Part 72 - The Buckinghamshire High Wycombe to Utah Line

PART SEVENTY-TWO

 

Buckinghamshire High Wycombe to Utah Line

1560 to 2023

 

Updated August 2023

 

This family line starts in Part 18 – The Suffolk Line and then continued in an appendix within Part 19.  However, new details received from Oscar Richard Kelly [see Ref. 72R20] in Aberdeen during 2018 has resulted in the establishment of this brand-new Part 72 and the removal of the aforementioned appendix in Part 19.  This is also the family of Sheila Bates [see Ref. 72N3] who generously provided a great deal of information in 2016 when it was an appendix in Part 19.

 

 

 

 

 

 

72G1

JOHN COLLETT (Ref. 18G5) was born at Grundisburgh in 1554, the eldest son of Thomas Collett (Ref. 18F1), possibly by his wife Joan, although it is thought that he may have been base-born.  Upon the death of his father when he was only four years of age, John received a substantial inheritance through his father’s Will.  Tragically, within one year, his father’s widow passed away with John, the only child of Thomas Collett not mentioned in her Will of 1559, giving rise to the possibility he was not her son.  John and his three young siblings were then taken into the family of his uncle William Collett (Ref. 18F3) who, it is believed, took control of John’s inheritance.  As a result of his uncle’s action, John Collett was understood to be penniless when he married Joan Dameron at Westerfield, near Ipswich, in November 1577.  Joan was the daughter of Lord of the Manor of Westerfield John Dameron and his wife Margaret Felton and was baptised there on 25th April 1557.  It was also at Westerfield that John and Joan settled and where all of their eight children were born and baptised.  John Collett died on 24th March 1600 and was buried that same day, while Joan died nearly twelve years later and was buried on 18th February 1612 with her husband at Westerfield.  Their son John Collett (included below) was the seventh of their eight children.  Further details of this family and their seven other children can be found in Part 18 – The Suffolk Line 1365 to 1745.

 

 

 

72H1

JOHN COLLETT

Born on 23.04.1588 at Westerfield

 

 

 

 

72H1

JOHN COLLETT was born at Westerfield on 23rd April 1588, where he was baptised on 28th April 1588.  He was only twelve years old when his father died in March 1600 and he was only one of three of the eight children to be mentioned in the Will - see Will in Legal Documents.  He later married Elizabeth Rivers of Chattisham around 1618 and the marriage produced six children for John and Elizabeth, with all of them born and baptised at Westerfield.  John Collett of Tuddenham, south of Mildenhall, was named in the Ship Money Return of 1640, while it was four years later that John Collett passed away in 1644.  When his older brother Philologus Collett (Ref. 18H13) died two years later, the name of his brother John Collett was still named as a beneficiary under the terms of his Will.

 

 

 

72I1

John Collett

Born around 1619 at Westerfield

 

72I2

WILLIAM COLLETT

Baptised on 10.10.1620 at Westerfield

 

72I3

Hazadiah Collett

Baptised on 13.05.1623 at Westerfield

 

72I4

Obadiah Collett

Born during 1627 at Westerfield

 

72I5

Samuel Collett

Baptised on 26.05.1629 at Westerfield

 

72I6

Elizabeth Collett

Baptised on 22.05.1632

 

 

 

 

72I2

WILLIAM COLLETT was born at Westerfield in 1620 and was baptised there on 10th October 1620, the son of John Collett and Elizabeth Rivers.  His early schooling was undertaken at Ipswich and later at Gonville College in Cambridge under Messrs How, Steffe and Clarke for five years.  On 17th October 1643 he was admitted to Caius College in Cambridge under a sizar arrangement.  That was a scholarship, offered according to need, during which time the student worked his passage, the surety for which was set up by a Mr Moore.  During the year 1647/1648 William acquired his Bachelor of Arts degree, achieving Master of Arts status in 1652.  He later became a Clerk in Holy Orders.

 

 

 

William was the second son of John Collett, gentleman of Westerfield, to enter holy order, the first being his older brother John Collett about whom nothing is currently written here.  William is believed to have died in 1682.  It therefore seems very unlikely that this was the same William Collett who fought in Cromwell’s Army at the Battle of Edgehill in 1642. 

 

 

 

72J1

NATHANIEL COLLETT

Born circa 1655 at Ipswich

 

 

 

 

72I3

Hazadiah Collett was born at Westerfield where he was baptised on 13th May 1623, another son of John and Elizabeth Collett.  He later married Joan and their daughter Elizabeth Collett was baptised at St Marys Church in Woodbridge on 3rd March 1664.

 

 

 

72J2

Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1664 at Woodbridge

 

 

 

 

72I6

Elizabeth Collett was born at Westerfield, where she was baptised on 22nd May 1632, the youngest known child of John Collett and his wife Elizabeth Rivers.  Sadly, it was one month later, that she died and was buried at Westerfield on 24th June 1632, when she was recorded as Elizabeth, the daughter of John Collet.

 

 

 

 

72J1

NATHANIEL COLLETT is thought to have been born around 1655 and his baptism took place at St Mary Elms in Ipswich on 17th January 1657, when his father was named as William Collett.  He married Elizabeth Godden at St Mary Stoke in Ipswich in 1682 and they were the parents of John Collett who was baptised at St Mary Stoke four years later. 

 

 

 

72K1

Nathaniel Collett

Baptised in 1683 at Ipswich

 

72K2

Nathaniel Collett

Baptised in 1684 at Ipswich

 

72K3

JOHN COLLETT

Baptised in 1686 at Ipswich

 

 

 

 

72K1

Nathaniel Collett was born at Ipswich and was baptised at St Mary Stoke on 27th May 1683, the eldest son of Nathaniel Collett and Elizabeth Godden, who did not survive.

 

 

 

 

72K2

Nathaniel Collett was born at Ipswich and was baptised at St Mary Stoke on 28th December 1684, another son of the same name of Nathaniel Collett and Elizabeth Godden.

 

 

 

 

72K3

JOHN COLLETT was born at Ipswich, where he was baptised at St Mary Stoke on 26th September 1686, the son of Nathaniel Collett and his wife Elizabeth Godden who were married at St Mary Stoke during 1682.  With his two brothers, both named Nathaniel, baptised before John, it would seem inconceivable that John was older than his brothers, unless he had been the son of an earlier marriage for his father.  This uncertainty, surrounding John Collett from Ipswich, stems from the fact that his marriage to the widow Hannah (Ann) Cooper, nee Hungerford, took place at Aston Rowant on 2nd July 1700.  Aston Rowant lies between Thame and High Wycombe, while the marriage register described John Collett as a carpenter from Ipswich, with his bride named as the daughter of George Hungerford. 

