PART SIXTY-EIGHT

The North Lincolnshire Line

Updated November 2017

This family line focuses on the North Lincolnshire village of Haxey, seven miles north of Gainsborough, but starts in Pinchbeck near Spalding in South Lincolnshire, and is the family line of Roy Collett (Ref. 68R8), shown in capital letters. And it was Roy’s friend John Metcalfe of Walkeringham in Nottinghamshire who helped to develop this family line.

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RICHARD COLLETT would have been born between 1775 and 1795 and he was the father of John Ernest Collett, as confirmed by the latter at the time of his marriage.

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JOHN ERNEST COLLETT

Born circa 1813 at Pinchbeck

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JOHN ERNEST COLLETT was born at Pinchbeck near Spalding around 1813, the son of Richard Collett. It was also possibly at Pinchbeck that his future wife was born during the following year. Whether they both ran away from home has not been proved, but it was fifty miles north of Pinchbeck that John married Elizabeth Fisher at Haxey on 19^th February 1839. The record of the marriage stated that John was 24 and the son of Richard Collett, while his bride was 23 and the daughter of William Fisher. The baptism of Elizabeth Fisher was conducted at St Botolph’s Church in Boston on 10^th March 1817, the daughter of William and Frances Fisher. Once married the couple settled in Haxey where all of their nine children were born. By the time of the first census conducted in Haxey in June 1841 John and Elizabeth Collett were both recorded with a rounded age of 25, while listed with them was their first child Charles Collett who was one-year old. Sadly, it was just four months later that the child died, with the result that the couple’s next child was also given the name of Charles, he being the first of the four children added to the family over the next ten years.

That situation was confirmed in the Haxey census of 1851 when John Collett was 37, his wife Elizabeth was 36, and their four children were named as Charles Collett who was eight, Mary Collett who was six, John Collett who was two and William Collett who was only two months old. It is possible that a further child who did not survive was added to the family around 1846, in the four-year gap between Mary and John. The next census in 1861 revealed that both John and Elizabeth had been born at Pinchbeck, although ten years later her place of birth was given as Spalding and after a further ten years it was Boston. The family was still residing within the village of Haxey in 1861 and by that time John was 46 and Elizabeth was 45. On that occasion they only had seven children living there with them, and they were Charles aged 18, John aged 14, William aged 10, Richard who was eight, Elizabeth who was six, George Edward Collett who was two and Jabez Collett who was not yet one-year old. No record of missing daughter Mary has been identified in that census.

Seven years later the family was still living in Haxey when Elizabeth would have been 52 years of age and therefore unlikely to be the mother of Frederick Collett who was born there in 1868, the same child described as the son of John Collett in the census of 1871. However, on that occasion the family was recorded in the neighbouring hamlet of Graizelound, less than a mile south of Haxey, as can be seen on this map.

An error on the census return gave Balne, a town in Yorkshire, as the place of birth of John Collett who was 57. The birthplace of his wife Elizabeth, age 54, was Spalding while the four sons living at Graizelound with them were all confirmed as having been born at Haxey. Richard Collett was 17, George Collett was 12, Jabez Collett was 10 and Frederick Collett was just two years old, although no later record of this youngest child has been identified in any later census.

It was just over four years after that when John Ernest Collett died at the age of 61 on 28^th August 1875 when he was still a resident in Graizelound, following which he was buried in the grounds of St Nicholas’ Church in Haxey on 30^th August 1875. Probate of his Will, valued at under £200 and left to his wife, was completed at Lincoln on 21^st March 1877. Four years later the widow Elizabeth Collett from Boston in Lincolnshire was 66 and had returned to Haxey where the only one of her children still living with her was her son Jabez Collett who, at the age of 20, was a joiner like his older brother John. Elizabeth Collett nee Fisher died at Haxey during the 1890.

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Charles Collett

Born in 1840 at Haxey

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Charles Collett

Born in 1842 at Haxey

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Mary Collett

Born in 1845 at Haxey

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John Collett

Born in 1848 at Haxey

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William Fisher Collett

Born in 1851 at Haxey

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RICHARD COLLETT

Born in 1853 at Haxey

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Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1855 at Haxey

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George Edward Collett

Born in 1858 at Haxey

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Jabez Collett

Born in 1860 at Haxey

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Frederick Collett

Born in 1868 at Haxey

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Charles Collett may have been a honeymoon baby born at Haxey around October or November 1839 who was baptised at Haxey on 10^th January 1840, the first child of John Ernest Collett and his wife Elizabeth Fisher. He was just over one-year old in 1841 when he was living with his parents at Haxey, and it was there also that he died on 7^th October 1841.

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Charles Collett was born at Haxey during 1842 and was named after his late brother. He was baptised at St Nicholas’ Church in Haxey on 11^th August 1842, the son of John and Elizabeth Collett, and was eight years of age in the Haxey census of 1851 and was 18 years old ten years after that when he was still living with his parents. He later married Jane Jackson during 1867 who died in 1870 when she was only 23, perhaps even during childbirth. However, it may have been a fatal illness because on 1^st January 1871 her husband Charles Collett was buried at the parish church in Haxey.

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Mary Collett was born at Haxey during 1845 and was baptised there in the church of St Nicholas on 30^th November 1845, the eldest daughter of John and Elizabeth Collett. She was six years old in the Haxey census of 1851, and by the time of the next census in 1861 she had left her family and was employed as a servant in the Kingston-upon-Hull home of ship owner John Woodall and his family. Mary Collett from Haxey was 15 that day, and it was only during the next two or three years that she married James Thomas Horberry who was nearly ten years older than Mary. She may even have been expecting his child on the day they were married, since by 1871 she had presented James with two daughters.

The census that year recorded the family of four living in the hamlet of Graizelound, where James Horberry was 34, Mary Horberry said she was 27 when she was 25, and their two children were Frances Horberry who was seven and Clara Horberry who was four. The family continued to live there, where three more children were added to the family before the census in 1881. By then the family was listed as James, age 43 and a farmer of eleven acres, Mary who was 35, Clara who was 14, Elizabeth who was seven, William who was four and Alfred who was one-year old.

It was just the three youngest children from 1881 who were still living with the couple in 1891, when James was 53, Mary was 45, Elizabeth was 17, William was 14 and Alfred was 11. However, it was around 1883 that Mary gave birth to her last child, who has not been located in the census of 1891, but who was living with her parents in 1901. The Graizelound census that year recorded the Horberry family living only five dwelling from Mary’s Collett family. Farmer James T Horberry was 63, Mary Horberry was 56, Alfred Horberry was 21 and a labourer working on the railway, while Edith Horberry was 18 and a domestic servant, all of them born at Haxey.

The death of Mary Horberry nee Collett was recorded at Gainsborough register office (Ref. 7a 452) during the first quarter of 1911 when she was 66 years of age.

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John Collett was born at Haxey in 1848 and was baptised in the neighbouring village of Epworth – two miles north of Haxey - on 15^th October 1848, the son of John and Elizabeth Collett. He was two years old in 1851 and his age was given as 14 in the Haxey census of 1861. Ten years later John Collett from Haxey was lodging at the home of the Astin family in Bradford in 1871, where he was working as a joiner, and it was just after then when he married Mary Jane White at Haxey in 1872. Mary was the daughter of James White, while John Collett was named as the father of the groom. The couple’s first child was born in Haxey, but it was very likely John’s work as a joiner that took the young family first to Bradford and then Rotherham, where the family was residing at 75 Eastwood Lane in 1881. By that time Mary had presented John with three children. John was 32, his wife recorded as M J Collett was 30, Arthur Collett was eight, Herbert Collett was five and J E Collett was still under one-year old. Sometime after 1881 John’s work eventually took the family to Doncaster where they were living when the couple’s last two children were born and where they were living in 1891, 1901 and 1911.

In the first of them the completed family was listed as John aged 42, Mary Jane aged 40, Arthur aged 18, Herbert aged 13, John Edwin aged 10, Violette who was six and Clara Annie who was three. Ten years later, minus their eldest child who had left home before 1901 and minus their most recent child who had died at the end of 1898, the family was residing within the Wheatley Hills district of the town. John was 50, Mary Jane was 49, Herbert was 23, John Edwin was 20, Violette was 16 and Clara Annie was 13. Their absent son Arthur was back living with his family at 65 Bentley Road in Doncaster in April 1911, by which time he was a widower with a child of his own. The census that month recorded the household in their 5-roomed dwelling as joiner John Collett who was 62, his wife of 39 years Mary Jane who was 60, their unmarried daughters Violette, who was 26, and Clara Annie, who was 23, together with their widowed son Arthur who was 38 and his son Arthur Reginald who was six years old.

In addition to all of the above, the census in 1911 recorded that John and Mary Jane had given birth to a total of seven children with only five of them still alive by that time. The list below includes the names of the couple’s six known children, with just the name of the seventh child missing, which may have been between 1887 and 1898. It was over four years after that when John Collett from Haxey died in Doncaster where his death at the age of 67 was recorded (Ref. 9c 994) during the third quarter of 1915. For another connection to Rotherham see the Appendix B at the end of this family line.

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Arthur Collett

Born in 1872 at Haxey

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Herbert Collett

Born in 1875 at Bradford

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John Edwin Collett

Born in 1880 at Rotherham

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Violette Collett

Born in 1884 at Doncaster

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Clara Ann Collett

Born in 1887 at Doncaster

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John Henry Collett

Born in 1898 at Doncaster

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William Fisher Collett was born at Haxey on 25^th January 1851 but was curiously baptised at St Andrew’s Church in Epworth two miles north of Haxey on 13^th March 1851, the son of John Ernest Collett and Elizabeth Fisher. He was two months old in the Haxey census of 1851, was 10 years old in 1861, and had left the family home by 1871 which, by then was in the nearby hamlet of Graizelound. It was in the mid-1870s that William married Ann from Scrooby in Nottinghamshire and once married they settled in Gainsborough where their two daughters were born prior to the census in 1881. That year the family of four was recorded living at 26 Wheeldon Street in Gainsborough where blacksmith Wm Collett from Haxey was 30. His wife Ann Collett was 30 and the two daughters were Gertrude Collett who was three and Lilian Collett who was two years of age. Tragically daughter Lilian died during the following year, a fact that was also confirmed within the census return completed in 1911.

Four years after suffering the loss of their youngest daughter in 1882 Annie presented William with the couple’s third child. Both William and Annie were 41 on the occasion of the Gainsborough census in 1891 when the family was living at Tooley Street. The latest edition to the family was their daughter Lucy Collett who was four years old, while still living with the family was the couple’s eldest daughter Gertrude Collett who was 13 and a scholar. After a further ten years the family was still together and residing in Gainsborough at Etherington Street, where blacksmith William Collett from Haxey was 49. His wife Ann from Scrooby was also 49 and their two daughters were listed as Gertrude Collett who was 22 and Lucy Collett who was 15. Staying with the family that day were three men, the first two being nephews of William Fisher Collett, the third being a visitor. They were George Crowther who was 30 and an engine fitter from Loversell in Yorkshire, 20-year old George Collett who was an apprentice blacksmith from Graizelund who was working for his uncle, and George Shadlock from Lincoln who was also 20 and a grocer’s apprentice. George Collett was the son of William’s younger brother Richard (below).

Both surviving daughters, and nephew George Collett, had left the family home in Gainsborough by April 1911 when just William F Collett from Haxey was 60, as was Annie, his wife of thirty-four years. The same census return also confirmed that one of their three children had not survived. William Fisher Collett of Gainsborough died on 16^th October 1916, while his Will was proved in Lincoln on 24^th April 1917 in favour of his daughter Gertrude Smithson, the wife of Arthur Richard Smithson. His personal effects were valued at £2,219 17 Shillings. His death at the age of 66 was recorded at Gainsborough register office (Ref. 7a 879) during the last three months of 1916.

