. Forty years later Michael has a son and two daughters.

46S20

a Collett son

Date of birth unknown

46S21

a Collett daughter

Date of birth unknown

46S22

a Collett daughter

Date of birth unknown

46R40

Leah Collett was born at Northampton Barrett Maternity Hospital during 1981, the eldest of the two children of Stephen Collett and Christine Cole of Filgrave near Newport Pagnell. She married Paul Mickleborough from Attleborough in Norfolk on 19^th September 2009. Once married they settled in Attleborough and their son Maxwell Mickleborough was born on 18^th March 2014 at Norwich Hospital. In 2015 Leah works for the local district council, while her husband Paul works as a specialist within the insurance industry.

46R42

John James Peter Collett was born at Horsham in 1924, the only child of James Frank Collett and Isabel Mary Pelling. He attended Collyer's School in Horsham where, it is understood, he was Head Prefect. He then attended Queen’s College Cambridge, serving with the Royal Air Force as an officer in 1944 and 1945 before returning to Cambridge after the war to complete his studies. He subsequently took up various teaching and further education posts and, at the time of his premature death, he was the training officer for the Council of Ironfoundry Associations.

It was during the second quarter of 1944 that he married Iris Margaret Davies at Hampstead where the marriage was recorded (Ref. 1a 1296). Over the following years Iris presented John with four children prior to his death in Hertfordshire on 31^st May 1958 when he was only 34. That sad event was recorded at Watford register office (Ref. 4b 238) during the month of June that year. His Will was proved in London on 23^rd September 1958 when his widow Iris Collett of 3 Huntercrome Gardens, Watford was named as his sole executor of his personal estate amounting to £1,530 6 Shillings and 8 Pence.

46S23

Peter Gwyn Collett

Born in 1945 at Hampstead

46S24

Jennifer Ann Collett

Born in 1947 at Hampstead

46S25

David J W Collett

Born in 1956 at Watford

46S26

Richard James Collett

Born in 1957 at Watford

46R43

Joan Mary Collett was born at Bicester on 17^th September 1922, where her birth was recorded (Ref. 3a 1669) during the fourth quarter of the year, the eldest child of Herbert and Lilian Collett, her mother’s maiden-name confirmed as Ayris. She later married James Kilbane, with the event recorded at the Bicester Ploughley register office (Ref. 3a 4311) during the third quarter of 1942. The pair of them eventually moved south to London and settled in Surrey on the south side of the Thames River. The death of Joan Mary Kilbane was recorded at Surrey register office (Vol. 15 0404) in 1981. Eight years later, the death of James Kilbane was also recorded at Surrey South-Eastern register office (Vol. 17 1068) during February 1989.

46R44

George Herbert Collett was born at Bicester on 23^rd April 1927, where his birth was recorded (Ref. 3a 1739) during the second quarter of 1927, the eldest son of Herbert John Collett and his wife Lilian Ayris. George attended Crockwell School on Field Street in Bicester and was eleven years old at the start of World War Two and was seventeen when he joined the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry in 1945. He later served with the King's Shropshire Light Infantry as a driving and transport instructor and by the time he completed his military service he was a warrant officer and had seen action in Japan and Korea, for which he was awarded the Korean Medal and United Nations clasp.

On his return to England, he initially worked as a crane driver and later became an insurance agent for the Prudential. It was during 1960 that he eventually returned to Bicester, by which time he was married with four sons. Once settled in Bicester he worked for Len Hughes’ scrap metal and coal business, which he later bought. He then established his own company in Bicester as a coal merchant which he expanded by purchasing S G Jones Coal Merchants. He eventually sold off the coal merchants and formed G H Collett Limited, a haulage company, which he closed down in the late 1970s. From that time until 2001 George was a driver for his son Martin Collett.