 

 

 

Prior to the day of their wedding a special licence was prepared and recorded at nearby Thame, amongst the details of which, the licence stated that John Collett was from Tuddenham in Suffolk.  It is therefore very interesting that John’s great grandfather was also referred to as John Collett of Tuddenham.  A further complication, discovered during 2016, only adds to the confusion, in that within Boyd’s Register there is the record of a marriage between John Collett and Hannah Moors at Lewknor.

 

 

 

At the time of the baptism of all of the children listed below, each of them was simply described as the son or daughter of John and Hannah Collett.  The first of those children was born at Aston Rowant, with the couple’s next three children born at nearby Kingston Blount.  There is therefore the possibility that John’s older wife Hannah died at Kingston Blount, after which John could have married Hannah Moors at Lewknor, where his last five children were born.  All three villages of Aston Rowant, Kingston Blount and Lewknor lie within two miles of each other.  The family’s youngest child was around nine years old when the death of John Collett was recorded at Lewknor on 3rd October 1730.

 

 

 

72L1

Anna Collett

Born on 12.07.1702 at Aston Rowant

 

72L2

John Collett

Born on 09.07.1704 at Kingston Blount

 

72L3

Mary Collett

Born on 20.03.1705 at Kingston Blount

 

72L4

George Collett

Born on 14.03.1707 at Kingston Blount

 

72L5

Hannah Collett

Born on 14.01.1710 at Lewknor

 

72L6

Nathaniel Collett

Born on 04.10.1713 at Lewknor

 

72L7

Stephen Collett

Born on 03.06.1716 at Lewknor

 

72L8

RICHARD COLLETT

Born in 1719 at Lewknor

 

72L9

Martha Collett

Born in 1721 at Lewknor

 

 

 

 

72L8

RICHARD COLLETT – prior to 2016, very little was known about Richard Collett, except that he was named as the father of William Collett of Haddenham and Dinton in the Buckinghamshire Quarter Sessions held at Easter in 1822.  Now, thanks to Shelia Bates, we know he was born at Lewknor on 21st June 1719, the son of John Collett and Hannah Cooper.  The details of his marriage are established from the parish records at Haddenham, just north-east of Thame.  They confirm that Richard Collett, bachelor of this parish, of Church End in Haddenham, a shoemaker, was married by banns at Haddenham to Colleberry Abbott, spinster of said parish, on 10th November 1745.  Colleberry was the daughter of Samuel Abbott and was baptised at Haddenham on 31st December 1720.

 

 

 

Furthermore, it was the Bishops’ Transcripts that provided the baptism details relating to the first four children of Richard and Colleberry Collett, listed below.  They were daughter Eliza Collett who was baptised on 15th September 1746, son William Collett who was born on 5th March and baptised on 19th March 1749, daughter Colleberry Collett who was baptised on 10th March 1751, and daughter Mary Collett who was born on 10th January and baptised four days later on 14th January 1753.  Previously Sheila Bates speculated that another Richard Collett was most likely related to Richard of Haddenham, together with a John Collett who may have been the father or the brother of that other Richard Collett – see additional note below.

 

 

 

The Colletts of Haddenham Baptist Church - Haddenham is one of the oldest Baptist Churches in Buckinghamshire, dating at least from 1653.  In 1690 a letter was sent to a Baptist gathering when John Collett and Richard Collett were among the signatories.  In 1702 the church burnt down and was rebuilt with the aid of Joseph Collett, a Baptist minister of Coate.  He returned to Haddenham in 1711 to bury Edward Hoare and encouraged the church members to have their own board of trustees (article in Baptist magazine), but by the mid-1750’s the Baptist Church in Haddenham was in decline and the meeting house in ruins by 1773.

 

 

 

One year after the birth of their fourth child, Richard and Colleberry left Haddenham, when they travelled the short distance to settle in nearby Thame.  It may have been the death of the couple’s fourth child that was the reason for that move.  However, within the next year, the family returned to Haddenham where another three children were added to the family.  They were a replacement daughter Mary Collett who was born on 18th April and baptised on 27th June 1755, Richard Collett who was baptised on 27th June 1757 (both of them recorded in the Bishops’ Transcripts); and Susannah Collett who was born and baptised on 18th January 1761 (recorded in the parish records).  Richard Collett died at Haddenham during 1763 and was survived by his widow for another twenty years, when Colleberry Collett nee Abbott passed away in 1783

 

 

 

72M1

Eliza Collett

Born in 1746 at Haddenham

 

72M2

WILLIAM COLLETT

Born in 1749 at Haddenham

 

72M3

Colleberry Collett

Born in 1751 at Haddenham

 

72M4

Mary Collett

Born in 1753 at Haddenham

 

72M5

Mary Collett

Born in 1755 at Haddenham

 

72M6

Richard Collett

Born in 1757 at Haddenham

 

72M7

Susannah Collett

Born in 1760 at Haddenham

 

 

 

 

72M1

Eliza Collett was baptised at Haddenham on 15th September 1746, the first-born child of Richard Collett and Colleberry Abbott.  She may have been Elizabeth Collett who, at the age of twenty-four, married Richard Oliver, the son of Richard Oliver, at Haddenham in 1770.

 

 

 

 

72M2

WILLIAM COLLETT – the elder, was born at Haddenham on 5th March 1749 and was baptised there on 19th March, the eldest son of Richard Colleberry Collett.  During his early years, he and his family lived in Haddenham up to 1754, when the whole family went to live in Thame.  It was on 5th May 1771 that shoemaker William Collett married (1) Mary Simmonds at Wooburn Town in Buckinghamshire, the sister of the Reverend John Simmonds who later married William’s sister Mary Collett (below).  Their daughter Sarah was born four years later in Haddenham and she was followed three years later by the birth of a son for William and Mary, who was also born at Haddenham.  Perhaps during the birth of a third child, Mary Collett nee Simmonds passed away, sometime after 1778. 