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Gertrude Collett

Born in 1877 at Gainsborough

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Lilian Collett

Born in 1879 at Gainsborough

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Lucy Collett

Born in 1886 at Gainsborough

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RICHARD COLLETT was born at Haxey on 24^th December 1852 and was baptised at nearby Epworth on 16^th January 1853, the son of John and Elizabeth Collett. Richard was eight years of age in the Haxey census of 1861 and by the time he was 17 years old in 1871 he and his family were living in nearby Graizelound. Richard married Jane Elizabeth Hall from Westwood in Lincolnshire just after the census in 1871 and during the next decade their marriage produced four children. Richard Collett was a wheelwright and in early 1877 he took his young family from Bradford, where they had been living since 1873, to the hamlet of Graizelound within the parish of Haxey. And it was at the parish church of St Nicholas that his two eldest sons were baptised in a joint ceremony on 8^th July 1877. By the time of the census in 1881, when Richard was 27, his wife Jane Elizabeth Collett was also 27, and their four children were Kate Elizabeth Collett who was eight, who had been born at nearby East Lound within the parish of Haxey [see map above], Ernest William Collett who was six and born in Bradford, John Edward Collett who was four and also born in Bradford, and George Collett who was one-year old and born in Graizelound.

Three more children were added to the family during the next seven years at Graizelound, so by 1891 the family living there within the Haxey registration district was recorded as Richard age 38, Jane E Collett age 37, Ernest W Collett age 16, John E Collett age 14, George age 10, Richard who was seven, Flora who was five and Albert who was two years old. Their absent daughter Kate, who was 18, was living close by on that occasion, while staying with the family at that time, and working with Richard, was his younger brother Jabez Collett (below). Jane may well have been pregnant with the couple’s eighth child on the day of the census, while her ninth child was born three years after. It is possible that Jane died giving birth to a tenth child, who also did not survive, since Jane Elizabeth Collett nee Hall passed away on 20^th August 1896. She was buried at the parish church in Haxey on 22^nd August 1896 when her place of residence was stated as being the hamlet of Graizelound.

According to the census in March 1901 for Graizelound, widower and wheelwright Richard Collett from Haxey was 48 and it was his daughter Kate E Collett, age 28, who was performing the duties of housekeeper in the absence of her late mother at their home in Owston Road, Graizelound. The remainder of the family was recorded as Ernest W Collett, another wheelwright, who was 26, Richard Collett who was 16 and an apprentice wheelwright working with his father and his brother, Albert Collett who was 12, Edith Annie Collett who was nine and Harold Victor Collett who was six years of age. Living in the adjacent dwelling on Owston Road with the Newton family was the couple’s missing daughter Flora J Collett who was 15, who may have been there because of the lack of space in the Collett house. It was three years later when Richard Collett died at the family home in Graizelound, following which he was buried at Haxey church on 28^th July 1904.

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Katherine Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1872 at East Lound

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Ernest William Collett

Born in 1874 at Bradford

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JOHN EDWARD COLLETT

Born in 1876 at Bradford

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George Collett

Born in 1880 at Graizelound (Haxey)

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Richard Collett

Born in 1883 at Graizelound (Haxey)

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Flora Jane Collett

Born in 1885 at Graizelound (Haxey)

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Albert Richard Collett

Born in 1888 at Graizelound (Haxey)

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Edith Anne Collett

Born in 1891 at Graizelound (Haxey)

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Harold Victor Collett

Born in 1894 at Graizelound (Haxey)

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Elizabeth Collett was born at Haxey on 7^th November 1855 and, apart from being six years old in the Haxey census of 1861, she was not living with her family at any time after that. What is known though is that she married William Grosse who was born at Kirton in Lindsey during 1852 and with whom she had a son Charles H Grosse who was born at Leeds in 1882, who died on 21^st November 1936 at Hunslet where he had been twice married. Elizabeth Grosse nee Collett died on 31^st October 1908 at Hunslet in Yorkshire and her husband passed away ten years later in Leeds on 27^th October 1918.

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George Edward Collett was born at Haxey in 1858 and it was as George Edward Collett aged two years that he was living with his family in Haxey in 1861. By 1871 George Collett from Haxey was 12 years old when he and his family were living in nearby Graizelound. His father passed away four year later and by 1881 George E Collett was 23 when he was a boarder at the home of coal merchant John Morris at Manvers Street in Carlton, Nottinghamshire. At that time in his life George was employed as a railway engine cleaner. Shortly after 1881 George made his way to London where he took up the occupation as a carpenter and a joiner like his brothers John and Jabez. It was also in London during early 1883 that George married Alice Emma Wells from Shoreditch and it was at Shoreditch that their first two children were born. The birth of their first child Ethel Alice Collett was recorded at Shoreditch (Ref. 1c 95) during the third quarter of that same year.

On the day of the next census in 1891 George and Alice were perhaps preparing for the birth of their third child. On that day the young family was living in the Hackney area of London where George E Collett was 33, Alice Collett was 29, Ethel A Collett was seven and Caleb G Collett was five. The Hackney census in 1901 listed the family living at 23 De Beauvoir Road as George E Collett who was 43 and a carpenter and a joiner from Haxey, Alice E Collett who was 39, Ethel A Collett who was 17 and a machinist of baby outfits, Caleb G Collett who was 15 and already working as a commercial clerk, Ivy C Collett who was nine and Stanley J Collett who was five years of age. The two older children had been born at Shoreditch, as had their mother, while the two youngest children had been born at Hackney.

According to the next census in 1911 the family of George Edward Collett from Haxey in Lincolnshire was residing at 69 Albion Road in Stoke Newington. George was 52 and a carpenter and his wife of twenty-nine years was Alice Emma Collett who was 49. The census return stated that Alice had given birth to five children, of which four had survived. They were Caleb George Collett who was 24 and a clerk in an estate agent’s office, Ivy Collett who was 19 and a sewing machinist in baby linen working at home, and Stanley John Collett who was 15 and already an apprentice in the manufacture of scientific and optical instruments. Their eldest child was married by then and, on the day of the census that year, Ethel Alice Lewis from Shoreditch, who had only been married for six months, was 27 when she was staying with her Collett family, perhaps ahead of the birth of her first child. Boarding with the family in their five-roomed accommodation were brothers George Henry Poulten, age 23, and Arthur Thomas Poulten, age 16.

George Edward Collett of 69 Albion Road in Stoke Newington died on 2^nd April 1933 and his Will, valued at £576 17 Shilling 9d was proved in London on 25^th April that same year in favour of his eldest son Caleb George Collett, a clerk

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Ethel Alice Collett

Born in 1883 at Shoreditch

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Caleb George Collett

Born in 1885 at Shoreditch

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Ivy Clara Collett

Born in 1891 at Hackney

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Stanley John Collett

Born in 1896 at Hackney

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Jabez Collett was born at Haxey in 1860, his birth recorded at Gainsborough (Ref. 7a 580) during the fourth quarter of that year. By the time of the census in 1861 he was only a few months old and by 1871, when he was 10 years old, he and his family were living in the hamlet of Graizelound just one mile from Haxey. Following the death of his father John Ernest Collett four years later, Jabez’s mother returned to live in Haxey where Jabez Collett was the only sibling still living there with his widowed mother Elizabeth when he was 20 and his occupation was that of a joiner like his brother John (above). Following the death of his mother during the 1880s Jabez moved in with his older married brother Richard (above) at Graizelound where he was 30 in 1891 with the occupation of a wheelwright, like that of his brother Richard, with whom he was presumably working. It was on 1^st October1900 at St Nicholas Church in Haxey that he married Ann Elizabeth Johnson of Haxey, the daughter of widow Harriet Johnson from Blyton. The marriage was recorded at Gainsborough register office (Ref. 7a 1677) during the last quarter of 1900. Ann was with-child on that day and their first child was born within two months of their wedding day while they were staying at the home of Ann’s mother.

The census in March 1901 recorded the four of them living in a three-roomed dwelling in Haxey Lane in Haxey where Harriet Johnson was 64 and head of the household, her married daughter Annie E Collett was 24, her son-in-law was Jabez Collett a joiner at 36 – when he was actually forty, and their daughter Nellie Collett who was only five months old. Over the next ten years three more children were added to their family so by the time of the census in 1911 the family comprised Jabez Collett who was 48, Annie Elizabeth Collett who was 33, Nellie Collett who was 10, Daisy Collett who was eight, Eric Collett who was four and Edna Clara Collett who was one-year old. Annie may well have been pregnant with the couple’s fifth child on the day of the census, although it is curious that the child was given the names Daisy Clara when there were already children with those names in the family. The death of Jabez Collett, aged 61 and of Westwoodside in Haxey, was recorded at Gainsborough register office (Ref. 7a 812) during the first week of December in 1921. He died in the Haxey Almshouse and was buried in the grounds of Haxey parish church on 8^th December 1921. His widow survived him by thirty-one years, when she passed away during 1952.

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Nellie Collett

Born in 1900 at Haxey

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Daisy Collett

Born in 1902 at Haxey

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Eric Collett

Born in 1906 at Haxey

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Edna Clara Collett

Born in 1909 at Haxey; died in 1997

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Daisy Clara Collett

Born in 1911 at Haxey

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Arthur Collett was born at Haxey in 1872, the first child of John Collett and Mary Jane White, his birth recorded at Gainsborough (Ref. 7a 677) during the last quarter of that year. After a short spell living in Bradford, where his brother Herbert (below) was born, the family then settled in Rotherham. It was at 75 Eastwood Lane in Rotherham that eight years-old Arthur Collett was living with his family in 1881, although not long after the family moved again, on that occasion to Doncaster. The Doncaster census of 1891 placed Arthur still living with his family at the age of 18. However, he had left the family home in the Wheatley Hills district of Doncaster by March 1901, and was living apart from them in Doncaster when he was 28, unmarried and working as a blacksmith. Just after 1901 Arthur became a married man, but tragically it would seem, his wife died giving birth to the couple’s first and only child. That sad event resulted in Arthur returning to live with his parents at 65 Bentley Road in Doncaster, where he and his son were still staying at the time of the census in 1911. Arthur Collett, a widower from Haxey, was 38 and his son Arthur Reginald Collett was six years old and had been born in Doncaster.

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Arthur Reginald Collett

Born in 1904 at Doncaster

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Herbert Collett was born at Bradford in 1875, the son of John Collett and Mary Jane White. Prior to 1880 his father’s work resulted in a move to Rotherham and in 1881 Herbert Collett, who was five years old, and his family were living at 75 Eastwood Lane in the town. Within the next few years the family moved once more, on that occasion to Doncaster, where Herbert was 13 in 1891. It was also at Wheatley Hills in Doncaster that he and his family was recorded in the census of 1901 when he was 23 and employed as a blacksmith’s striker. It may have been only a few months after the census day in 1901 that Herbert married Eliza and over the remainder of the decade they gave birth to five children while they were residing in Doncaster. So, on the day of the census in 1911, Herbert Collett from Bradford was 33, Eliza was 30, Lucy Collett was seven, Alan Collett was five, Mona Collett was four, John Collett was two and Olga Collett was just two months old. On that occasion the family home was 11 Ronald Road in Balby-cum-Hexthorpe, Doncaster.

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Lucy Collett

Born in 1903 at Doncaster

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Alan Collett

Born in 1905 at Doncaster

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Mona Collett

Born in 1907 at Doncaster

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John Collett

Born in 1908 at Doncaster

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Olga Collett

Born in 1911 at Doncaster

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John Edwin Collett was born at Rotherham in 1880 and most likely at 75 Eastwood Lane where he and his family were living at the time of the census in 1881 in which he was simply recorded as J E Collett who was not yet one-year old. While he was still very young his family settled in Doncaster where John Edwin Collett was10 years old in 1891. By the time of the next census in 1901 his occupation was that of a tailor when he was still living with his family in the Wheatley Hills area of Doncaster at the age of 20. Towards the end of the first decade of the new century John married Edith Mary of Doncaster and their son Harold was born during the autumn of 1910. The census conducted during the following spring recorded the family at Doncaster as John Edwin Collett who was 30, Edith Mary Collett who was 23, and Harold Edwin Collett who was six months old.

It is assumed that further children were added to their family over the next few years, one of which may have been Ella Collett. During the early 1930s she was employed in domestic service at Old Woodhall in Lincolnshire. All that is known about her is that her family had a shop in Doncaster and that she gave birth to a base-born son who was born at 83 Elsworth Street in Doncaster, in the presence of Nurse Atkinson, on 28^th August 1934. By the time his birth was registered on 23^rd October that same year the address at which he was living was recorded as Factory Lane in Doncaster. The son of Ellen Collett was the father of Denise Gardiner, née Hind, who was living in Barton-on-Humber in North Lincolnshire in 2015.