He was a Chelsea and Oxford United football fan and during his life he became involved in boys’ football and helped to found the Woodfield Boys under 11 football team in 1967-68. He was also a supporter and contributor to Bicester and District Under 11 Boys League and was qualified football referee. The marriage of George Herbert Collett and his first wife Marion Jarrett has yet to be found, while Jarrett was confirmed as the mother’s maiden-name for the three eldest sons, from whom George was later divorced. There is a chance that his first marriage was not conducted in Great Britain. However, it was at Bicester Ploughley register office (Ref. 6b 2527) that his second marriage to (2) Patricia J Godber was recorded towards the end of 1973. Upon his retirement, he spent his last years living with his son Graham, while it was his son Michael who continued with the family business. George Herbert Collett was 77 when he died at Bicester during the first two months of 2005 after a short illness.

46S27

Michael H Collett

Born in 1958 at North Cheam, Surrey

46S28

Martin G Collett

Born in 1961 at North Cheam, Surrey

46S29

Graham J Collett

Born in 1963 at Bicester

46S30

Andrew David Collett

Born in 1966 at Bicester

46R45

John William Collett was born at Bicester on 14^th June 1928, with his birth recorded there (Ref. 3a 1748) during the third quarter of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Ayris. It was in 1962 that he married Madeline Batts in Bicester, the wedding recorded at Ploughley register office (Ref. 6b 2538) during the third quarter of the year. Nine months later the birth of the first of the couple’s two sons was recorded at Brackley, across the county boundary in Northamptonshire, and was the birth of their second child eighteen months later. In both cases, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Batts. The much later death of John William Collett was recorded during March 1998 at the Oxfordshire Bullingdon register office (Vol. 6991 22) to the east of the city of Oxford, seven years prior to the suicide of his youngest son.

46S31

David John Collett

Born in 1963 at Brackley

46S32

Gilbert Desmond Collett

Born in 1964 at Brackley

46R46

Joyce Margaret Collett was born in Bicester on 28^th February 1932 and it was there that her birth was recorded (Ref. 3a 1927) during the second quarter of the year, the last of the four children of Herbert John Collett and Lilian Ayris. The later marriage of Joyce M Collett and William Burgess took place at St Edburg's Church in Bicester on 26^th March 1952, and was recorded at the Bicester Ploughley register office (Ref. 6b 2108) during the first three months of the year. William was born on 17^th March 1921 at Astwood near Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire and died in Oxford on 9^th May 1994. William and Joyce had three children, all still living in 2022. Sixteen years after losing her husband, Joyce Margaret Burgess was at home at 11 Stoneburge Crescent, Bucknell Road in Bicester when she died during the month of December 2010. The cause of death being bowel cancer. Their three children are John William Burgess in 1953, Susan J Burgess in 1955, and Sally J Burgess in 1959. On each occasion, the births were recorded at Ploughley register office, where the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.

46S2

Ian K Collett was born at Ealing in London during 1958, his birth was recorded there (Ref. 5e 323) in the first three months of the year. Later in his life, Ian was working within Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, where his uncle Theodore William H Collett also worked in a senior position. It was during the spring of 1884, when Ian K Collett married Isabel A Hendy, their wedding day recorded at Richmond-upon-Thames in Surrey (Vol. 14 1250). The birth of their son five years later was recorded at Kingston-upon-Thames register office (Vol. 13 2011) during the early months of 1989, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Hendy.

46T1

Samuel Charles Collett

Born in 1989 at Kingston-upon-Thames

46S21

Peter Gwyn Collett was born at Hampstead during 1945, the eldest of the four children of John James Peter Collett and Margaret Davies. A photograph of Peter as a baby is included under the name of his great grandfather James Thomas Collett, and in the newspaper report on his great grandparents golden wedding anniversary in October 1946, baby Peter was referred to as being 14 months old. This would place his month of birth as August 1945.

During the third quarter of 1968, Peter Gwyn Collett married (1) Karen H Devlin, the event recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 9c 1127), with whom he had a son born in the previous year. When that marriage ended in divorce, Peter married (2) Jennifer Wilkinson, which produced two daughters for the couple. The marriage of Peter G Collett and Jennifer Wilkinson was recorded at Manchester register office (Vol. 38 1144) during the summer of 1977. Jennifer Collett nee Wilkinson passed away in 2014. It was Peter’s daughter Hannah who kindly provided the new details for the September 2015 update of this family line.