 

 

 

The Dinton, Risborough and Waddesdon Baptists first met at Dinton, south-west of Aylesbury, in 1785 and then, in 1786 they assembled in the house of William Collett at Haddenham (source: Strict Baptist Historical Society).  Waddesdon Hill Particular Baptist Church was opened in 1792 and William Collett was admitted in 1794, having been dismissed from New Land Baptist Church in High Wycombe.  He was approved for the ministry in 1802 and was ordained in 1809 as the first Pastor of Swanbourne at Winslow Baptist Church.  As the Reverend William Collett of Dinton, he was employed by the Particular Baptist Church at Waddesdon Hill as a village preacher and, among other places, he visited Swanbourne and preached there occasionally over a two-year period.

 

 

 

The Reverend William Collett must have been held in high regard, because a stone tablet was erected inside the Swanbourne Baptist Chapel after his death.  Today there is only photographic evidence of its existence since, sadly, the chapel was later converted into a private residence and the tablet very likely destroyed.  Unfortunately, the wording on the tablet is not known, although it certainly began ‘In Memory of William Collett’ followed by a further five lines of writing.  However, an article written by Thomas Matthews of Melbourne in 1872 was published in the Buckingham Advertiser on 27th April 1895 as part of a series of articles about the Swanbourne Baptists.  This mentions the tablet and is reproduced in full below.

 

 

 

From Part Two - Reminiscences of the Old Baptist Meeting House in Winslow, Buckinghamshire

 

“After this a Mr William Collett, who was first pastor of the Swanbourne Church, gave Winslow friends his help, and preached about once a month on the Sabbath evening, and more frequently on a week day evening.  He was a dear old Saint, full of grace and truth.  To show the state of feeling of the inhabitants of Winslow then towards those who attended this little sanctuary (especially those who called themselves true church people).  I have seen this good old man, as he was leaving the place to return home, pelted with mud and stones in the public streets by people who prided themselves upon their respectability. Indeed, in my childhood, I have myself been assailed by adults, calling themselves respectable, who have jeeringly called me a long-eared meetinger, because my parents were dissenters.  In fact, at that time the state of Winslow was such that to prevent outbreaks of disturbance in the service at the Meeting house, my father has been obliged to read the Act of Parliament which protects dissenters from molestation in their worship.  This generally had the desired effect in quieting the disturbance.  The dear old Mr Collett continued to preach occasionally at Winslow, until near his death.  When I grew up to manhood, I had the pleasure to erect, and write, a tablet to his memory in the little Chapel at Swanbourne.”

 

 

 

In addition to all of this, it is now known that William was married twice in his life, his son being the offspring from the first of those two marriages, who was eight years old when his father married (2) Mary Hammon at Haddenham during 1786.  Once again, on that occasion, William was described as a shoemaker and Mary was described as a spinster.  It was seven years later that their daughter was born at Dinton, just north-east of Haddenham.

 

 

 

According to the Militia Ballot List of 1796 William Collett of Dinton was named therein and was described as a cordwainer (a shoemaker), a reference to William Collett the elder.  In addition to that, and eight years later in 1804, William Collett was still living in Dinton, the tenant of a property owned by John Goss, for which he paid a rent of 5 Shillings and 1 Penny.  It was two years after that when his son William was married in Dinton, so he was very likely still living with his father in the family home at Dinton in 1804.  From Dinton, William moved the short distance back to Haddenham during the second decade of the new century and certainly prior to 1820.

 

 

 

Following the premature death of his son William in 1820, William Collett the elder appeared at the Easter Buckinghamshire Quarter Sessions at Chesham in 1822 on behalf of his recently widowed daughter-in-law.  William Collett stated that he was 73, that his father’s name was Richard, and that he had a son William, who was the late husband of the pauper Mary Collett (nee Cane).  It was recorded that he had received poor relief for a year, or a year and a half, when he had contracted smallpox while he was living in Haddenham.  He then moved, with his son, to Dinton where he had lived for 15 or 16 years before moving back to Haddenham after his son had built a house at Haddenham.  William Collett – the elder, died four years later at Swanbourne, on 25th April 1826, where he was also buried.

 

 

 

72N1

Sarah Collett

Born in 1775 at Haddenham

 

72N2

WILLIAM COLLETT

Born in 1778 at Haddenham

 

The following is the child of William Collett and his second wife Mary Hammon:

 

72N3

Susannah Collett

Born in 1793 at Dinton

 

 

 

 

72M3

Colleberry Collett was baptised at Haddenham on 10th March 1751, the third child of Richard Collett and Colleberry Abbott.  It was also at Haddenham where she married Robert Cane of Watlington in Oxfordshire during 1781, following which William Cane was baptised at Watlington on 2nd July 1786 and confirmed as the son of Robert and Colleberry Cane.

 

 

 

 

72M4

Mary Collett was born at Haddenham on 10th January 1753 and was baptised there on 14th January 1753.  During the next two years she suffered an infant death, with the next daughter born to Richard and Colleberry Collett given the same name in her honour.

 

 

 

 

72M5

Mary Collett was born at Haddenham on 18th April 1755, where she was baptised on 27th June 1755, another daughter of Richard and Colleberry Collett.  Mary eventually married her brother-in-law, Baptist minister the Reverend John Simmonds in 1781, whose sister Mary Simmonds had already married Mary’s older brother William (above) ten years earlier.

 

 

 

 

72M6

Richard Collett was born at Haddenham and it was there that he was baptised on 27th June 1757, the youngest son of Richard and Colleberry Collett.

 

 

 

 

72M7

Susannah Collett was born at Haddenham, where she was baptised on 18th January 1761.  Tragically she did not survive, but it was as Sarah Collett that she was buried at Haddenham that same year.

 

 

 

 

72N1

Sarah Collett was born at Haddenham on 25th July 1775 and was baptised there on 6th August 1775, the daughter of William Collett and his first wife Mary Simmons.  Sadly, she was only seven years of aged when she died at Haddenham in 1782.

 

 

 

 

72N2

 

WILLIAM COLLETT – the younger, was born at Haddenham on 5th April 1778, the son of William Collett of Haddenham, by his first wife Mary Simmonds.  He was also baptised there one month later on 3rd May 1778.  Like his father, William also became a shoemaker upon leaving school.  He was married twice, the first time at Dinton during 1799 to (1) Ann Dolley, although no record of any offspring has been found.  He later married (2) Mary Cane, also at Dinton, on 23rd July 1806, when she was already carrying their first child, who was born six months later.  Mary Cane was born at Watlington, the daughter of William Cane and Mary Reed, where she was baptised on 12th April 1789, already a few years old.  Twenty-five years before William Collett married Mary Cane his aunt, Colleberry Collett, had married Robert Cane from Watlington, presumably a member of the same Watlington family.