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Harold Edwin Collett

Born in October 1910 at Doncaster

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Ellen Collett

Date of birth unknown

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Clara Ann Collett was born at Doncaster in 1887, the youngest daughter of John and Mary Jane Collett. It was as Clara Annie that she was recorded with her family at Doncaster in 1891 at the age of three, again in 1901 when she was 13, and once more in 1911 when she was 23 and residing at the family home at 65 Bentley Road in Doncaster. It was just over three years later that the death of Clara A Collett was recorded at Doncaster register office (Ref. 9c 1019) during the third quarter of 1914.

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John Henry Collett was born at Doncaster in 1898, the youngest child of John Collett and Mary Jane White. Tragically, he was only a few months old when he died at Doncaster and, following his death, his father arranged for him to be buried in the family plot at Haxey where his father had been born. That took placed on 6^th December 1898.

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Gertrude Collett was born at Gainsborough in 1877, the eldest child of William Fisher Collett and his wife Ann, and her birth was recorded at Gainsborough (Ref. 7a 725) during the third quarter of 1877. In 1881 the family was living at 26 Wheeldon Street in Gainsborough where Gertrude was three years of age. Ten years later she was 13 and was attending the local school while residing at Tooley Street in Gainsborough. After a further ten years she was 22 in the Gainsborough census of 1901 when she was still living with her parents who, by then, were recorded at Etherington Street in the town. It was four years after that when she married Arthur Richard Smithson, the event recorded at Gainsborough register office (Ref. 7a 1573) during the third quarter of 1905, when the witnesses were Annie Fillingham and Morris Butler. Apart from being the sole beneficiary under the terms of her father’s Will in 1916, the only other detail known about her is that Gertrude Smithson passed away at the age of 87, her death recorded at Lincoln register office (Ref. 3b 254) during the September quarter of 1964.

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Lilian Collett was born at Gainsborough in 1879, her birth also recorded there (Ref. 7a 754) during the first three months. On the occasion of the census in 1881 Lilian Collett, aged two years, was living with her parents and her older sister Gertrude (above) at 26 Wheeldon Street in Gainsborough, where she may have been born. Sadly, it was just over eighteen months later that the death of Lilian Collett, aged three years, was recorded at Gainsborough (Ref. 7a 446) during the fourth quarter of 1882.

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Katherine Elizabeth Collett was born at East Lound on 16^th July 1872, the first child born to Richard Collett and Jane Elizabeth Hall, her birth recorded at Gainsborough (Ref. 7a 684) during the third quarter of that year under the name Kate Elizabeth Collett. Not long after she was born Kate and her parents were living in Bradford where her two brothers (below) were born, before the young family settled in the hamlet of Graizelound. In the census of 1881 she was again recorded as Kate Elizabeth Collett aged eight years, while ten years later she was working in domestic service within the same parish of Haxey at the age of 18. Following the death of her mother in 1896 she returned to the family home and, according to the next census in 1901 for Graizelound, Kate E Collett, age 28, was the housekeeper for her widowed father and the rest of her family. No record of her has been found in 1911, by which time she may have been married. However, she was still alive in the early 1950s, as shown in the photograph (below) with her two sisters Flora and Edith.

68P11

Ernest William Collett was born at Bradford on 27^th September 1874, the second child and eldest son of Richard and Jane Elizabeth Collett. It was during the first six months of 1877 that his family settled in his father’s home parish of Haxey, in the hamlet of Graizelound, and it was at the Church of St Nicholas in Haxey that he was baptised shortly after the move in a joint ceremony with his brother John (below). Ernest William Collett from Bradford was six years old in the census of 1881 and, as the eldest son, Ernest became a wheelwright working alongside his father and in 1891 he was included with his family as Ernest W Collett who was 16.

After a further ten years Ernest was unmarried at 26 when he was training his brother Richard (below) in the profession of a wheelwright. Ernest married the much younger Emma Wright during the next couple of years and by April 1911 Emma had presented Ernest with three children. The Haxey census that month listed the family at Graizelound as Ernest W Collett age 36, Emma Collett age 26, Gladys M Collett who was five Reginald E Collett who was four and Stanley Collett who was three years of age. Ernest William Collett was still living in Haxey when he died on 5^th December 1952, as was his wife Emma when she died on 14^th September 1964. They were reunited at that time, when they were buried together in the churchyard of St Nicholas’ Church in Haxey, the same grave in which their unmarried daughter Audrey had been died in 1943.

68Q9

Gladys Mary Collett

Born in 1905 at Haxey

68Q10

Reginald E Collett

Born in 1906 at Haxey

68Q11

Stanley Collett

Born in 1907 at Haxey

68Q12

Frank Collett

Born in 1912 at Haxey

68Q13

Audrey Collett

Born in 1919 at Haxey

68Q14

Geoffrey Collett

Born in 1924 at Haxey

68P12

JOHN EDWARD COLLETT was born at Bradford on 20^th October 1876 although it was at Gainsborough that his birth was recorded (Ref. 7a 721). Within the next few months the family settled in Graizelound, while it was at nearby Haxey parish church that he was baptised on the same day as his older brother Ernest (above). According to the Haxey census in 1881 John Collett was four years old and ten years later he and his family were living in Haxey in 1891 when he was named as John E Collett who was 14 and still at school. However, he was 21 when he married Eliza Ann Hather of Haxey, on the 16^th March 1898. Eliza was 19, the daughter of John Hather and Eliza Spencer, and had been born at Graizelound on 29^th May 1878. The photograph of John was taken around the start of WW2.

Once married the couple initially set up home in Doncaster, where their first two children were born. Tragically, it would appear, their second child George did not survive long after the census in 1901. On that occasion the family of four was residing in the Balby and West Hexthorpe area of Doncaster where blacksmith John E Collett from Haxey (?) was 24, his wife Eliza A Collett, also from Haxey, was 23, and their two sons were Albert S Collett who was one-year old and George C Collett who was only a few weeks old, who tragically died just a few months after.

It was the census ten years later that revealed two more children were added to the family, and that they had replaced the couple’s missing son George. Rather strangely the actual census return did not include the full names of John Collett, but simply referred to him as Mr J E Collett who was 34 and from Haxey. His wife was described as Mrs Eliza Ann Collett, age 32, while their sons were recorded as Sidney Collett, who was 11, Norman Cyril Collett, who was eight, and Bernard Alfred Collett who was five years old. This photograph from the mid-1920s shows (from the left) sons Bernard and Ralph with parents John and Eliza.

It may be of interest that the Isle of Axholme Family History Society indicates in the Baptism Records for St Nicholas Church in Haxey that John Edward and his older brother Ernest William were born in Graizelound & Haxey and, although it also confirms that Ernest was born in 1874 and John in 1876, it does state that they were both baptised in a joint ceremony at Haxey on 8th July 1877, which may be where the confusion lies, as they were certainly born in Bradford.

68Q15

Albert Sidney Collett

Born in 1899 at Doncaster

68Q16

George Clarence Collett

Born in 1901 at Doncaster

68Q17

Norman Cyril Collett

Born in 1903 at Doncaster

68Q18

Bernard Alfred Collett

Born in 1905 at Doncaster

68Q19

RALPH SPENCER COLLETT

Born in 1915 at Doncaster

68P13

George Collett was born at Graizelound (Haxey) on 31^st March 1880, his birth recorded at Gainsborough (Ref. 7a 788) during the second quarter of that year. George was one-year old in the Haxey census of 1881, a son of wheelwright Richard Collett and Jane Elizabeth Hall, and was 10 years of age in the next census conducted in 1891 when he was living with his family in Graizelound. Upon leaving school, and following the death of his mother at Graizelound in 1896, George became a blacksmith’s apprentice under the guidance of his uncle William Fisher Collett. That situation was confirmed in the 1901 Census when 20-year old George Collett was described as the nephew of William F Collett of Haxey at his home on Etherington Street in Gainsborough.

Like many other members of this family, George eventually made his way to Doncaster where, in the census of 1911, as George Collette (sic), he was 31 and had been born at Graizelund in Lincolnshire. On that day he was a boarder at the home of childless couple Albert and Anna Burton at 5 Fitters Terrace on Cemetery Road in Doncaster. Albert was 49 and a railway coach builder from Doncaster, while George’s occupation was by then a blacksmith, both of them employed by the Great Northern Railway. Seven years later George Collett married Ethel E Shepherd, the event recorded at Grimsby register office (Ref. 7a 1456) during the third quarter of 1918.

68P14

Richard Collett was born at Graizelound (Haxey) on 16^th June 1883, his birth recorded at Gainsborough (Ref. 7a 712) during the third quarter of that year. He was seven years old in the Haxey census of 1891 and on leaving school he worked with his father and his brother Ernest (above). At the age of 17 he was a wheelwright’s apprentice at Owston Road in Haxey in the March census of 1901. Richard was in his mid-twenties when he married Lillian Simpson Lockwood who was twenty and by April 1911 the couple had two children. The family of four also had Richard’s youngest brother Harold (below) living with them on the day of the census following the death of their mother some years earlier. Richard Collett was 27, Lillian Simpson Collett was 23, their daughter Vera Collett was two years old and their son Leslie Collett was just nine months. Lillian was very likely expecting the birth of the couple’s third child later that same year and that child, like the next one, did not survive. However, the couple’s last child was born in 1915, while it was during the following year that Richard Collett died at Haxey on 25^th March 1916. A headstone in the graveyard at the Church of St Nicholas bears his name and confirms he was 32 years of age when he passed away, while it was at Gainsborough register office (Ref. 7a 968) where his death was recorded and, following his burial at St Nicholas’ Church on 29^th March 1916, the church record stated that he had been a resident of Haxey Lane in the village on his passing.

68Q20

Vera Collett

Born in 1909 at Haxey

68Q21

Leslie Collett

Born in 1910 at Haxey

68Q22

Archibald Collett

Born in 1911 at Haxey; died in 1912

68Q23

Douglas Lockwood Collett

Born in 1912 at Haxey; died in 1913

68Q24

Bernice Lorraine Collett

Born in 1915 at Haxey

68P15

Flora Jane Collett was born at Graizelound (Haxey) on 16^th September 1885 and was five years old in the Haxey census of 1891 when she was incorrectly recorded as Clara Collett. However, ten years later it was as Flora J Collett, age 15, that she was living at Owston Lane in Haxey at the home of the Newton family. It was also nearby in Owston Lane that the rest of her Collett family was recorded in 1901 following the death of her mother in 1896.

The birth of Flora Jane Collett at Haxey was recorded at Gainsborough (Ref. 7a 737) during the last quarter of 1885. The photograph above shows the three Collett sisters [from the left] Edith Anne (below), Flora Jane and Katherine Elizabeth (above) during the early 1950s.

68P16

Albert Richard Collett was born at Graizelound (Haxey) on 20^th August 1888 and was two years old in the Haxey census of 1891. Curiously at the time of his birth during the third quarter of 1888 the name recorded at Gainsborough (Ref. 7a 663) was simply Albert Collett. He was around eight years old when his mother died at Graizelound in 1896 and in 1901, when he was 12, he was living with his widowed father and the rest of his family whose domestic needs were being attended to by Albert’s eldest sister Kate. Three years after that, Albert’s father died at Graizelound and it may have been that sad event that prompted Albert to emigrate to America, which he did in 1907. On the occasion of the census in 1911 Albert Collett from England was 21 years of age and a servant at the home of the Mason family at Tuxedo in Orange County, New York. And it was very likely in Orange County that he later married Barbara M Gresch from Austria, with whom he had four children. In the Draft Registration Event for Orange County in 1917-1918 the date of birth for Albert Collett from England was confirmed as 20^th August 1888.

The census of 1920 placed the family of Albert Collett still living in Tuxedo where Albert was 31, Barbara was 27, and their two sons were Albert junior, who was six, and Richard who was two years of age. During the next decade the family left Tuxedo and settled in the Queens district of New York, where they were recorded in the census of 1930. By then Albert was 42, Barbara was 37, Albert was 16, Richard was 13, and the couple’s daughter Barbara was four years old. Two years later Barbara presented Albert with a third son, as reflected in the next census of 1940 when the family was still residing in Queens, although by that time their son Richard had left the family home in New York City.