46T2

Simon Patrick Devlin Collett

Born in 1967

The following are their two children of Peter Collett by his second wife Jennifer Wilkinson:

46T3

Hannah Rachel Collett

Born in 1977 at Manchester

46T4

Rebecca Louise Collett

Born in 1979 at Colchester

46S22

Jennifer Ann Collett was born at Hampstead in 1947, the only daughter of John and Margaret Collett. It was during 1970 that Jennifer married Phillip Taylor with whom she had three sons. Daniel Phillip J Taylor was born in 1973, Benjamin Robert Taylor was born in 1975, and Joel Thomas Taylor was born in 1980. Tragically, the youngest child was only four years old when Jennifer Ann Taylor nee Collett died in 1984.

46S23

David J W Collett was born in 1956, his birth recorded at Watford (Ref. 4b 515) during the second quarter of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Davies. It was also there, that his younger brother Richard (below) was born during the following year. David J Collett married Deborah E Pitt in summer of 1993, the event recorded at the Mid-Warwickshire register office (Vol. 31 847), following which they have a daughter Charlotte. It is possible that Deborah was his second wife since, at the Warwick & Leamington register office (Vol. 31 0738) in the summer of 1979, the marriage of David J W Collett and Jacqueline A Morrissette was recorded there.

46T5

Charlotte Collett

Born in 1995

46S24

Richard James Collett was born at Watford in 1957, the youngest of the four children of John James Peter Collett and Margaret Davies. His birth was recorded at Watford (Ref. 4b 533) during the last quarter of 1957, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Davies. He married Janina Surma during 1988 and they had a daughter. Sadly, the marriage failed and, after their divorce, Janina moved to Australia with her daughter Ella, whose birth was recorded at Coventry (Vol. 33 244) during the spring of 1989. Tragically, Richard James Collett committed suicide in 2003.

46T6

Ella Surma Collett

Born in 1989 at Coventry

46S25

Michael Herbert Collett, who is known as Mike, was born at North Cheam in Surrey in 1958, the eldest of the four children of George Herbert Collett and Marion Jarratt. His birth, as Michael H Collett was recorded at the Surrey Mid-Eastern register office (Ref. 5g 295) during the third quarter of 1958. In 2020, Mike made contact to provide new details regarding his immediate family, confirming that he was one of four children. At that time in his life, he was living in Wansford near Peterborough where, living close by was neighbour Jonathan Collett, who it is hoped will be identified in due course. In addition, it was a Simon Collett who recommended that Mike visit the collettfamilyhistory website.

46S26

Martin George Collett was also born at North Cheam, but in 1961, with his birth recorded at the same register office as his older brother Michael (above) during the second quarter of the year (Ref. 5g 341), when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Jarratt. He was the second of the four children of George Herbert Collett of Bicester and Marion Jarratt. His brother Andrew David (below) was married at Brackley in 1987, so it is perhaps reasonable to assume that the Brackley marriage of Martin G Collett and Beverley A Whittle, a year earlier was that of the Martin G Collett who had been born at North Cheam in 1961. That wedding was recorded during June 1986 (Vol. 7 2092). The marriage produced two children for the couple, both births recorded at nearby Banbury register office, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Whittle.

46T7

Ryan Martin Collett

Born in 1988 at Banbury

46T8

Roxanne Milly Collett

Born in 1990 at Banbury

46S27

Graham J Collett was born in 1963 when his birth was recorded at the Bicester Ploughley register office (Ref. 6b 1844) during the first three months of that year. Like his two older brothers, the record of his birth confirmed that his mother’s maiden-name was Jarratt. The later marriage of Graham J Collett and Josephine F M Hirst was also recorded at Ploughley (Bicester) register office (Vol. 703 0063) during August 1995, and resulted in the birth of a son Daniel Lewis Collett shortly thereafter. His birth was however, recorded at Oxford register office (Vol. 7021a a104d) in March the following year.