 

 

 

The first three children of William were born in the Buckinghamshire village of Dinton, with their last four children added to the family after they had left Dinton and had settled in nearby Haddenham.  What is of particular interest is the Posse Comitatus of 1798 for the Dinton & Haddenham area of Buckinghamshire, which includes both William Collett senior and William Collett junior, who were recorded as cordwainers.  David Collett, the eldest son of William the younger also took up the occupation of a shoemaker.  David and his sister Mary Ann both gave their place of birth as Dinton in the later census returns, while their younger brother Ephraim, on one occasion, stated he was born at Haddenham.  Furthermore, William’s granddaughter, the daughter of his eldest child Ruth Collett, was born at Haddenham.  Curiously though, the Baptist Church records at Haddenham do not include the names of William Collett the younger and his wife Mary Collett, as being members of that church.

 

 

 

Not long after the birth of his last child William Collett passed away during 1820, leaving his widow Mary as a pauper.  The Easter Buckinghamshire Quarter Sessions at Chesham in 1822 recorded that Mary Collett of Haddenham was a widow and a pauper and that her father-in-law was William Collett.  It is that document which confirms William’s father was William Collett and NOT Robert Collett and his wife Ann Penn, as previously thought, whose family can be found in Part 63 – The Collett-Stratfold-Collet Line.

 

 

 

Mary Collett stated that she was a widow and had been married nearly sixteen years earlier and that her late husband’s name was William, who had died two years previously.  The record also included that she had five children (a further two having not survived) and that she had lived in Dinton for about five years after she was married, where her husband’s father William Collett also lived, both of them having moved there from Haddenham.  Mary also stated that her husband had travelled to America on one occasion, from where he later return.  Other records also indicate that made Baptists from Buckinghamshire made the same journey around that time.  Nearly thirty years later, Mary Collett, aged 68, was still a widow and pauper, according to the census in 1851, when she was still residing at Haddenham with just her unmarried son Ephraim Collett living there with her.  Less than three years later Mary Collett nee Cane died at Haddenham on 21st January 1854 at the age of 71 and was buried in the churchyard of Haddenham Baptist Church.

 

 

 

72O1

Ruth Collett

Born in 1807 at Dinton, nr Aylesbury

 

72O2

DAVID COLLETT

Born in 1808 at Dinton, nr Aylesbury

 

72O3

Mary Ann Collett

Born in 1810 at Dinton, nr Aylesbury

 

72O4

Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1813 at Haddenham

 

72O5

Ephraim Collett

Born in 1816 at Haddenham

 

72O6

Emma Collett

Born in 1818 at Haddenham

 

72O7

Emma Collett

Born in 1819 at Haddenham

 

 

 

 

72N3

Susannah Collett was born at Dinton in 1793, according to her stated age in a later census record, and was the daughter of William Collett and his second wife Mary Hammond.  Her father was a strict Baptist and was a Baptist minister in Dinton by the time she was one year old.  It was at Waddesdon Hill Particular Baptist Church that Susannah Collett was proposed and admitted on 21st October 1810, where she was baptised on 11th November 1810 and received into the church on 2nd December that same year.  Her father had left Waddesdon by 1809 to become the first Pastor of Swanbourne, and it was to Swanbourne Particular and Strict Baptist Church that his daughter Susannah was dismissed two years after she was married.

 

 

 

Susannah Collett married Thomas Phillips at Swanbourne on 27th October 1816, following which, on 22nd March 1818, Swanbourne sent a request to Waddesdon to dismiss ‘our sister Phillips’ so that she could join the church at Swanbourne, which she did on Sunday 3rd May 1818.  Susannah was already pregnant with the couple’s first child by then and, three months later, she gave with to a daughter Rebecca Phillips, who was born on 25th July 1818 but who was later baptised at Waddesdon on 16th May 1819, when her parents were recorded as Thomas and Anne Phillips.  Susannah also presented Thomas with a son, Ebenezer Thomas Phillips, who was born on 22nd November 1821 who lived all his life at Waddesdon.

 

 

 

By the time of the first national census in June 1841, the family was still living at Swanbourne and comprised Thomas Phillips, whose rounded age was 50, Susanna Phillips who was 45 (rounded age), and daughter Rebecca Phillips who was 20 (rounded age).  In the Winslow census of 1851, agricultural labourer Thomas Phillips was 64, his wife Susanna Phillips from Dinton was 58, and their daughter Rebecca Phillips was 32 and a lace-maker, when the three of them were residing at Clack Lane in Swanbourne.  Susannah Phillips, nee Collett, died four years later on 4th May 1855 and was the great great great grandmother of Sheila Bates who has supplied the new details regarding Susannah Collett and her father the Reverend William Collett of Wycombe, Waddesdon and Dinton, and other Colletts of Buckinghamshire.

 

 

 

Her daughter Rebecca Phillips, who was married during the 1850s, was admitted to the church and was baptised again in 1859, her husband being the widower John Dumbleton, who was a Pastor.  Susannah’s son Ebenezer Thomas Phillips was a member of the Swanbourne Particular and Strict Baptist Church in 1830 and was admitted to the church in 1842, while it was during the next year when he married (1) Mary Powell, with whom he had a son.  Five years later in 1851, Ebenezer became a trustee of the church and on 23rd May 1852 his wife died, after which he married (2) Jane Morris at Swanbourne during the following year.  It was then that he was appointed to the post of deacon in 1863.  Ebenezer Thomas Phillips died in 1900 while, from his first marriage to Mary Powell, he had a son Thomas Phillips who was born at Oakley in 1846, who later married Rachel Alderman in 1870.  Ebenezer’s second marriage to Jane Morris produced another three sons, William Phillips (born in 1856), John Phillips (born in 1858), and Edward G Phillips (born in 1860).

 

 

 

FOOTNOTE: In a letter dated 1794, when Susannah was a mere infant, another Susannah Collett of Haddenham was described as one of those who had not joined any church, following which she became a member of Waddesdon Hill and was recorded as being from Monks Risborough.  She was ‘dismissed’ back to Risborough in 1798, and six years later she married Henry Austin at Monks Risborough on 22nd March 1804.  Also married there that same day, was Mary Collett of Risborough and Isaac Bowler, who was most likely the sister of this Susannah Collett, and therefore a double-wedding for the family

 

 

 

 

72O1

Ruth Collett was born at Dinton, near Aylesbury, on 27th January 1807, just six months after her parents William Collett and Mary Cane were married there.  Ruth was twenty-two when she gave birth to a base-born daughter who was born at Haddenham on 6th August 1829.  She was named as Emma Hebbare, Hebborn being a local surname for the area.  It was later that same year when Ruth married Louis (Lewis) Wheeler, after which her daughter Emma took the Wheeler surname.  Over the next thirteen years, Ruth presented Lewis with five children, all born at Haddenham.  They were Mary Wheeler (born 14th June 1836), Thomas Wheeler (born 1838; buried 28th April 1843), William Wheeler (born 1839; buried 8th March 1842), Josiah Wheeler (born 1841; died after two days and buried 10th November 1841), and Susan(nah) Collett Wheeler (1842-1925) who was baptised in 1861, who married (1) Charles Horton in 1864 and then (2) John Woodbridge in 1869.