Albert Collett from England was 51, his wife Barbara from Austria was 47, and their three remaining children were Albert Steven Collett who was 26, Barbara Collett who was 14 and Douglas Collett who was eight years old. Albert Richard Collett from Lincolnshire in England was still a resident of Queens in New York City when he died.

68Q25

Albert Stephen Collett

Born in 1914 at Tuxedo, Orange Cty

68Q26

Richard Stephen Collett

Born in 1918 at Tuxedo, Orange Cty

68Q27

Barbara Collett

Born in 1926 in New York State

68Q28

Douglas Collett

Born in 1932 at Queens, New York

68P17

Edith Anne Collett was born at Graizelound (Haxey) on 6^th November 1891, her birth recorded at Gainsborough (Ref. 7a 690). She was nine years old in the Haxey census of 1901. By that time her mother had already died at Graizelound and Edith Annie Collett was attending the school while living with her widowed father and the rest of her family at Graizelound. On leaving school Edith also left the family home perhaps around 1904, the year that her father died at Graizelound since, in the census of 1911, Edith Annie Collett aged 19 was still living in the Graizelound and Haxey area, not far from other members of her family who were also still living there. Over two years later Edith A Collett was with-child when she married Ernest Kelsey, the event recorded at Gainsborough register office (Ref. 7a 1645) during the last three months of 1913, following which she presented him with two daughters. Ernest was born at Haxey on 22^nd August 1886 and died there in 1967. Anne Priscilla Kelsey was born at Haxey on 14^th March 1914 and she died at Beverley in 1987, while her sister Stella Kelsey was born in 1917. Edith Anne Kelsey nee Collett died at Haxey on 5^th June 1974.

68P18

Harold Victor Collett was born at Graizelound (Haxey) on 27^th June 1894, the last child born to Richard Collett and Jane Elizabeth Hall who died at Graizelound in 1896 and was buried in Haxey when Harold was only two years old. The birth of Harold Victor Collett was recorded at Gainsborough (Ref. 7a 655) during the third quarter of 1894. It was also as Harold Victor Collett aged six years that he was listed with his family in the census of 1901, when they were living at Owston Road in Haxey. Ten years later, and following the death of his father at Graizelound in 1904, Harold was again recorded under his full name when, at the age of 16, he was staying with his older married brother Richard (above). He later married Katherine I Waters at Hinckley in Leicestershire in 1919 and it was also in Leicester that he died during 1970.

68P20

Caleb George Collett was born at Shoreditch in London during 1885 and was baptised on 17^th May 1885 at Dalston St Philip in Hackney, the second child and eldest son of George Edward Collett and Alice Emma Wells. He was five years of age in the Hackney census of 1891 and by 1901 he and his family were living at 23 De Beauvoir Road in Hackney where Caleb G Collett was 15. During the next decade the family left Hackney and moved to 69 Albion Road in Stoke Newington where they were recorded in the census of 1911 when Caleb George Collett, age 24 and a clerk in an estate agent’s office, was still living with his parents. Caleb was still working as a clerk in 1933 when he was given administration of his father personal effects, his father still living at 69 Albion Road where he passed away. The death of Caleb George Collett at the age of 84 was recorded at Rochford in Essex (Ref. 4a 2465) at the end of 1969.

68P22

Stanley John Collett was born at Hackney in 1896 and was recorded as Stanley J Collett who was five years old in the hackney census of 1901, the youngest child of George Edward Collett from Haxey and his London born wife Alice Emma Wells. On leaving school, he also left the family home although he was still living nearby in the Hackney area of London, when Stanley John Collett was 15 and an apprentice working with lens with a manufacturer of scientific and optical instruments. In 1915 he enlisted as a driver with the Royal Field Artillery and was given the service number 925095. His trade on enlistment was stated as being that of an apprentice optician, while his next-of-kin was his father George Edward Collett. He was unmarried at that time and appears to have been discharged, perhaps through injury, on 26^th July 1917. It was less than a year later when Stanley was 22 that he married Ada Georgina Connor at Stoke Newington on 19^th May 1918. His military record gave a later address for him and his wife (unnamed) 48 Ferndale Road off, Bedford Road in Brixton. Ada was born at Stoke Newington on 14^th January 1896 and as Ada Collett nee Connor she died at Camberwell in 1982.

68P23

Nellie Collett was born at Haxey Lane in Haxey in 1900, her birth recorded at Gainsborough register office (Ref. 7a 668) during the final three months of that year. She was five months old in the March census of 1901 when she and her parents were living at the home of Nellie’s maternal grandmother, and was 10 years of age in 1911. She later married Ernest Whitby from Hull with whom she had a daughter Hilda A Whitby who was born in 1920 at West Stockwith in Nottinghamshire. The child may well have been a honeymoon baby, since it was during the first quarter of 1920 that the marriage was recorded at Gainsborough register office (Ref. 7a 1523). Nellie Whitby nee Collett was still living at West Stockwith, which lies just south of Haxey, when she died during 1953, fourteen years prior to the death of her husband.

68P25

Eric Collett was born at Haxey on 22^nd September 1906, the third child and only son of Jabez Collett and Ann Elizabeth Johnson, and was four years old in the Haxey census of 1911. He was twenty-eight when he married Winifred Anderson in Doncaster and their marriage produced a son and a daughter for the couple. And it was in Doncaster that Eric Collett was living when he died in 1980, while his wife also passed away at Doncaster in 1991 at the age of 83, Winifred having been born at Gainsborough on 5^th January 1908.

68Q29

a Collett son

Date of birth unknown at Doncaster

68Q30

a Collett daughter

Date of birth unknown at Doncaster

68Q1

Arthur Reginald Collett was born at Doncaster on 8^th April 1904, the son of Arthur Collett and his unknown wife who appears to have died during the birth of their one and only child. His birth was recorded at Doncaster register office (Ref. 9c 832). By the time of the census in 1911 Arthur Reginald Collett was six years old and was with his widowed father when they were living at 65 Bentley Road in Doncaster, the home of his grandparents. Arthur Reginald Collett seems to have lived all his life in Doncaster, since it was there that his death was recorded (Ref. 3 0659) at the age of 84 during March 1979.

68Q3

Alan Collett was born at Doncaster during 1905, the son of Herbert married Eliza Collett. He was five years of age in the Doncaster census of 1911 when he and his family was living at 11 Ronald Road in Balby-cum-Hexthorpe. It would appear he spent all his life in the Doncaster area, since it was at Doncaster register office (Ref. 2b 571) that his death was recorded in March 1962 at the age of 56.

68Q4

Mona Collett was born at Doncaster on 15^th March 1907, her birth recorded at Doncaster register office (Ref. 9c 868) during the second quarter, the daughter of Herbert married Eliza Collett. Mona Collett was four years old in April 1911 when she and her family were recorded at their home 11 Ronald Road in Balby-cum-Hexthorpe. It was at Doncaster in 1932 where 25-year-old Mona married John William Stead, the event recorded at the Doncaster register office (Ref. 9c 1811) during the last three months of that year. She was married for almost 42 years when Mona Stead, nee Collett, died at the age of 67, her death recorded at Doncaster register office (Ref. 2b 1243) during the month of March 1974.

68Q5

John Collett was born on 22^nd November 1908 and possibly at 11 Ronald Road within the Balby-cum-Hexthorpe area of Doncaster, where he was living with his family in 1911 when he was two years old. He was still residing in Doncaster when he died in September 1969 at the age of sixty, his passing recorded there (Ref. 2b 263) that month.

68Q6

Olga Collett was born at 11 Ronald Road in Balby-cum-Hexthorpe, Doncaster on 12^th January 1911, the last known child born to Herbert and Eliza Collett, and was two months old in the census of 1911. It was in the last three months of 1932 when she married George Henry Dean at Doncaster (Ref. 9c 2007). And it was also in Doncaster that the death of Olga Dean, aged 75, was recorded (Ref. 3 630) during October 1986.

68Q7

Harold Edwin Collett was born at Doncaster on 30^th September 1910, the eldest son of John Edwin Edith Mary Collett, who was just six months old on the day of the Doncaster census of 1911. He was still living in the Doncaster area when he died during March 1977, when his death as Harold Edwin Collett was recorded (Ref. 3 0510) at the age of 66.

68Q10

Reginald E Collett was born at Haxey on 9^th December 1906 and he married Elsie Maud who was born in 1913. Reginald died at Haxey on 14^th March 1962, while Elsie passed away during 1991.

68Q12

Frank Collett was born at Haxey on 7^th May 1912 and all that is currently known about him is that he died at Haxey on 4^th May 1981, although it was at Retford in South Yorkshire that his death was recorded (Ref. 8 0141) during the month of June in 1981 when he was 69.

68Q13

Audrey Collett was born at Haxey in 1919 and the only known fact about her is that she died at Haxey on 1^st March 1943. The headstone on her grave at the Church of St Nicholas in Haxey also confirms that first her father was buried with Audrey in 1952, followed by her mother in 1964. The headstone epitaph reads as follows: Beautiful Memories of Audrey The Beloved Daughter of Ernest William and Emma Collett who died March 1^st 1943 aged 24 years “In Memories lane we meet every day” Also of the above Ernest William Collett who died Dec 5^th 1952 aged 78 years And the above Emma Collett who died Sept 14^th 1964 aged 78 years Re-United

68Q14

Geoffrey Collett was born at Haxey in 1924 and he married Alice Doreen Clark who was born in 1918 and who died in 2003. The couple was married on 4^th September 1948 at Misterton in Nottinghamshire, just a few miles south of Haxey.

68Q15

Albert Sidney Collett was the eldest of the five sons of John Edward Collett and Eliza Ann Hather and was born at Doncaster, within the parish of St James, on 15^th October 1899. He married Ella Sargent during the second quarter of 1922, the event recorded at Doncaster register office (Ref. 9c 1694). Once married he and Ella had a daughter while the couple was still residing in the Doncaster area and before the family moved to London. It is also understood that his wife may have suffered a premature death. The birth of their only known child was recorded at Doncaster register office (Ref. 9c 1562) during the third quarter of 1925, when the mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Sargent.

68R1

Joan Collett

Born in 1925 at Doncaster

68Q16

George Clarence Collett was born at Doncaster in 1901, his birth recorded there (Ref. 9c 854) during the first three months of that year. He was listed with his family in the census of 1901 as George C Collett but died very shortly after, his death recorded at Doncaster register office (Ref. 9c 551) under his full name during the third quarter of that same year.

68Q17

Norman Cyril Collett was born at Doncaster in 1903 and he married Elsie Hayes who was also born in 1903. Their marriage presented the couple with three children, before Norman died at Milton Keynes in 1967, where his youngest daughter died nearly forty years later.

68R2

Gordon Collett

Date of birth unknown

68R3

Brenda Margaret Collett

Born in 1927; died in 2005

68R4

a Collett daughter

Date of birth unknown

68Q18

Bernard Alfred Collett was born at Doncaster on 21^st July 1905 and he married Elizabeth Franey who was born in 1907, with whom he had two sons. Bernard Alfred Collett was still living in Doncaster when he died in 1975.

68R5

John Peter Collett

Born on 07.03.1938

68R6

Antony Bernard Collett

Born on 17.07.1941

68Q19

RALPH SPENCER COLLETT was born at Doncaster on 14^th July 1915, the youngest child of John Edward Collett and Eliza Ann Hather. He was still in Doncaster in 1937 when he married Joyce Tindall who was also born there on 11^th October 1915, the daughter of Charles Tindall and Frances Morley. Their marriage produced a daughter and a son. Ralph Spencer Collett died in Doncaster during1991, while it was there also where his wife Joyce passed away four years later in 1995.

68R7

Brenda Collett

Born on 01.05.1934 at Doncaster

68R8

ROY COLLETT

Born in 1938 at Doncaster

68Q20

Vera Collett was born at Haxey on 5^th March 1909 and in 1929 at East Retford in Nottinghamshire she married (1) Arthur Hurst and in 1950 at Haxey she (2) John Walker who was born at Wombwell in Yorkshire on 19^th September 1907 and who died in 1993. Vera Walker nee Collett died in 2004.