46T9

Daniel Lewis Collett

Born in 1996 at Oxford

46S28

Andrew David Collett was possibly the fourth and last son of George Herbert Collett by his first wife Marion Jarrett. Curiously, after leaving Surrey and moving to Bicester in Oxfordshire, the child’s birth was recorded at Woolwich register office (Ref. 5e 1319) during the third quarter of 1966, where his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Jarratt. Having been raised at Bicester, it seems highly likely that the marriage of Andrew David Collett and Bonita R Williams recorded at nearby Brackley register office in Northamptonshire (Vol. 7 2748), was the Andrew whose birth was recorded at Woolwich. The wedding at Brackley was recorded during August 1987.

46S29

David John Collett was in 1963 and was the first-born child of John W Collet and Madeline Batts. His birth was recorded at Brackley register office (Ref. 3b 782) during the second quarter of that year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Batts.

46S30

Gilbert Desmond Collett was on 18^th December 1964, with his birth recorded at Brackley register office (Ref. 3b 774) in early 1965, the second son of John W Collet and Madeline Batts, whose mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Batts. It was also at Brackley register office that the death of Gilbert Desmond Collett was recorded after he died on 24^th May 2005 at the age of 41. It is confirmed by a family member that he committed suicide, as did his grandfather Herbert John Collett (1898 to 1939) when he was the same age as Gilbert.

46T2

Simon Patrick Devlin Collett was born in 1967, the son of Peter Gwyn Collett by his first wife Karen Devlin. In 1999 Simon Patrick Collett married Kate Bareham (formerly Kate Allston) and, although they have had no children together, Kate has children from her previous marriages.

46T3

Hannah Rachel Collett was born in 1977, the first of the two daughters of Peter Gwyn Collett by his second wife Jennifer Wilkinson. Her birth was recorded at Manchester (Vol. 38 1965) during the summer that year, her parents also marriage there during the same period of that same year. Hannah married Andrew Taylor during 2010, but has retained her maiden-name of Collett. The couple, who live in Leicestershire, have two daughters, Matilda Eliza Taylor who was born in 2012 and Edith Daisy Jennifer Taylor who was born in 2014. The September 2015 update of this family line is, for the most part, largely due to the new information kindly supplied by Hannah.

46T4

Rebecca Louise Collett was born in 1979, her birth recorded at Colchester register office (Vol. 9 3273) during the first weeks of 1979, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Wilkinson. Rebecca was still a teenager when the marriage of Rebecca L Collett and Douglas J Parker at Oxford register office (Vol. 702 0221) early in 1996.

APPENDIX ONE

Prior to the update of this family line in July 2022, three of the four sons of George Herbert Collett (Ref. 46R44), were incorrectly listed as, David Martin Collett, Graham Francis Collett, and Philip John Collett, all of whom have now been replaced by his actual children, thanks to information received from Rita Cothier. Those three brothers, and their sister Elizabeth were, in fact, the four children of Francis Leon Collett and his wife Ann Raiswell whose marriage was recorded at Oxford register office (Ref. 6b 1541), with the wedding conducted at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Mill Lane in Iffley, on 27^th December 1954. On that day, Francis Leon Collett was a soldier at the age of 25, with Ann being 22 and born in Wrexham during the summer of 1932. In the recording of the children’s names at Oxford register office – for the first two, and for the other two at the Bicester Ploughley register office, their mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Raiswell. David’s birth was recorded (Ref. 6b 1286) during the first quarter of 1955, Elizabeth’s (Ref. 6b 1268) during the first quarter of 1957, Graham’s (Ref. 6b 1612) during the second quarter of 1960, and Philip’s (Ref. 6b 1943) during the third quarter of the year. Philip John Collett was twenty-two years of age when the marriage of Philip J Collett and Theresa L Downey was recorded at Ploughley register (Vol. 20 1397) at the start of 1989.

App1/1

David Martin Collett

Born in 1955 at Oxford

App1/2

Elizabeth Ann Collett

Born in 1957 at Oxford

App1/3

Graham Francis Collett

Born in 1960 at Bicester

App1/4

Philip John Collett

Born in 1966 at Bicester

It is possible that Francis L Collett was a son of Francis Bertie Collett (Ref. 37P33) by his second wife Ethel Hermann, and was born in Oxford at the start of 1929, who was later laid to rest at Kidlington Parish Burial Ground on 19^th June 2006.