 

 

 

 

72O2

DAVID COLLETT was born at Dinton on 30th November 1808, the son of William Collett and Mary Cane.  David was a shoemaker like his father and he married Mary Ann Whitney of Kensington on 23rd December 1830 at Adwell in Oxfordshire, midway between Stoke Talmage and Lewknor.  The marriage produced six known children for David and Mary Ann between 1831 and 1847 and all of them were born at Watlington, apart from the first child who was born at Lewknor and baptised at nearby Adwell.  In 1841 the family was living at Conchin Street in Watlington and comprised David and Mary, who were both given the rounded age of 30, and their first four children.  William Collett was nine, George Collett was six, Thomas Collett was four, and Ephraim Collett was two years old.  Also living at the same address was the Manners family of John and Maria Manners with their four young children.

 

 

 

Ten years later the family was complete, when it was recorded residing at Church Meadow in the village of Watlington, within the Henley-on-Thames registration district.  The census of 1851 listed the family as David Collett, who was 42 and a journeyman shoemaker from Dinton, his wife Mary A Collett who was 41 and from Kensington in London, and their six children.  The two eldest sons were both journeymen shoemakers like their father, William from Lewknor was 19, and George of Watlington was 16.  The other four children were Thomas who was 14, Ephraim who was 11, Richard who was nine and Alice who was four years old.

 

 

 

Only sons Ephraim and Richard were still living with their parents in 1861 and that was after the family had left Watlington and had moved to Wooburn Green, between High Wycombe and Beaconsfield.  On that occasion the couple’s youngest child, Alice, was living with her married brother George and helping him with his young family, also nearby in the High Wycombe area.  The reduced family was therefore David Collett who was 52 and a shoemaker, Mary Collett who was 51, Ephraim Collett who was 23 and Richard Collett who was 18, both of them working as shoemakers.  Also, by then, the couple’s eldest son William was married with a family of his own and, he too, was living within the High Wycombe area.  Staying with David and his family at that time was his unmarried younger brother Ephraim Collett who was 43 and another shoemaker.

 

 

 

Mary Ann Collett nee Whitney was born around 1809, the daughter of Lawrence and Alice Whitney and she died at Watlington during 1868.  That was confirmed by the census in 1871, when David Collett, aged 62, was a widower and a shoemaker living in the Wycombe District Union workhouse at Whitley Cross in Saunderton, within the Princes Risborough registration district of Buckinghamshire.  It was just less than four years after that when David Collett died at Wooburn Town on 22nd January 1875, his passing recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 419), when he was 67.

 

 

 

72P1

William Lawrence Collett

Born in 1831 at Watlington

 

72P2

GEORGE COLLETT

Born in 1835 at Watlington

 

72P3

Thomas Collett

Born in 1836 at Watlington

 

72P4

Ephraim Collett

Born in 1839 at Watlington

 

72P5

Richard Collett

Born in 1842 at Watlington

 

72P6

Alice Collett

Born in 1847 at Watlington

 

 

 

 

72O3

Mary Ann Collett was born at Dinton on 29th September 1810, the daughter of William and Mary Collett.  In 1829 Mary Ann Collett from Dinton married David Small, both of whom were baptised at Haddenham on 29th March 1835.  The marriage produced six children, five of which were born at Haddenham and they were Ellen Small (born 1831), a male child (born 1832; buried on 23rd July 1834), George Small (born 1st May 1834; died 1926), Eliza Small (born 1840 at Hayes, Middlesex), Ebenezer Henry Small (born 1843), and Caleb Small (born 1845).

 

 

 

 

72O4

Elizabeth Collett was born at Haddenham on 17th November 1813, the daughter of William and Mary Collett.

 

 

 

 

72O5

Ephraim Collett was born at Haddenham on 7th February 1816, the son of William and Mary Collett.  At the time of the census in 1851 Ephraim was still a bachelor at 34 when he was living with his widowed mother Mary at Haddenham.  Three years later Ephraim’s mother passed away, at which time he went to live with his older married brother David (above) in Wooburn Town, where he was recorded at the age of 43, when his occupation was that of a shoemaker like his older brother.  It was during the following year at Thame that Ephraim married Hannah Halley of Watlington in 1862 and, in the census of 1871, the childless couple was aged 55 and 45 respectively, when they were living at Wooburn Green, to the north-east of Wooburn Town.  It was also at Wooburn Green that they were recorded again in the census of 1881.  Ephraim Collett from Watlington (sic) was 65 and a gardener, Hannah Collett from Watlington was 52, and living with them was their niece Isabella Collett who was eight years old and born at Wooburn around 1872.

 

 

 

Isabella Collett was very likely the child of one of Ephraim’s nephew’s, either William Collett or George Collett (below), since there is a suitable gap for the child’s birth in 1872 in both of their families.  Hannah Collett, nee Halley, died during the following ten years, so by the time of the Wooburn census in 1891 Ephraim Collett was a widower, living there alone at the age of 75.  During the next decade, Ephraim returned to the village of his birth and it was at Haddenham that he was residing with a farming family in March 1901 at the age of 84.  He survived for a further six years, when he died at Haddenham during 1907 and was buried in the new cemetery at the Haddenham Baptist Church.

 

 

 

 

72O6

Emma Collett was born at Haddenham on 16th May 1818, the daughter of William and Mary Collett.  Tragically she died less than two months later, when she passed away on 10th July 1818.

 

 

 

 

72O7

Emma Collett was born at Haddenham on 14th November 1819, the last child of shoemaker William Collett and his wife Mary Cane.