68Q21

Leslie Collett was born at Haxey on 29^th June 1910 and was nine months old in the Haxey census of 1911. Like many members of this family he settled in Doncaster where his death was recorded at the age of 59 (Ref. 2b 1022) during June 1969.

68Q24

Bernice Lorraine Collett was born at Haxey on 20^th April 1915 and she married George Smith with whom she had a son Anthony Smith who was born in 1943. Bernice Lorraine Smith nee Collett died in 1997.

68Q25

Albert Stephen Collett was born at Tuxedo in Orange County, New York State on 18^th September 1913, and he died on 14^th July 1989 in the Queens district of New York.

68Q26

Richard Stephen Collett was born at Tuxedo on 24^th January 1917 and he married Eleanor J Jonke who was born in New York on 23^rd September 1916 and who died at Nassau County, New York on 7^th October 2001. Richard Stephen Collett senior died seven years later on 12^th January 2008 when he was still living in Nassau County, just one year after the passing of his only son Richard Stephen Collett junior.

68R9

Richard Stephen Collett

Born on 15.03.1946; died in 2007

68R8

ROY COLLETT was born at Doncaster on 10^th February 1938 and was the youngest of the two children of Ralph Spencer Collett and Joyce Tindall. It was at Sprotbrough, three miles north-west of Doncaster that he married Sheila Gardiner at St Mary's Church on 28^th April 1956. Less than six months later Sheila presented Roy with the first of their two children while they were still living within the Doncaster area. It was Roy’s work which eventually took the family of three to Nigeria in 1967, and it was there in the City of Jos that their second son was born three years later. The family remained in Nigeria until 1979 when Roy and Sheila moved to Saudi Arabia, then Bahrain, before returning to the United Kingdom. After a while the couple returned to the Middle East, before finally retiring to live in the Nottinghamshire village of Gringly-on-the-Hill, about three miles from Roy’s ancestral home hamlet of Graizelound within the Parish of Haxey. And it was Roy who kindly provided the details of his life and those of his two sons.

68S1

PETER VINCENT COLLETT

Born in 1956 at Doncaster

68S2

Richard Spencer Collett

Born in 1970 at Jos in Nigeria

68S1

PETER VINCENT COLLETT was born at Doncaster on 16^th September 1956. It was also in Sprotbrough near Doncaster where his parents were married, that Peter married Jean Atack on 6^th August 1983, and the following year their son was born. Two years later Peter, Jean and Sean left England and settled in Barbados where their family was added to with the birth of a second son, and where the family is still living in 2014.

68T1

SEAN SPENCER COLLETT

Born on 31.10.1984 at Doncaster

68T2

Scott Spencer Collett

Born on 13.04.1987 at Barbados

68S2

Richard Spencer Collett was born in the City of Jos in Nigeria on 28^th October 1970 and he married Kirsten McMillen in Manchester on 4^th September 1999. It was that same year when Richard’s work resulted in the couple moving to the Cayman Island and settling in Grand Cayman where they are still living in 2014 and where both of their children were born.

68T3

Jacob McMillen-Collett

Born on 15.05.2004 at Grand Cayman

68T4

Talia McMillen-Collett

Born on 11.01.2006 at Grand Cayman

APPENDIX A – The Warwickshire & Sheffield Family

Although not yet proved, it seems highly likely that William and George Collett were brothers, their common connection being the Warwickshire village of Long Compton, close to the county boundary with Oxfordshire. If it can be subsequently verified that they were brothers, then their parents were most probably Thomas and Mary Collett, as detailed below.

a68l1

Thomas Collett, who date of birth is not known, but who was the husband of Mary, appears to have had at least three sons, although only two of them are known to have survived.

a68m1

William Collett

Born in 1788 at Long Compton

a68m2

William Collett

Born in 1791 at Long Compton

a68m3

George Collett

Born in 1800 at Long Compton

a68m1

William Collett, who may have been born at Long Compton in 1788, was baptised at Cherington, just north of Long Compton, on 7^th December 1788, the son of Thomas and Mary Collett. Tragically he was less than two years old when he died on 20^th March 1791.

a68m2

William Collett may have been born at Long Compton after 1791, the son of Thomas and Mary Collett. William was married to Catherine who gave him a son who was born at Long Compton, where the child was also baptised at the parish Church of St Peter & St Paul.

a68n1

William Collett

Born in 1814 at Long Compton

a68m3

George Collett was born at Long Compton in 1800, as confirmed at the time of his death in 1862 when he was 61. It is possible that he was the younger brother of William Collett and therefore the son of Thomas and Mary Collett, or the older brother of William Collett the son of William and Catherine Collett. However, it is established from the very grand grave memorial in Warstone Cemetery in Birmingham that George was married to Mary and that their only known child was born in Birmingham much later in George’s life, sometime during 1838. The 20 feet high obelisk also confirms that George died on 18^th April 1862 and that his wife died on 12^th May 1889 and that their daughter passed away during April 1906. Not long after their daughter was born George and Mary were living on Constitution Hill in Birmingham, where they were recorded on the day of the census in June 1841. George Collett was 40 years old and working as a leather seller, his wife Mary was 45, and their daughter Jane was three years of age.

Sometime thereafter the family of three moved into a property on Barker Street in Birmingham, which was apparently one of a number of properties owned by George. That was confirmed in the census of 1851 when George Collett from Long Compton was 49 and a proprietor of houses living at 14 Barker Street with wife Mary, who was 55 and from Sheriffs Lench in Worcestershire, and their daughter Jane who was 13. After a further ten years George was 60 and described as a retired leather seller from Long Compton. Mary Collett from Lench was 65 and unmarried Jane Collett was 23. It was one year later that George died and by the time of the census in 1871 widow Mary Collett, aged 75, was an annuitant who still had living with her, her daughter Jane who was 32. No obvious record of either Mary or Jane has been found in any subsequent census.

a68n2

Jane Collett

Born in 1838 in Birmingham

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William Collett was born during the first five months of 1814 at Long Compton in Warwickshire midway between Shipston-on-Stour and Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire. It was also at Long Compton that he was baptised on 5^th June 1814, the son of William and Catherine Collett. By 1851 William, aged 37 and from Long Compton, was married to (1) Eliza Silvester from Ansty to the north-east of Coventry who had already provided him with the first their seven known children, who did not survive. Eliza was baptised at Ansty on 10^th December 1819, the daughter of William and Rebecca Silvester. The record of their marriage at St Philip’s Cathedral in Birmingham on 6^th May 1845 confirmed that William Collett was the son of William Collett and that his bride Eliza was the daughter of William Silvester. The census in 1851 placed the young family living at Bromsgrove Street in Birmingham, where wood turner William Collett from Long Compton was 37, wife Eliza from Ansty was 32 and their two surviving children were Emma Collett who was five and George Collett who was one year old. The couple’s missing first child, and base-born son George, had been born at Birmingham (Ref. 16 330) during the last quarter of 1843, but died in December and was buried at St Thomas’ Church on 6^th December 1843. His replacement, George William Collett, was born at Birmingham during the first three months of 1850, after which a further four children were added to the family.

The census ten years later in 1861 recorded the enlarged family still residing at 183 Bromsgrove Street within the Birmingham Parish of St Martin, known as St Martin-in-the-Bull-Ring. William Collett was 46 and again a wood turner, his wife Eliza was 42, and their six children were named as Emma Collett who was 15, George Collett who was 11, Mary A Collett who was nine, Martha Collett who was seven, William Collett who was five and Arthur John Collett who was just one-year old. All of the children had been born after the married couple had settled in Birmingham. Only the four middle children were still attending school, perhaps indicating that the eldest daughter was helping her mother in the family home.

Sadly, William’s wife Eliza passed away within the next twelve months, her death recorded at Birmingham (Ref. 6d 45) during the first quarter of 1862, following which she was buried in the churchyard of St Martin’s Church on 11^th February 1862. She was only 42 years old. Two years later widower William Collett married (2) Mary Collingwood at St Jude’s Church in Birmingham on 19^th April 1864, the event recorded at Birmingham (Ref. 6d 68) during the second quarter of that year. Six years later the Birmingham census of 1871 recorded the family as William Collett, who was 56 and still working as a wood turner, his new wife Mary A Collett who was 45, while still living with them was William’s three sons, George who was described as Gervais Collett who was 21, William Collett who was 15 and Arthur J Collett who was 12.

By that time, daughter Mary Ann was already living and working in London, and it was there also where her brother George, another wood turner like his father, moved to during the following decade and where he was living in 1881. Two years after the census day in 1871, the death of William Collett was recorded at Birmingham (Ref. 6d 48) during the second quarter of 1873, when he was 58.

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George Collett

Born in 1843 at Birmingham; infant death

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Emma Collett

Born in 1846 at Birmingham

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George William Collett

Born in 1849 at Birmingham

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Mary Ann Collett

Born in 1852 at Birmingham

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Martha Collett

Born in 1854 at Birmingham

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William Collett

Born in 1856 at Birmingham

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Arthur John Collett

Born in 1859 at Birmingham

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Emma Collett was born at Birmingham on 9^th February 1847, her birth recorded there (Ref. 16 377) during the first quarter of the year. She was subsequently baptised on 1^st July 1847 at St Philip’s Cathedral, where her parents William Collett and Eliza Silvester had been married twenty-one months before she was born. In the Birmingham census of 1861 Emma was 15 years old when she was living with her family at 183 Bromsgrove Street. Five years later an Emma Collett, the daughter of William Collett, who said she was 22 on her wedding day, was married to Samuel Warwick, the son of Frederick Warwick, at St Andrews Church in Bordesley on 3^rd June 1866.

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George William Collett was born in Birmingham, perhaps at the end of 1849 or the beginning of 1850, and was the second child and eldest son of wood turner William and Eliza Collett. His birth was recorded at Birmingham (Ref. XVI 340) during the first three months of 1850 under his full name. The only other occasion when his full name was used was when he passed away. He may have been born at Bromsgrove Street in Birmingham, where his family was living in 1851 when George Collett was one year old. By 1861 the census that year placed George Collett, aged 11 years and attending school, was living at 183 Bromsgrove Street in Birmingham with his family. Following the death of his mother, George was 21 in 1871 when he was still living at the family home with his widowed father, when the census return recorded his name in error as Gervais Collett. The reason he had not previously been identified in the next census of 1881, was because he said he was older than his actual years, in addition to which he had left Birmingham and was living in London by then.

According to the census in 1881, unmarried George Collett from Birmingham was recorded in error as being 35, rather than 31, when he was a lodger at 2 Baxter Cottage on Newland Terrace in Kensington, from where he was working as a wood turner like his late father. It was while he was working in London that he met his future wife and, although they returned to Birmingham to be married, no record of the couple has been found within the national census of 1891. The marriage of George Collett and Ada Drusilla Walters was recorded at Birmingham (Ref. 6d 111) during the first three months of 1891.

On the day of the census in 1901 George Collett from Birmingham was a wood joiner who said he was 47 years old, rather than his real age of 51, perhaps out of embarrassment for having a wife who was many years younger. He and his family were living on Westville Road in Shepherds Bush within the London parish of Hammersmith. His wife Ada Collett from Whitechapel was 34 and their two London born children were Florence Collett who was eight and William Collett who was two years of age. On the day of the census Ada may have been expecting the couple’s third child who was born at Shepherds Bush later that same year or very early in the following year.

When exactly the family left London for the south coast is not known except, that by the time of the next census in 1911, the family had settled at Hove, near Brighton, in Sussex and was recorded residing at 16 Westbourne Street in the town. On that occasion George Collett from Birmingham gave his age as 64 instead of 61, when his occupation was that of a licensed bath chair attendant. Ada Collett was listed as being 45, while the couple’s four children were named as Florence Collett who was 19, William Collett who was 12, Ethel Collett who was nine and George Collett who was six years old.

The death of George W Collett was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6d 209) during the final quarter of 1927. The birth of his eldest daughter, Florence, was recorded at Kensington (Ref. 1a 146) during the third quarter of 1892. His second child suffered an infant death, and his birth was also recorded at Kensington (Ref. 1a 142) during the third quarter of 1895. The birth of daughter Muriel Ethel Collett was recorded at Kensington register office (Ref. 1a 179) during the third quarter of 1901.