APPENDIX TWO

OTHER ‘LOCAL’ COLLETTS NOT YET LINKED TO THIS FAMILY LINE

Section One - Marriages

Sarah Collett of Charlton-on-Otmoor was married by banns to William Hutton of Oddington on 18^th July 1822 at the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Charlton-on-Otmoor. The witnesses were James Hutton and Sarah Waddup.

Susanna Collett of Charlton-on-Otmoor was married by banns to Henry Goven of Oakley on 19^th February 1824 at the Church of St Mary in Charlton-on-Otmoor. The witnesses were William Goven and Alice Cooper. Susanna was possibly the sister of Sarah (above).

Section Two – Burials

Sharma Collett of Fencott was born in 1825 and was buried at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 9^th September 1827 aged just two years.

Anne Collett of Fencott was born in 1820 and was buried at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 17^th July 1842 aged 22 years.

Maria Collett of Fencott was born on 2^nd July 1842 and was buried at St Mary’s Church in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 24^th July 1842 aged 22 days and was possibly the daughter of Anne Collett (above) who died one week earlier.

Henry Shirley Collett of Murcott was born in 1857 and was buried at St Mary’s Church in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 9^th September 1857.

Jessie Collett of Murcott was born in January 1858 and was buried at St Mary’s Church in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 31^st January 1858 aged two weeks.

Caroline Collett of Fencott was born in April 1860 and was buried at St Mary’s Church in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 16^th July 1860 aged three months.

Section Three – Another Collett Family of Fencott

46A3/1

Thomas Collett was born at Fencott around 1841 where he married Sarah, and it was there also that the couple’s two known children were born. No further records of this family have so far been located, so the brief details have been included here in the hope they might eventually be placed within one of the many Collett families of Oxfordshire.

46A3/1/1

James Thomas Collett

Born in 1871 at Fencott

46A3/1/2

Sarah Collett

Born in 1873 at Fencott

Section Four – Other Collett Families

46A4/1

Charles Collett was born around 1816 and was married to Emma. In 1841 Charles was 24 and Emma was 23. Living with them in the Bicester, Brackley, Buckingham and Woodstock registration district were their two daughters Ann who was three and Emma who was one year old.

46A4/1/1

Ann Collett

Born in 1838

46A4/1/2

Emma Collett

Born in 1840

46A4/2

William Collett was a labourer and was married to Mary and they lived at Murcott where their son was born, although he was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor. The baptism for the child in the parish records gave the parents simply as William and Mary.

46A4/2/1

William Collett

Baptised on 20.07.1845

46A4/3

Arthur Collett was born at Murcott in 1854 and in 1881 he was an unmarried ‘in door agricultural servant’ aged 26 working for John Blake on his forty-acre farm at Lower Arncott in Ambrosden.

46A4/4

Elizabeth Collett was born at Murcott in 1855. Upon leaving school she left Oxfordshire and moved to London. In 1881 she was a spinster of 25 years and was working as a cook and domestic servant at Guys Hospital in St Thomas Street on the south side of the River Thames.

46A4/5

John Collett was born at Boarstall in 1824. He was an agricultural labourer and was married to Catherine who was born at nearby Brill in 1825. It seems likely that they were married around 1860, since they were recorded together at Brill in 1861 but without any children. John was 38 and his wife Catherine was 36, and it was at Brill during the next decade that their marriage produced four children for John and Catherine. The Brill census of 1871 recorded the family as John, aged 46, Catherine, also 46, and their four children Emily, who was nine, William, who was seven, Jane, who was five, and James who was three.

Within the census of 1881 the family was recorded in error under the surname of Collot. According to the census return John Collot, aged 55 and from Boarstall, was an agricultural labourer, and his wife Catherine Collot of Brill was 56 when they were living on the Thame Road in Brill with just their two sons. They were William Collot who was aged 17 and James Collot who was 13, both working as agricultural labourers by that time. Where their two daughters were has not been determined, if indeed they were still alive. Living with the family was John’s niece Maud S Linders, who was two years of age and from Brill, and boarder Alfred Godfrey who was another agricultural labourer, who was 22 and also from Brill.