 

 

 

 

72P1

William Lawrence Collett was born at Lewknor on 18th October 1831, but was baptised at Adwell on 20th November 1831, the eldest son of David and Mary Ann Collett.  Not long after he was baptised his parents left Lewknor when they moved the two miles to Watlington, where the family was recorded in 1841 at Conchin Street when William Collett was nine years old.  By 1851 William Collett was 19 years of age and was working as a journeyman shoemaker, like his brother George (below), who had both taken on that profession from their father.  At that time in his life William and his family were living at Church Meadow in Watlington.  Over the next year or so he took up with the young lady who would become his wife.  It was at Wooburn Town, on 8th August 1853, that unmarried William Collett married spinster Fanny Hollis from Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.  The groom’s father was confirmed as David Collett, while Fanny’s father was named as John Hollis.  Once married, the couple settled in Wooburn Green where all of their children were born.

 

 

 

According to the census in 1861, shoemaker William was 29 and Fanny was 28.  By that time the marriage had produced four children for the couple, although only three of them had survived and were living with them at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green.  They were Emily Collett who was four, Thomas Collett who was three and Richard Collett who was one year old.  It was their youngest child, son George, who had died just before the census day that year.  Over the next decade four more children were added.  As a result, the family living at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green in 1871 was made up of William, aged 39 and a shoemaker, his wife Fanny who was 38, and their seven children.  Emily was 15 and Thomas was 13 (both working in a paper mill), Richard was 12 and working with his father as a shoe-closer, Alice was seven, Mercy was five, Clara was two, and William who was under one year old.

 

 

 

The next census in 1881 confirmed that the family was living at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green.  Head of the house William was 49 and a cordwainer, a shoemaker like his father, and his wife Fanny Collett was 48 and a boot closer from Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.  All of the six children still living with William and Fanny were confirmed as having been born at Wooburn.  They were Thomas Collett who was 22, unmarried, and also a cordwainer like his father, Alice Collett who was 17 and Mercy Collett who was 15, both of whom were working at the nearby paper-mill, plus Clara Collett who was 12, William Collett who was 10 and Alfred Collett who was four years old.  The family was still at Wycombe Road in Wooburn Green at the time of the census in 1891 when, on that occasion, only the couple’s youngest child was still living with them.  Shoemaker William was 59 and his place of birth was recorded in error as Wooburn, Fanny was 58, and their son Alfred was 14 who, by then, was employed as a labourer.

 

 

 

Six years after that census day, William Lawrence Collett died at Wooburn, aged 61, with his death recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 362) during the second quarter of 1897, following which he was buried at Wooburn on 17th May 1897.  At that time in her life, his widow went to live with her married daughter Mercy Gasson, whose family was living on Eglington Road in Swanscombe, Kent.  It was at that address that she was recorded in 1901 when she was described as Fanny Collett from Witney who was 68 and living on her own means.  Sometime during the next decade, she moved to Dartford and in 1911 was living there with her married daughter Alice Woolley and her family.  The widow Fanny Collett from Brize Norton was 77 and was described as a visitor, boarding with her daughter’s family.  It is possible she remained living there for the rest of her life, since the death of Fanny Collett, nee Hollis, was recorded at Dartford register office (Ref. 2a 998) during the first three months of 1924, when she was 92 years old.

 

 

 

72Q1

Emily Collett

Born in 1856 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q2

Thomas Charles Collett

Born in 1857 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q3

George Francis Collett

Born in 1859 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q4

Richard Collett

Born in 1860 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q5

George Henry Collett

Born in 1861 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q6

Alice Mary Collett

Born in 1863 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q7

Mercy Eliza Collett

Born in 1866 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q8

Clara Minnie Collett

Born in 1868 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q9

William Collett

Born in 1870 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q10

Alfred Ernest Collett

Born in 1876 at Wooburn Green

 

 

 

 

72P2

GEORGE COLLETT was born at Watlington on 31st January 1835, the son of David and Mary Ann Collett.  He was 16 years old in the Watlington census of 1851, when he was a journeyman shoemaker with his brother William (above), while still living with his parents at Church Meadow.  George appears to have moved to Wooburn, possibly with or after his brother William was married there in 1853 since, it was also there that George Collett married Ann Wood on 25th July 1857.  The event was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 545) during the third quarter of that year, when George’s father was confirmed as David Collett and Ann’s father was named as William Wood.  The witnesses at the wedding were George Bass and Eleanor Cox.  The couple’s first child was born in 1859 and, on the day of the census in 1861, George Collett from Watlington was 25 and a shoemaker, his wife Ann Collett from Haddenham was also 25 and their daughter Ruth Collett was one year old.  Living with the family at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green, was George’s younger sister Alice Collett (below) who was 14 and also from Watlington.  George and his brother William (above) were most likely still working together in the family shoe business, with them both residing on Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green by then.

 

 

 

During the following decade four more children were added to the family while they were still living at Wooburn Green.  By 1871 the family comprised George who was 36 and a cordwainer, Ann who was 36, Ruth who was 12, Annie who was 10, George who was seven, Mary who was three and Charles who was only a few weeks old, his birth not even registered until sometime after that census day.  Just two more children were added to the family after that and, according to the next census in 1881, the family was residing at Wooburn Moor, just outside High Wycombe.  George was a boot maker at 46 and had been born at Watlington.  His wife Ann was 47 and from Haddenham, who was employed as a woollen cloth maker.  Just four of their children were still living with them and they were George who was 16, Mary who was 12, Minnie who was six and Florence who was one year old, all of them born at Wooburn, although the family later settled in Wooburn Moor.

 

 

 

That move was confirmed in the census of 1891, when both George and Ann were both 57 but not recorded at the same dwelling.  Shoemaker George had living with him his two youngest daughters, Minnie who was 16 and a dressmaker and Florence who was 12 years old and still at school.  Staying with the family that day was George’s granddaughter May Saunders who was three years old and the child of Ruth Collett, George and Ann’s eldest child.  Not far away in Wooburn Moor was Ann Collett from Haddenham who was a visitor at the home of widow Elizabeth Watts from Kent, who was a beer retailer.  In March 1901 the family was again recorded at Wooburn Moor, when the family was recorded as follows.  George Collett from Watlington was 66 and a shoemaker with his own account working at home, Ann Collett from Haddenham was 66 and a tarpaulin maker, Minnie was 25 and Florence was 21, both of them dressmakers with their own account and working at home.  Two other people were staying with the family that day and they were unmarried labourer George Wood who was 62 and from Haddenham, who was Ann’s brother and described as the brother-in-law of George Collett, and the couple’s granddaughter May Saunders who was 14 and from nearby Loudwater, who was employed at a mill, carrying out office duties.