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Florence Collett

Born in 1892 at Kensington, London

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William Collett

Born in 1895 at Kensington, London; infant death

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William Collett

Born in 1898 at Shepherds Bush

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Muriel Ethel Collett

Born in 1901 at Shepherds Bush

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George Collett

Born in 1904 at Shepherds Bush

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Mary Ann Collett was born at Birmingham in 1852, her birth recorded there (Ref. 6d 68) during the first three months of that year, the daughter of William Collett and his wife Eliza Silvester. It was at 183 Bromsgrove Street, within that part of Birmingham known as St Martin-in-the-Bull-Ring, that Mary A Collett, aged nine years, was living with her family in 1861. Sometime after leaving school, Mary left her family to take up work in London, where she was recorded in the next census of 1871. On that day Mary A Collett from Birmingham was 19, unmarried, and a servant and a housemaid at the Islington home of solicitor and attorney Juvis Brock from Bath and his large family.

Mary Ann Collett, aged 20 and the daughter of William Collett, was married to Stephen Hands at Long Compton on 10^th September 1872. Stephen was 25 years of age, and was the son of George and Elizabeth Hands. His birth was recorded at Chipping Norton during the third quarter of 1847 and was baptised at Long Compton on 27^th August that year. Very tragically for Mary Ann, she was only married to Stephen for only a few months, when his death was recorded at Chipping Norton (Ref. 3a 486) during the first three months of 1873, when he was 25. It was on 22^nd February 1873 when he was buried at Long Compton. What actually happened to her husband is not yet known, but it seems evident that Mary Ann Hands nee Collett remarried prior to 1881, since no record of her as Mary Ann Hands has been found in any census after 1873. One possibility is the marriage of Mary Ann Hands and John Shelswell which took place in Birmingham on 28^th February 1875.

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Martha Collett was born in Birmingham during 1854, the youngest of the three daughters of William and Eliza Collett. Her birth was recorded at Birmingham (Ref. 6d 65) during the third quarter of that year. It was at 183 Bromsgrove Street in St Martin-in-the-Bull-Ring, Birmingham, that she was recorded with her family in the census of 1861 at the age of seven years. Following the death of her mother a few years later, Martha Collett from Birmingham was 16 years old in the census of 1871 when she was described as the niece of Joseph and Martha Faulkner at their home in Long Compton. Sixty-six years-old Joseph had been born at Long Compton in 1804, just ten years before Martha’s father had been born there, while his wife Martha Faulkner, aged 59, had been born at Evenlode near Eynsham in Oxfordshire. It is therefore very likely that Joseph was related to Martha through her mother Eliza Silvester, rather than Martha’s father.

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William Collett was born in Birmingham during 1856, the son of William and Eliza Collett, and it was there that his birth was registered (Ref. 6d 67) in the fourth quarter of that year. According to the census of 1861 William, aged five years, was recorded with his family at 183 Bromsgrove Street in Birmingham and ten years after that, when he was 15 and his occupation was that of a galvaniser, he was still living with his family in Birmingham. It was mostly his work as a galvaniser that eventually resulted in William moving north to the steel town of Sheffield, where he married Rose Ann Newton of Sheffield, their wedding recorded there (Ref. 9c 564) during the last three months of 1878.

The birth of the couple’s first child, William, was recorded at Sheffield (Ref. 9c 443) during the fourth quarter of 1879 and his baptism was conducted at the Church of St Vincent de Paul on Solly Street in Sheffield on 6^th October 1880, where he was recorded as Gulielmus Collett, the son of Gulielmi Collett and Rosannea Newton. In the census of 1881 William Collett from Birmingham was 25 and employed as a malleable iron caster living at 23 Trinity Street in Sheffield with his wife Rose Ann Collett, who was only 21, and their son William aged one year. Lodging with the young family, and providing additional income, were John Wilkinson aged 43 and scissor forger and Thomas Hatton who was 28 and an iron labourer. Tragically, just over one year later, the death of their son William Collett was recorded at Sheffield (Ref. 9c 227) during the second quarter of 1882 at the age of two years.

During the next six years three more sons were added to the family, although once again, the last of them did not survive. That son was Arthur Collett whose birth was recorded at Sheffield (Ref. 9c 439) during the second quarter of 1887 and his death was recorded there (Ref. 9c 309) during the last three months of that same year. It was also at Trinity Street that the family was still residing in 1891, but at number 40 instead of number 23. William Collett was 34 and an iron caster, Rose A Collett was 32, George Collett was eight years old and John Collett was six years of age. Boarder and scissor forger John Wilkinson from Sheffield was still living with the family at the age of 54, so there is a possibility that he was Rose’s father.

In the census conducted at the end of March in 1901 it was revealed that the family had left 40 Trinity Street and instead were living very nearby in the street at the southern end of Trinity Street, which was Furnace Hill. Whether by sheer coincidence or not their address was recorded as 40 Furnace Hill. By that time iron caster William Collett was 44 and an employer, presumably employing his own son George Collett who was 18 and also working as an iron caster. William’s wife was confirmed as Rose A Collett from Sheffield who was 44. Completing the household was the couple’s youngest son John who was 16, once again boarder John Wilkinson who was described as a single man, aged 64, who was a scissor forger, plus boarder James Bales who was 16 and a heater at the furnace works.

It was a similar situation after a further ten years except, by then, the Sheffield census in April 1911 listed William Collett from Birmingham as 55 and his wife Rose Ann Collett from Sheffield as 52 when the couple was still residing at 40 Furnace Hill. William’s occupation was still that of an iron caster, when he was also classified as a worker, not an employer as ten years earlier. William and Rose had been married for thirty-two years, during which time Rose had given birth to five children, only two of whom had survived. This means that there is one child missing from the list below. Surviving son George had left home during the previous decade, while the couple’s youngest surviving son John was still living at home with his parents, even though he was married with a child of his own.

Within a few weeks of the census day in 1911 William Collett died, his death recorded at Sheffield register office (Ref. 9c 293) during that same second quarter of 1911 when he was 55. His widow survived him by around eighteen months, when the death of Rose A Collett was also recorded at Sheffield (Ref. 9c 658) during the last three months of 1912.

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William Collett

Born in 1879 at Sheffield; infant death

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George Collett

Born in 1882 at Sheffield

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John Collett

Born in 1885 at Sheffield

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Arthur Collett

Born in 1887 at Sheffield; infant death

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Arthur John Collett was born in Birmingham in 1859, the last of the six children of William Collett and Eliza Silvester. The birth of Arthur John Collett was recorded at Birmingham (Ref. 6d 72) during the third quarter of that year. It is possible that he was born at 183 Bromsgrove Street within the Birmingham Parish of St Martin where he and his family was living in 1861, when Arthur John Collett who was just one-year old. Tragically his mother died early in the next year, and two years after his father was re-married. That was confirmed by the next census in 1871 when Arthur J Collett was 12 and was still living in Birmingham with his father William and his new wife Mary A Collett, together with Arthur’s two older brothers George and William (above).

Three months prior to the 1881 census, Arthur John Collett married Harriet Wadsworth from London, the event recorded at Aston (Ref. 6d 407) during the final three months of 1880. It was actual on Christmas Day that they were married, when Arthur’s father was confirmed as William Collett, and Harriet’s father was named as John Wadsworth. Arthur was 22 and Harriet was 20 years of age and they were married at St Andrew’s Church in the Bordesley area of Birmingham. On the day of the census, the following year, the young couple was residing at Sampson Road North in Aston, Birmingham, from where 21-year old Arthur John Collett was a tin burnisher and his wife Harriet was 20 and a press worker, possibly working at the same tin factory as her husband.

At least five children were born to the couple during their time together, all of them born at Birmingham, with four of them living with Arthur – recorded as John - and Harriet in 1891, together with a boarder John Cross who was 30 and a metal roller at the tin factory where head of the household Arthur was still employed as a tin burnisher. On that day it was at Charles Henry Street in Birmingham St David that Arthur was 31, Harriet was 28, daughters Florence, Emily and Harriet were eight, five and under one year old, with the couple’s only known son William being three years of age. The couple’s last child was born during the following year.

Ten years later Arthur John Collett would have been 41, when he was not living with his family, which was recorded at a dwelling on the High Street in Bordesley, the home of the aforementioned John Cross. Each of four of the five children of Arthur John Collett were described as the stepchild of John Cross, with the former Harriet Collett, their mother, named as Harriet Cross, his wife, aged 38. Emily Collett was 16, Willie Collett was 14, Harriet Collett was 11 and Martha Collett was eight.

What happen to Arthur during the last ten years of his life is a mystery, since he and his wife obviously parted company, with her eventually cohabiting with her former lodger John Cross. No marriage record for the couple has been found, despite Harriet being named as his wife in 1901 and again in 1911. No record of Arthur has been found within the census of 1901, even though it is known that he was still alive. However, the death of Arthur John Collett was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6d 33) during the fourth quarter of 1908 when he was 49. It is possible that he developed an illness which caused him to be separated from his wife and family.

On the day of the census in 1911, wire drawer John Cross was 41, his wife Harriet Cross from London was 48 and, the only one of Harriet’s five children still living with the couple within the Aston district of Birmingham, was unmarried Harriet Collett who was 20 and from Birmingham, who was described as the stepdaughter of John Cross.

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Florence Collett

Born in 1883 at Birmingham

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Emily Collett

Born in 1885 at Birmingham

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William John Collett

Born in 1888 at Birmingham

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Harriet Collett

Born in 1890 at Birmingham

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Martha Collett

Born in 1892 at Birmingham

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William Collett was born at Shepherds Bush in London during 1898 and was listed as being two years old in 1901, when he and his parents George and Ada Collett were living at Westville Road in Shepherds Bush. His place of birth was confirmed as Shepherds Bush. Sometime after 1902 the family moved to Hove in Sussex where 12-year old William from Kensington (where his two older siblings had been born) was living with his family at 16 Westbourne Street in 1911. Six years later he entered military service at the age of 18 when he joined the 30^th Battalion of the Training Reserve. His place of residence was still Hove, while his place of birth was recorded as Fulham. The death of William Collett born in 1898 was recorded at the London Mile End Old Town register office (Ref. 1c 284) during the third quarter of 1925.

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George Collett was born at Trinity Street in Sheffield in 1882, his birth recorded in Sheffield (Ref. 9c 425) during the third quarter of that year. He was eight years old on the day of the census in 1891 when he and his family were living at 40 Trinity Street while, during the decade the family moved to nearby 40 Furnace Hill at the end of Trinity Street. And it was there that George Collett, aged 18, was living with his family when he working as an iron caster alongside his father William Collett in 1901. Just of two years later the marriage of George Collett and Kate Sweeney was recorded at Sheffield register office (Ref. 9c 909) during the second quarter of 1903. Kate Sweeney was born during the first week of 1885 and was baptised at Neepsend in Sheffield on 7^th January 1855, the daughter of John and Mary Ann Sweeney.

Once married, the couple settled in Sheffield, where all of their known children were born. The Sheffield census of 1911 recorded the family as William Collett, who was 28 and a cutlery caster, his wife Katherine Collett who was 26, and their four children. They were William, who was said to be five instead of seven, John and George, who were said to be two, when in fact John was five and George was three, plus Walter who was only a few weeks old. A further son was added to the family two years later. However, the early death of Catherine Collett was recorded at Sheffield register office (Ref. 9c 755) during the first three weeks of 1914 when she was only 29 years old. It was at the cemetery of St Michael Roman Catholic Church in Sheffield that she was buried on 21^st January 1914.

The birth details for the couple’s five sons, recorded at Sheffield register office, are as listed in the table below. Only for the birth of the youngest child was the mother’s maiden name confirmed as Sweeney. Sadly, the death of that same son, Michael J Collett, was recorded at Sheffield register office (Ref. 9c 694) during the third quarter of 1914, when he only one year old. Although not proved as the son of George and Katherine Collett, the death of William Collett (no age given) was recorded at Sheffield (Ref. 9c 761) during the last three months of 1915, just over a year after Michael J Collett, both deaths occurring after the premature death of their mother.