Ten years later John was 65 and Catherine was 66, and it was only their son James, aged 23, was still living with them at Brill. John Collett died during the 1890s so by 1901 his widow Catherine was 76 and was still accompanied at Brill by her son James who was then a labourer at a brickyard at 32. Catherine Collett died at Brill sometime between 1901 and 1911, and she may still have been alive when her son James was married around the end of 1901.

46A4/5/1

Emily Collett

Born in 1861 at Brill

46A4/5/2

William Collett

Born in 1863 at Brill

46A4/5/3

Jane Collett

Born in 1865 at Brill

46A4/5/4

James Collett

Born in 1867 at Brill

46A4/5/4

James Collett was born at Brill in 1867, the son of John and Catherine Collett. In 1871 he was three years old and was 13 in 1881 when he was living with his family at Thame Road in Brill. He was 32 and a brickyard labourer in 1901 when he was the only child living at Brill with his elderly widowed mother. It was probably later that same year that he married Sarah Anne, and by 1911 their marriage had produced five children. The family recorded in the Brill census that year was made up of James aged 43, Sarah Anne aged 36, George who was eight, Sarah Anne who was five, Cyril John who was three, and twins Edith Kathleen and Fred who were one year old. All occupants of the household, apart from James’ wife Sarah, were born at Brill.

46A4/5/4/1

George Collett

Born in 1902 at Brill

46A4/5/4/2

Sarah Anne Collett

Born in 1905 at Brill

46A4/5/4/3

Cyril John Collett

Born in 1907 at Brill

46A4/5/4/4

Edith Kathleen Collett twin

Born in 1910 at Brill

46A4/5/4/5

Fred Collett twin

Born in 1910 at Brill

46A4/7

Two other Colletts living in Charlton-on-Otmoor in 1901 were Susannah Collett, aged 49 from Shillingford, and her son Charles W T (William Thomas) Collett of Fencott who was 11. Ten years later in April 1911, the widow Susannah Collett was 59 and was still living with her was her son Charles W T Collett who was 21 but, on that occasion, they were living at Fencott.

APPENDIX THREE

THE SOUTH STONEHAM HAMPSHIRE CONNECTION

The first of the ten Hampshire born children of Spencer Collett (Ref. 46O8) 1853-1928 of Fencott was born at South Stoneham after he married Alice Gubbins in nearby Southampton. During the research into his family another Collett family with a connection to South Stoneham was revealed. These are their brief details.

46A3r1

Bertram Frederick Collett (known as Bert) was born on 27^th November 1918, with his birth recorded at South Stoneham register office (Ref. 2c 150) during the last three months of 1918, when his mother’s maiden-name was Harvey. He was nearly 21 at the outbreak of the Second World War, when his military service record confirmed that Bertram Frederick Collett was born in Hampshire in 1918.

After the war the marriage of Gwendoline Parkes and Bertram F Collett was recorded at Hampshire register office (Ref. 6c 1428) during the final quarter of 1946. Over the following years Gwendoline gave birth to seven children, with the births of the first three recorded at Hampshire register office, and the remainder at Southampton. For the seven births so far found, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Parkes. Bert passed away at the age of 63 when his death was recorded at Hampshire register office (Vol. 20 1138) in 1982, leaving his wife to survive the next twenty years as a widow.

Gwendoline Parkes was born on 11^th December 1924 who, as Gwendoline Collett, died when she was residing at South Stoneham on 26^th April 2002 and was buried at South Stoneham Cemetery, Mansbridge Road in Southampton on 2^nd May. Her death was recorded at Hampshire register office (Vol. 5001e e25a).

When the announcement of her passing was recorded in the local newspaper it named the living members of her family but not in age order. They were: her son David Collett and his wife Margaret; her son Brian Collett and his wife Vita and their daughters Lisa and Clair; her son Barry Collett; her daughter Margaret and husband Jeff; her daughter Karen Collett and her sons Tyrone and Brian; her daughter Violet Collett and her husband Alfie; and her daughter Paula and her husband Mark.