 

 

 

After a further ten years, the census in April 1911 listed George and Ann Collett still living at Wooburn Moor, where they were both recorded as being 76 years of age.  Also still living with the couple, was Ann’s brother George Wood who was 71 and an army pensioner.  The census return gave the birth place of the Wood siblings as Haddenham, but the birth place of boot repairer George Collett was stated as being Postcombe, rather than Watlington.  It also confirmed that he had been married to Ann for fifty-four years, during which time they had given birth to ten children with only five of them still alive in 1911.  However, only seven of the ten are listed below.

 

 

 

72Q11

Ruth Collett

Born in 1859 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q12

Anne Eliza Collett

Born in 1861 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q13

GEORGE COLLETT

Born in 1864 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q14

Mary Collett

Born in 1867 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q15

Charles Collett

Born in 1871 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q16

Minnie Collett

Born in 1874 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q17

Florence Collett

Born in 1879 at Wooburn Green

 

 

 

 

72P3

Thomas Collett was born on 20th October 1836 at Watlington, the third child of David and Mary Ann Collett.  Just as with his older siblings, no record of his birth has been located, although the birth of the next child of David and Mary Ann was recorded at Henley, to the south of Watlington.  Thomas was listed with his family in 1841 at Conchin Street in Watlington aged five, and again in 1851 at the age of 14, when he and his family were living at Church Meadow in Watlington.  No further record of him has been found, not even a reporting of a premature death.

 

 

 

 

72P4

Ephraim Collett was born at Watlington on 18th May 1839, another son of David and Mary Ann Collett.  His birth was registered at Henley (Ref. xvi 83) during the second quarter of the year.  He may have been born at Conchin Street in Watlington where he and his family were living in 1841, at the age of two years.  He was eleven years old in 1851 when he and his family was living at Church Meadow in Watlington within the Henley-on-Thames registration district.  After living in Watlington, his family moved to Henley and by 1861, when Ephraim was 23, he and his family had settled at Wooburn.  It was with the next twelve months that Ephraim Collett married Jane Allen from Wooburn, the recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 447) during the first three months of 1862.  Their wedding at Wooburn took place on 22nd March 1862 when Ephraim Collett was 22, the son of David Collett, and Jane Allen was 20, the daughter of William Allen.  All of their children were born at Wooburn Green, again with their births recorded at Wycombe.  By the time of the next census in 1871, the family comprised Ephraim from Watlington who was 32 and a labourer at the paper-mill, Jane who was 31, and their three daughters, Eliza who was six, Polly who was three, and Maud who was one year old.  All of the female members of the household had been born at Wooburn Green.

 

 

 

It was at Wooburn Green where the family was still living in 1881.  Ephraim from Watlington was 42 and a paper maker, Jane was 41, and listed with them was Maud who was 11, Ben who was nine, Daisy who was seven, Lily E Collett who was five, Eva who was three, Naomi who was one year old, and Ella who was two months old.  Further children followed and, by the time of the census in 1891, Ephraim and Jane were still living in Wooburn Green with their seven youngest children.  Ephraim was 51 and described as a straw boiler, Jane was 50, Ben was 19, Eva was 14, Naomi was 12, Ella was nine, as was Allen J Collett, Dennis was seven, and Lily A Collett was two years old.

 

 

 

The last child born to Ephraim and Jane raises serious questions, the first and most obvious being, why would they have two surviving daughters named Lily, coupled with the fact that there was no Lily A Collett born at Wooburn in or around 1888.  Even more curious, is that the same child was again named Lily in the census of 1901, and again when she was later married in 1910, when she became Lily Wheeler.

 

 

 

After a further decade, the census conducted at Wooburn Green in March 1901, listed the family as Ephraim Collett from Watlington, who was 61 and a bleacher of wood pulp, his wife Jane who was 60 and from Wooburn, together with just three of their children, Dennis who was 16 and a coal carter, Ella Collett who was 20 was a domestic cook, and Lily who was 12 and still at school.  Just less than eight years later Jane Collett, nee Allen, died at Wooburn on 20th February 1909, her death recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 604) during the first quarter of that year, aged 68.  The only members of Ephraim’s family still living with him at Wooburn in 1911 were his married daughter Lily House and his son Dennis Collett.  Ephraim Collett was a widower aged 72, who was still employed at the local paper-mill, but as a size maker.  Lily House from Wooburn was a widow at 36, who was acting as the housekeeper for her father and brother, while Dennis Collett from Wooburn was 26 and working as a general labourer.

 

 

 

Ephraim Collett from Watlington died in 1921 at the age of 81, when his death was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1030) during the last three months of that year.  Probate for Ephraim Collett, of The Meadows in Wooburn Green, stated that he was a retired paper-maker who died on 25th December 1921, with probate granted to Henry George Hersee, a builder’s labourer, for his personal effects amounting to £281 11 Shilling and 9 Pence.  Henry was the husband of Ephraim’s daughter Ella Collett

 

 

 

72Q18

Lizzie Collett

Born in 1864 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q19

Polly Collett

Born in 1867 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q20

Maud Collett

Born in 1869 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q21

Ben Collett

Born in 1871 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q22

Daisy Collett

Born in 1873 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q23

Lily Eliza Collett

Born in 1876 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q24

Eva Collett

Born in 1877 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q25

Naomi Collett

Born in 1879 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q26

Ella Collett

Born in 1881 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q27

Allen John Collett

Born in 1882 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q28

Dennis Collett

Born in 1884 at Wooburn Green

 

72Q29

Lily A Collett

Born in 1888 at Wooburn Green

 

 

 

 

72P5

Richard Collett was born at Watlington on 12th April 1842, the youngest son of David and Mary Ann Collett, when his birth was registered at Henley-on-Thames (Ref. xvi 87).  Richard was nine years old in the Watlington census of 1851 and, by the time he was 18 in 1861, he was one of only two siblings still living with his parents who, by then, were living in Wooburn.  Within twelve months he had married (1) Mary A Hancock with whom he had a son who was born in England, prior to the family emigrating to America in 1863.  The wedding of Richard and Mary was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 448) during the first three months of 1862 and actually took place at Wooburn on 29th March 1862, when Richard was 19 and confirmed as the son of David Collett, and Mary was 20 and the daughter of Henry Hancock.  Richard was just one of many from England who became a member of the Mormon Church and sailed to the new world for a fresh start in life.  And it was as a member of that church that Richard eventually took himself a second wife (2) Sarah Linnell, while he was still married to Mary. 