Name: William John George Walter Michael

Reference: 9c 543 9c 546 9c 560 9c 560 9c 1143

Quarter & Year: 4^th Quarter 1903 3^rd Quarter 1905 3^rd Quarter 1908 1^st Quarter 1911 3^rd Quarter 1913

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William Collett

Born in 1903 at Sheffield

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John Collett

Born in 1905 at Sheffield

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George Collett

Born in 1908 at Sheffield

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Walter Collett

Born in 1911 at Sheffield

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Michael J Collett

Born in 1913 at Sheffield

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John Collett was born at Trinity Street in Sheffield in 1885, the son of William and Rose Collett, whose birth was recorded there (Ref. 9c 453) during the second quarter of 1885. On the occasion of the census in 1891 John was five years old when he and his family were residing at 40 Trinity Street in Sheffield. Ten years later the family was still living in the same area, albeit at 40 Furnace Hill just at the bottom of Trinity Street. The census return in 1901 listed John Collett aged 16 as a labourer working at a local ironworks alongside his father and his brother George, with whom he was also still living.

It was around during the first quarter of 1909 that John Collett married Alice Keyworth from Sheffield, their marriage recorded at Sheffield register office (Ref. 9c 586), and later that same year their son Henry was born. All of that was confirmed in the census of 1911 when John Collett from Sheffield was 26 and an iron caster, like his father, with whom he was most likely still working. He and his wife Alice, aged 22, and their son – recorded as Harry Collett who was one-year old, were recorded as living at the home of John’s parents at 40 Furnace Hill in Sheffield. A further four children were added to the family over the next decade, all as listed below.

The death of John Collett at the age of 78 was recorded at Sheffield register office (Ref. 2d 39) during the month of June 1963. Alice Collett, nee Keyworth, survived her husband by over twenty-two years and was 96 when she passed away in Sheffield, her death recorded there (Ref. 3 1470) during November 1985. The death certificate also confirmed that she had been born on 16^th April 1889.

The birth details for the couple’s five children, recorded at Sheffield register office, are as listed in the table below. Only for the birth of the youngest child did not include the mother’s maiden, while all of the others confirmed the mother’s birth surname was Keyworth.

Name: Henry John Rosa Clara William

Reference: 9c 572 9c 1048 9c 1063 9c 867 9c 1193

Quarter & Year: 3^rd Quarter 1909 4^thQuarter 1912 2^nd Quarter 1915 4^th Quarter 1917 4^th Quarter 1919

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Henry (Harry) Collett

Born in 1909 at Sheffield

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John Collett

Born in 1912 at Sheffield

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Rosa A Collett

Born in 1915 at Sheffield

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Clara Collett

Born in 1917 at Sheffield

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William Collett

Born in 1919 at Sheffield

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Florence Collett was born at Birmingham in 1883, the first child of Arthur John Collett and Harriet Wadsworth, whose birth was recorded at Aston (Ref. 6d 313) during the first three months of that year. It was at Charles Henry Street just south of Birmingham city centre that eight-year old Florence was recorded with her family in 1891. Something strange happened to the family over the next decade, when Florence’s mother set up home in nearby Bordesley with John Cross, who had been a lodger with the Collett family in 1891. This was inspite of Florence’s father still being alive up until 1908. On the census day in 1901, Florence Collett was not living with her mother and stepfather, instead she was a boarder at the home of widow Emma Elkington.

Florence Collett was 18 and a collar ironer at a local laundry and, staying at Eagle Terrace on the Witton Road within the parish of Aston Manor, was the 18-year old son of Emma Elkington, Ernest Elkington of Birmingham. It was just over three years later that Florence Collett and Albert Ernest Elkington were married, the event recorded at Aston register office (Ref. 6d 682) during the third quarter of 1904. The childless couple was residing at Small Heath, Aston, in 1911 when Albert E Elkington and his wife Florence were both 28.

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Emily Collett was born at Birmingham in 1885 while it was at Aston that her birth was recorded (Ref. 6d 258) during the last three months of that year. She was five years of age in the census of 1891 when she and her family were living at Charles Henry Street in Birmingham. Ten years later her mother, Harriet Collett nee Wadsworth from London, was listed in the census of 1901 as Harriet Cross, the wife of John Cross who had been a lodger with the Collett family in 1891. On the day of the census in 1901 John’s stepdaughter Emily Collett was 16 and a tin press worker, living at High Street in Bordesley.

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William John Collett was born at Birmingham either towards the end of 1887 or early in 1888, his birth recorded at Aston (Ref. 6d 276) during the first quarter of 1888. In 1891 he and his family were living at Charles Henry Street in Birmingham, when William Collett was three years of age. Sometime during the following years something happened in the family which resulted in his father leaving the family, with William’s mother taking up with the man who was lodging with the couple in 1891. This was confirmed in the Aston census of 1901 when Willie Collett was 14 and a fitter’s assistant engineer, and the stepson of John Cross who was the husband of Harriet Cross, formerly Collett, his mother. On that day Willie and three of his sisters were residing with John and Harriet at the High Street in Bordesley.

The marriage of William John Collett and Rose Whiley took place at Bordesley on 25^th December 1913. William was described as a bachelor of 25 and the son of Arthur John Collett, while spinster Rose was 24 and the daughter of William Whiley. Whether they had any children has not yet been determined.

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Harriet Collett was born at Birmingham in 1890, where her birth was recorded (Ref. 6d 91) during the last three months of 1890. She was under one year old in the Birmingham census of 1891, when she and her family was living at Charles Henry Street and, it was possibly at that address, where Harriet was born. By 1901, when Harriet Collett was 11, she was living with her mother Harriet and stepfather John Cross at the High Street in Bordesley. Ten years later Harriet Collett was 20 and a hinge dresser at a local foundry in the Aston area of Birmingham, when she was the only child of Arthur John Collett and Harriet Wadsworth still living with her mother who, by then was Harriet Cross, the wife of John Cross, a wire drawer, most likely working at the same foundry as his stepdaughter.

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Martha Collett was born at Birmingham in 1892 and it was there also that her birth was recorded (Ref. 6d 85) during the final quarter of that year. She was the last child born to Arthur John Collett and Harriet Wadsworth and, it is possible she was born at Charles Henry Street, where her family was living in 1891. Life in the Collett household was turned on its head later that same decade since, by March 1901, Martha’s father was not around, even though it was not until 1908 that he died, when Martha’s mother was described as Harriet Cross. She and her Collett children, including Martha who was eight years of age, were living at the High Street in Bordesley, the home of John Cross, a lodger at the family home in 1891.

Martha was no longer living with her mother at the home of John Cross, but instead she was described as a patient at a hospital in Bordesley where, at the age of 18, her occupation was stated as being that of a wrapper-up in a tin warehouse. Fourteen months later the marriage of Martha Collett and Joseph Riley took place on 26^th May 1912 at the Church of St John the Baptist in Deritend.

APPENDIX B – The Gloucestershire & Rotherham Family

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John Collett married Mary Etheridge at Bishops Cleeve on 24^th November 1787, their marriage producing at least four children who were all baptised at Bishops Cleeve even though their eldest son John later said he was born at nearby Woodmancote. Assuming John was of full age on his wedding day it seems likely that he was born around 1765. Two other weddings took place at Bishops Cleeve over the following years and they involved Hannah Collett who married John Haines on 26^th December 1796 and Hester Collet who married Simon Warder on 19^th February 1798. It is possible that they were sisters and related to John Collett, perhaps their older brother.

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Mary Collett

Born in 1789; baptised on 22.02.1789

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John Collett

Born in 1792 at Woodmancote

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William Collett

Born in 1794 at Woodmancote

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Benjamin Collett

Born in 1802 at Bishops Cleeve

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John Collett was born at Woodmancote, just east of Bishops Cleeve and north of Cheltenham, around 1792 and was baptised at Bishops Cleeve on 27^th January 1793, the eldest son of John Collett and Mary Etheridge. It was also at Bishops Cleeve on 6^th November 1826 that he married Ann Butler from the nearby hamlet of Gotherington, who had been born there in 1801. Their marriage produced an unknown number of children. The baptisms of their two known children have been identified within the parish records at Bishops Cleeve. On the day of the first national census in June 1841 John Collett, with a rounded age of 45, was an agricultural labourer living in the hamlet of Gotherington with his wife Ann, whose rounded age was 35. Only two children were recorded with them, and they were Sarah Collett who was 13 and William Collett who was eight years of age.

By the time of the next census in 1851 agricultural labourer John Collett from Woodmancote was 58 and his wife Ann was 48 when they were living alone in Gotherington, where they were still living ten years later. On that occasion the couple, then aged 68 and 59 respectively, had living with them at their home on Cleeve Road in Gotherington, their grandson John Collett who was three years old and the only known child of their son William. John Collett died at Gotherington in early 1869, his death at the age of 76 was recorded at Winchcombe (ref. 6a 287) during the first three months of that year. Two years after his death the widow Ann Collett was 68 when she was the head of the household in Gotherington, where she had living with her, her son William and his son John.

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Sarah Collett

Born in 1827 at Woodmancote

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William Collett

Born in 1832 at Gotherington

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William Collett was born at Woodmancote in 1794 and was baptised at Bishops Cleeve on 23^rd November 1794, another son of John and Mary Collett. Although not confirmed, it seems likely that he married Mary Yeend of Woodmancote who was born there around 1801. Mary Collett nee Yeend has been identified in three census returns, while no obvious record of her husband has been found even though on each occasion she was described as being married. In 1841 Mary Collett, with a rounded age of 35, was a farm servant living at Bishops Cleeve with farmer Charles Yeend who was 20.

Ten years later married Mary Collett from Woodmancote was 49 and an annuitant living at Bishops Cleeve with her mother Nancy Yeend who was 71 and a widow who had been born in Bishops Cleeve. She too was described as an annuitant. The only person living with them was Nancy’s granddaughter Ellen Minett aged 14, with the family of William and Susannah Minett living in the adjoining dwelling. After a further ten years the census in 1861 still described Mary Collett from Woodmancote as being married, when she was 59 and a fund holder residing at 1 St Annes Terrace in the centre of Cheltenham. Still living with her was her mother Nancy A Yeend who was 81 and an annuitant, together with two members of the Minett family. They were Mary’s niece Alice A Minett who was 10 and Elizabeth Minett who was 21 and a servant who was Nancy’s granddaughter.

It should be noted that St Annes Terrace runs parallel to and is adjacent to Fairview Road, both street leading off Hewlett Road. This is of particular interest because it was at Fairview Road that the family of John Osborne Collett was living in 1901 and 1911, John being the grandson of Mary’s brother-in-law John Collett.

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Benjamin Collett was possibly born during the first few months of 1802 in the hamlet of Woodmancote like his older siblings and, as they were, Benjamin was baptised at Bishops Cleeve on 4^th April 1802. He was the youngest of the known children of John Collett married Mary Etheridge. His later occupation was that of a cooper, and it may have been his work that eventually took to Twickenham where he married Elizabeth who was born there in 1823. All of this has been taken from the Twickenham census in 1861 when Benjamin Collett from Bishops Cleeve was 58 and living in Heath Lane in Twickenham with his wife Elizabeth Collett who was 37.

Just nine years later the death of Benjamin Collett aged 68 was recorded on 16^th February 1870, the day he was also buried in the churchyard of the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Twickenham. The burial record also confirmed he was residing at Heath Lane when he died and that he had a second forename which is undecipherable, but appears to be Ohey (?).

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Sarah Collett was born at Gotherington, just north of Bishops Cleeve, most likely towards the end of 1827, and was baptised at the parish church in Bishops Cleeve on 6^th April 1828, the eldest child of john Collett and his wife Ann Butler. She was 13 years old in the Gotherington census of 1841 and she eventually married the slightly older James Davis from Winchcombe. James was a farmer and in 1881 he was 57 years of age and living at Down Hatherley, midway between Gloucester and Cheltenham, where he employed sixteen years-old John Perkins as an agricultural labourer. Completing the household was James’ wife, Sarah Davis who was 53 and from Woodmancote, and her nephew John Collet (sic) who was porter for a wine and spirits merchant. He was 23 and had been born at Gotherington, the only known son of Sarah’s brother William.