Missing from the list was Gwendoline’s eldest son Kenneth who had suffered an infant death, while the birth of daughter Paula has not been found and has only been added to the list below because of her entry in the newspaper item.

Footnote: Likely younger siblings of Bertram Frederick Collett, whose births were recorded at South Stoneham were Arthur N Collett (46A3r2) in Q1 1920 (Ref. 2c 25) and Beatrice A Collett (46A3r3) in 1923 Q2 (Ref. 2c 148) with their mother’s maiden-name confirmed as Harvey. In addition to these three, three later Collett/Harvey children’s births were recorded at Southampton. They were Raymond L Collett (46A3r4) in Q3 1924 (Ref. 2c 10), Joyce N Collett (46A3r5) in Q1 1926 (Ref. 2c 9), and Molly F Collett (46A3r6) in Q4 1933 (Ref. 2c 52). So, it does not seem unreasonable that all six of them were children of the same parents, although still not known at this time.

46A3s1

Violet G Collett

Born in 1947 at South Stoneham

46A3s2

Kenneth B Collett

Born in 1948 at South Stoneham

46A3s3

Brian E Collett

Born in 1950 at South Stoneham

46A3s4

Margaret E Collett

Born in 1951 at Southampton

46A3s5

David F Collett

Born in 1952 at Southampton

46A3s6

Barry P Collett

Born in 1956 at Southampton

46A3s7

Paula K Collett

Born in 1958 at Southampton

46A3s8

Karen A Collett

Born in 1960 at Southampton

46A3s1

Violet G Collett was born at South Stoneham and was the first-born child of Bertram and Gwendoline Collett, her second forename very likely to be that of her mother. Her birth was recorded at Hampshire register office (Ref. 6b 1021) in 1947, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Parkes. It was also as Violet G Collett that she married Alfred D Tugby, when their wedding was recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 6b 1636) during the second quarter of 1969.

Their marriage produced three children, whose births were also recorded at Southampton, where their mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett. They were Lee Tugby born in the spring of 1970 (Ref. 6c 3006), Carla Louise Tugby born in the summer of 1972 (Ref. 6b 2799), and Aaron Tugby who was born towards the end of 1983 (Vol. 20 1644). When Violet’s widowed mother died in 2002, she and husband Alfie were included the published list of surviving children.

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Kenneth B Collett was the second child and eldest son of Bert and Gwendoline Collett. Sadly, his birth and death at South Stoneham were recorded in quick succession, both at Hampshire register office (Ref. 6b 930) in 1948, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Parkes. His young death was recorded during the first three month of 1949 (Ref. 6b 715).

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Brian E Collett was born at South Stoneham and his birth was recorded at Hampshire register office (Ref. 6b 791) during the fourth quarter of 1950, when his mother’s maiden-name confirmed as Parkes. He was the eldest surviving son of Bert and Gwendoline Collett. During the research four marriages for Brian E Collett at Southampton have been revealed, the earliest being at the start of 1965 when the bride was Barbara R Wyett (Ref. 6b 1649), which can probably be discounted. That would indicate that there were two men with the same name. The other three marriages involved (1) Pamela A Marshall in the spring of 1973 (Ref. 6b 1887), Barbara A Bolton in the summer of 1991 (Vol. 20 1752), and (2) Vitalija Celeriene in October 2001 (Vol. 500 0699).

What is known for sure, is that the two daughters of Brian E Collett were named in the list of living family members following the death of his mother in 2002, and their births recorded their mother’s maiden-name as Marshall, Brian’s first wife. However, in that same family list, Brian’s wife in 2002 was Vita, to whom he was married six months prior to his mother’s passing. The two daughters of Brian and Pamela were born at Southampton where their birth were recorded; Lisa during the last three months of 1973 (Ref. 9b 2050), and Clair during the last quarter of 1976 (Vol. 20 1272).