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William Collett was born at Gotherington during 1832 and was baptised at Bishops Cleeve on 23^rd December 1832, another son of John Collett and Ann Butler. He was eight years old in the Gotherington census of 1841 when he was living there with his parents and his older sister Sarah. During his life he was married and had a son, while it might be that his wife did not survive the ordeal since the three-year old child was staying with William’s parents at Cleeve Road in Gotherington in 1861. Where William was at that time has not yet been determined. After a further ten years the Gotherington census of 1871 listed William and his son living there with his widowed mother, William’s father having passed away two years earlier. On that occasion William Collett was a widow at the age of 38, while his son John O Collett was 13, all three occupants confirmed as having been born at Gotherington.

According to the next census in 1881, William Collett from Gotherington was 48 and an upholsterer residing in Bishops Cleeve. His status was that of a married man, although he was the only person recorded at the dwelling in that village.

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John Osborn Collett

Born in 1857 at Gotherington

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John Osborn Collett was born at Gotherington in 1857, his birth recorded at Winchcombe in Gloucestershire (Ref. 6a 317) during the third quarter of that year. It is possible that his mother did not live long after he was born as he was living with his grandparents at Cleeve Road in Gotherington. At the age of three years, John Collett from Gotherington, was described as the grandson of John Collett from Woodmancote who was 68 and his wife Ann Collett from Gotherington who was 59. His grandfather died eight years later and in 1871 John O Collett, aged 13, was already working as a labourer while he and his widowed father William were living at the Gotherington home of John’s widowed grandmother.

Perhaps following the death of his father and his grandmother during the 1870s, John was subsequently taken in by his father’s married sister Sarah Davis on her husband’s farm at Down Hatherley to the west of Cheltenham. And it was there that he was recorded in the census of 1881 when as nephew John Collett from Gotherington he was 23 and wine and spirits porter. Three years later, under the name of John Osborne Collett, he became a married man. His marriage to Winifred Capper was recorded at Gloucester (Ref. 6a 490) during the third quarter of 1884, with the first of their six children being born in Cheltenham during the following year.

On the day of the census in 1891 the family was living at Sidney Street in Cheltenham, where John Osborne Collett was 33, his wife Winifred Collett was 31, and their three sons were listed as John Collett who was five, Arthur Collett who was three and Ernest Collett who was seven months old. All of the members of the household were recorded as simply having been born in Gloucestershire. By the time of the March census ten years later in 1901 the family which was residing at Fairview Road in Cheltenham. John Collett senior from Gotherington was 43 and a porter and packer at a local chemists’, while his wife was described as Winifred Collett from Lassington who was 41. Their six sons were listed as John Collett who was working as an errand boy at the age of 15, Arthur Collett who was 13 and still at school, William Collett who was 12, Ernest Collett who was 10, Frank Collett who was eight and Sidney Collett who was five years old.

The next census in 1911 recorded the same family living at 34 Fairview Road in Cheltenham. John Collett from Gotherington was 53 and his occupation was that of a bill distributor who had been married for 26 years. During those 26 years his wife Winifred Collett aged 51 and from Lassington had given birth to six children, all of whom were still alive in 1911. However, only three of them were still living with John and Winifred and they were Ernest Collett who was 20, Frank Collett who was 18 and Sidney Collett who was 15. All three of them were working as errand boys. It would appear that John Osborne Collett lived most of his adult life in Cheltenham, and it was there that his death was recorded (Ref. 6a 493) as John O Collett during the last three months of 1930.

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John Collett

Born in 1885 at Cheltenham

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Arthur Collett

Born in 1887 at Cheltenham

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William Collett

Born in 1888 at Cheltenham

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Ernest Collett

Born in 1890 at Cheltenham

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Frank Collett

Born in 1892 at Cheltenham

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Sidney Collett

Born in 1895 at Cheltenham

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John Collett was born at Cheltenham in 1885, where his birth was recorded (Ref. 6a 444) during the second quarter of that year, the eldest of the three sons of John Osborne Collett and Winifred Capper. He was five years old in the Cheltenham census of 1891 when he and his family were living in Sidney Street, while ten years later it was at Fairview Road in the town that John, aged 15 and an errand boy, was still living with his family. As soon as he was old enough, John became a soldier and entered military service with the 1^st Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment. Upon entry into the army John Collett aged 18 and a resident of Cheltenham was assigned the service number 7134. It was three years after that when, on 13^th October 1906, John Collett from Cheltenham married Annie Barber and within four years their marriage had produced two daughters, both of them born at Rotherham, just four miles north-west of Sheffield.

In April 1911 John Collett was 25 and a drayman working on the railway, while his place of birth was stated as being Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. His wife Annie Collett, to whom he had been married for four years, was 26 and had been born in Bristol. Their two children were named as Winifred Collett who was three and Lilian Frances Collett who was two years of age, both born at Rotherham. If other children were added to their family after that time, there is no knowledge of them within the current family. Living with the young family at 33 Holmes Lane in Rotherham was unmarried Thomas William Sutor from Worcestershire who was 30 and another Drayman on the railway. Not long after 1911 the family returned to Cheltenham, where Annie gave birth to son and where she and her three children lived during the First World War.

John’s earlier experience in the military must have served him well when the Great War erupted in Europe, as he survived the ordeal and was discharged from duty in 1919 at the age of 33. His wartime record stated that he had been a member of the Royal Engineers serving in the Railway Operating Division, had been born in Cheltenham, and that he and his family were living at 120 Tewkesbury Road in Cheltenham at the time of his discharge. His military record also confirmed that John Collett was awarded the 1914 Star medal and that he had sustained a serious injury on 8^th October 1914, which resulted in the loss of his left eye. The report states that he was in the trenches near Ypres when a bullet from a sniper struck him on the left side of his face and passed through his eye. From that time forward he was classed as unfit for war service, but fit for home service, and he was later awarded a pension for his disability. The same record confirmed that he had three children and that his occupation in civilian life was that of a blacksmith.

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Winifred Annie Collett

Born in 1907 at Rotherham

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Lilian Frances Collett

Born in 1908 at Rotherham

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John Arthur Collett

Born in 1914 at Cheltenham

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Arthur Collett was born at Cheltenham in 1887, his birth recorded there (Ref. 6a 422) during the last three months of that year. He was three years old in the Cheltenham census of 1891 when he and two of his three brothers were residing at Sidney Street with their parents John and Winifred Collett. During the following years the family left Sidney Street and in March 1901 the completed family was recorded at Fairview Road in Cheltenham, where Arthur Collett was 13 and still at school. On leaving school Arthur travelled south to Devon where he eventually joined the Royal Navy and was assigned to HMS Sutlej. In 1906, possibly before he had enlisted, HMS Sutlej was posted at the China Station but, in May that year, the Cressy class cruiser became a boys' training ship in the North America and West Indies Station. It was during 1909 that the vessel returned to England, although it is not known where Arthur became a member of the crew. The census in 1911 confirmed that bachelor Arthur Collett from Cheltenham was 23 and an able seaman still serving with HMS Sutley at Devonport. The death of Arthur Collett was recorded at Cheltenham register office (Ref. 7b 407 during the first three months of 1947 when he was 61.

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William Collett was born at Cheltenham in 1888, the third son of John and Winifred Collett, who rather curiously was not living with his family on the day of the census in 1891. Instead, at the age of three years, William Collett of Cheltenham was a patient in the childrens’ ward of the local hospital on Winchcombe Street in the parish of St Marys within town. However, ten years later the census at the end of March 1901 placed 12-year-old schoolboy William living with his family at Fairview in Cheltenham. Within the next census of April 1911 there are a great many William Colletts who were born around 1888, but not one of the identified as William from Cheltenham.

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Ernest Collett was born at Cheltenham in August 1890, the fourth son of John and Winifred Collett whose birth was recorded at Cheltenham (Ref. 6a 276) during the third quarter of the year. He was seven months old in the census of 1891 when living with his family at Sidney Street in Cheltenham where it is likely he was also born. Three more brothers were added to the family over the next few years and by 1901 the completed family was living at Fairview in Cheltenham. It was also at 34 Fairview Road in Cheltenham that Ernest, aged 20, was still living with his family in 1911 when he was an errand boy. The marriage of Ernest Collett of Cheltenham was recorded at Cheltenham register office during the second quarter of 1922. Coincidentally the deaths of Ernest Collett and his older brother Arthur (above) were both registered at Cheltenham in 1947, Ernest’s under Ref. 7b 290 during the second quarter of that year, a few months after his brother.

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Frank Collett was born at Cheltenham in 1892 and possibly at Sidney Street where his family was living in 1891. He was eight years old in the next census of 1901, by which time the family had settled in Fairview in Cheltenham. It was there also, at 34 Fairview Road that Frank Collett, an errand boy, was still living with his family in 1911 at the age of 18.

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Sidney Collett was born at Cheltenham in 1895 and was five years old in 1901 when he and his family were recorded at Fairview in Cheltenham. Ten years later Sidney was 15 and had left school and was working as an errand boy with his two older brothers, most likely for the boys’ father who was a bill distributor. At that time in their life the family was residing at 34 Fairview Road in Cheltenham. Four years later a certain Kate Elizabeth Hall was married by banns at St Pauls Church in Cheltenham to Alex Morgan Griffin Williams on 18^th April 1915. Sadly, Alex died in 1917, presumably as a victim of the Great War, after which his widow married Sidney Collett.

It was during the first quarter of 1919 that the marriage of Sidney Collett and Kate E Williams was recorded at Cheltenham register office (Ref. 6a 841), out of which was born a daughter. It would seem that the couple lived all of their life in Cheltenham, since it was there that the death of Sidney Collett, aged 68, was recorded (Ref. 7b 384) during the first three months of 1964. Kate survived her husband by just over five years, with her passing also recorded at Cheltenham register office (Ref. 7b 854) during the last three months of 1969 when she was 79. On that occasion her date of birth was written as 28^th October 1890.

Their daughter Gwendoline Eileen Collett later married Reginald George Thomas Holtham, with whom she had six children.

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Gwendoline Eileen Collett

Born in 08.01.1920 at Cheltenham

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Winifred Annie Collett was born at Rotherham on 8^th April 1907, the eldest of the three children of John Collett and Annie Barber. Simply as Winifred Collett, aged three years, she was recorded in the census of 1911 as living with her family at 33 Holmes Lane in Rotherham, in the house where she and her sister Lilian (below) may have been born.

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Lilian Frances Collett was born at Rotherham on 8^th November 1908, the second daughter of John and Annie Collett, who was two years of age in the Rotherham census of 1911, although shortly thereafter the family settled in Cheltenham where Lilian’s father had been born. It was twenty-two years later when Lillian F Collett married Henry Charles Bradbury in Cheltenham during 1933. Lilian Frances Bradbury, nee Collett, died in London while she was living at 4 Dericote Street in Hackney on 13^th January 1961. Her Will was proved in London on 14^th March 1961, when her husband was named as Henry Charles Bradbury, a coach painter. Her personal effects were valued at £965 3 Shillings 8d. And it was Lilian’s grandson Chris Bradbury, who lives in Cheltenham, who made contact in the summer of 2015 seeking help to discover more about his ancestors. Chris’ sister also recalls that Lilian was an artist and that she suffered with poliomyelitis.

What is curious is that Chris’ grandfather was known in the family as Alfred Bradbury and a skittles cup he won also had the name Alfred on it. However, Lilian did give birth to a son Alfred who suffered an infant death, which raises the question, did her husband use the name from then on or was it a third forename. The couple’s other children were John Bradbury, Reginald Bradbury – Chris’ father, David Bradbury, Gwen Bradbury - who died as a teenager, Eileen Bradbury and Ken Bradbury, with baby Alfred being their last child. Up to the mid 1950s the family home was at Pilley Crescent in Leckhampton just south of Cheltenham, after which they moved to Pates Avenue in Cheltenham.

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John Arthur Collett was born at Cheltenham on 15^th November 1914, the only known son of John Collett and Annie Barber. The marriage of John A Collett and Grace G Page was recorded at Cheltenham register office (Ref. 7b 770) during the third quarter of 1946. At the time of his death in 1984 John Arthur Collett was residing with the Southampton area of Hampshire, where his passing was recorded (Ref. 20 1086) during the month of October when he was one-month short f his 70^th birthday.