The older Brian E Collett, who married Barbara R Wyett in 1965, was born at Southampton in the spring of 1938 (Ref. 2c 72), whose mother’s maiden-name was Sclater. He was the second son of Frederick J Collett and Emily G C Sclater whose marriage was recorded at Southampton (Ref. 2c 81) during the last quarter of 1931. The couple’s older son was Dennis E J Collett whose birth was recorded there (Ref. 2c 98) during the fourth quarter of 1932. The later marriage of Dennis E J Collett and Francine M Houghton was recorded at Winchester register office (Ref. 6b 133) during the last three months of 1962. One year later their son Simon Collett was born and his birth was recorded at Southampton (Ref. 6b 987) during the fourth quarter of 1963, with his mother’s maiden name confirmed as Houghton.

Footnote: The Collett and Sclater families are connected by marriage in Part 24 – The Norway Line 1890 to 2021. Alice Collett (Ref. 24P27), known as Lisa, was the daughter of Arthur Collett of Norway and his wife Ingeborg Wedel Jarlsberg. Alice was born in Norway on 23^rd September 1913 and later lived at Lewes in Sussex. In 1936 she married Doctor Arthur William Sclater who was born at Newick Park in Sussex on 11^th November 1909, with whom she had two sons.

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Lisa Ann Collett

Born in 1973 at Southampton

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Clair Joanne Collett

Born in 1976 at Southampton

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Margaret E Collett as another daughter of Bert and Gwendoline Collett whose birth was recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 6b 822) during the second quarter of 1951, with her mother’s maiden-name confirmed as Parkes. All that is known about Margaret is that her husband was named as Jeff in the living of children of Margaret’s mother following her death in 2002.

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David F Collett was born at Southampton where her birth was recorded (Ref. 6b 775) during the second quarter of 1952 with her mother’s maiden-name Parkes. As with his sister (above), the wife of David Collett, a son of Bert and Gwendoline Collett, was named as Margaret in the list of the family of Gwendoline Collett when she died in 2002.

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Barry P Collett was another son of Bert and Gwendoline Collett with his birth recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 6b 838) during the third quarter of 1956, when his mother’s maiden-name was Parkes. The later marriage of Barry P Collett and Christine A Dennis was recorded at Southampton register office (Vol. 20 1040) during the first three months of 1976 when he was only 19 years old. Whilst the name of Barry Collett was included in the list of family members still alive in 2002 when his mother passed away, there was no mention of his wife. With no record of her death being found, it is possible they were later divorced or separated.

It was much later in their married life that Christine present Barry with three children. The births of all three were recorded at Southampton register office, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett. They were: Jonathan Steven Collett in 1989, Jamie Lewis in 1992, and Katie Louisa A in 1994.

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Jonathan Steven Collett

Born in 1989 at Southampton

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Jamie Lewis Collett

Born in 1992 at Southampton

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Katie Louisa A Collett

Born in 1994 at Southampton

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Karen A Collett was the seventh child of Bert and Gwendoline Collett with her birth recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 6b 991) during the first three months of 1960, when her mother’s maiden-name was Parkes. Following the death of her mother in 2002, item in the local newspaper, described daughter Karen as having two sons, but no mention of a husband. Certainly, the birth of her first child, Tyrone Stanley J Collett, was recorded at Southampton register office (Vol. 20 1966) in December 1985, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett. However, for her second son Brian, no such birth record has been found, which suggest that his surname was not Collett.

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Tyrone Stanley J Collett

Born in 1985 at Southampton

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Brian – surname not known

Date of birth unknown

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Paula K Collett has been indicated as the youngest child of Bertram Frederick Collett and Gwendoline Parkes because the name of Paula was included as a daughter of Gwendoline when she died in 2002. No record of the birth of Paula has been found, but it would make sense that she was born after sister Karen (above) during the first half of the 1960s. The later marriage of Paula K Collett and Mark A Eccleston was recorded at Southampton register office (Vol. 20 756) during the first quarter of 1987. Their son Lewis Eccleston was born in November 1994, when his birth recorded at Southampton (Vol. 5002c c88a), with his mother’s maiden-name confirmed as Collett. However, he may not have survived, with his name not included on the list of living children and grandchildren of Gwendoline Collett in 2002, when his parents were named therein.