 

 

 

In 1883 the birth of Richard’s youngest daughter Nellie was recorded the mother as Sarah Linnell.

 

 

 

That situation was confirmed in the US Census in 1880 for Salt Lake City, by which time Richard Collett from England was 38 and his occupation was still that of a shoemaker living on Almond Street.  His two English born wives were Mary Collett aged 38, and Sarah Collett who was 36, both of them described as keeping house.  Recorded with the three of them were their eight children.  George Collett from England was 17, while the other seven children had all been born after the family had settled in Utah.  They were Alice Collett who was 14 and at home, Frank Collett who was 12 and at school, Ralph Collett who was 10 and also at school, William Collett who was six and at home, as was Mary Collett aged five, plus Rachel N Collett who was two, and Fannie Collett who was six months old.  Shortly after that census day, two more children were added to the family.

 

 

 

The Salt Lake City Directory for 1885-86 listed Richard Collett of 46 Almond Street as being a foreman at the Z C M I Shoe Factory, where his daughter Alice was also an employee.  Also listed were George Collett (Ref. 72q30i) of 213 West 4th North Street, also working at Z C M I as a rivetter – who has not yet been identified, and school leaver Frank Collett, Richard’s third child who was not living at home, but at 36 Pine Street.  Within the later publication, the Utah Gazetteer of 1892-93, five of his children were listed, with four of them living in the family’s home at 36 Almond Street.  They were Richard, Alice, Ralph, and another daughter referred to as Mamie.  The fifth child was Frank whose address was 669 East 2nd South Street just prior to his wedding day.

 

 

 

The same magazine also included the names of three other members of the wider Collett family.  One of them was the aforementioned rivetter George Collett who was described as George E Collett residing at 338 Wall Street, a shoemaker with Z C M I.  Another was Richard G Collett (aka Lorenzo George Collett) also living at 338 Wall Street who was a shoe-laster with the Z C M I Shoe Factory.  While Richard was the eldest son of Richard and Mary Hancock, it has yet to be agreed where George E fits into the family.  The third name listed in 1892-93 was Ada R Collett, the widow of W G Collett, of 252 East 3rd Street.

 

 

 

All that is known about Ada and her late husband is that he was William Gordon Collett, whose son was Gordon Collett, born at East Mill Creek, Utah, in 1891, who died there on 22nd November 1891 aged four days, the cause of death being premature birth.  William Gordon Collett (Ref. 72q30iii) was born at Smithfield in Cache County on 11th November 1860, who died on 30th September 1891 and was buried on 2nd October 1891 at Salt Lake City Cemetery, when his mother was named as Elizabeth Collett.  He was 30 years 10 months 20 days old and had been living at Forest Dale in Salt Lake City.  When he was 19, William was a hired farm hand living with the Richardson family at Smithfield in 1880, while it was eight years later that the marriage of William Gordon Collett and Ada Rich took place at Logan in Cache County on 23rd May 1888.

 

 

 

During the next twenty years Richard’s younger wife Sarah died, perhaps during childbirth, so by the time of the census in 1900 Richard Collett aged 58 and a grocer was living at 36 Almond Street, Precinct 30, Ward 3, in Salt Lake City with his wife Mary who was also 58.  The census return confirmed that the couple had entered America in 1863, had been married for thirty-nine years, and had given birth to 12 children, only seven still living that year.  Two children are therefore missing from the list below.  Just five of those seven surviving children were still living with them and they were, Alice who was 32, William who was 27, Rachel who was 21, Millie who was 19 and Nellie who was 17.

 

 

 

It was four years later that Richard Collett, a member of the 19th Ward of the Church of Latter Day Saints,  died at Salt Lake City on 13th July 1904, where he was buried on 16th July 1904.  His death certificate confirmed that he was 62 and the son of David Collett and Mary Whitney of England and that his occupation had been that of a merchant.  In the census in 1910 the family was again living at 36 Almond Street when Mary was 68 and a widow who had taken on her late husband’s grocery business, her unmarried son William supporting her in the role.  Living there with her was her married daughter Alice O’Rourke who was 45 and had been married for eight years, and unmarried daughter Nellie Collett aged 26.  The later burial of his Mary Collett, nee Hancock, took place at the City Cemetery on 21st September 1921.

 

 

 

72Q30

Lorenzo (Richard) George Collett

Born in 1863 at Wooburn, England

 

72Q31

Alice Collett

Born in 1865 at Salt Lake City, Utah

 

72Q32

Frank Collett

Born in 1868 at Salt Lake City, Utah

 

72Q33

Ralph Collett

Born in 1869 at Salt Lake City, Utah

 

72Q34

William Collett

Born in 1873 at Salt Lake City, Utah

 

72Q35

Alice Mary (Mamie) Collett

Born in 1874 at Salt Lake City, Utah

 

72Q36

Rachel May Collett

Born in 1878 at Salt Lake City, Utah

 

72Q37

Fanny Collett

Born in 1879 at Salt Lake City, Utah

 

72Q38

Millicent (Millie) Collett

Born in 1881 at Salt Lake City, Utah

 

72Q39

Eleanor Elizabeth (Nellie) Collett

Born in 1883 at Salt Lake City, Utah

 

 

 

 

72P6

Alice Collett was the sixth and last child of David Collett and Mary Ann Whitney.  She was born at Watlington in 1847, according to the next two census returns, but once again she was another child of the family for whom no birth record or baptism has been found.  She was four years old in the Watlington census of 1851 and in 1861, at the age of 14, she was shoe-binder working with her eldest married brother George Collett (above), a shoemaker, at his home on Wycombe Lane in Wooburn.  Tragically, she was 28 years old when she died at Wooburn on 21st December 1875.

 

 

 

 

72Q1

Emily Collett was born at Wooburn Green in 1856, the first child of William Collett and Fanny Hollis, whose birth was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 340) during the third quarter of that year.  In 1861 Emily and her family were residing on Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green, while ten years later she had left school and was working at a local paper-mill at the age of 15 years.  When she was 22, she married Frank Searle at Wooburn on 4th May 1878, the event recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 687) where Emily’s father was confirmed as William Collett and Frank was described as the son of John Searle.  For whatever reason, no record of the new family has been identified within the following census of 1881, by which time Emily had already presented Frank with their first two children, the first of them born at Cookham in Berkshire in 1879 Qrt 1, the second born at Alderbury, Salisbury in Wiltshire, in 1880 Qrt 2.

 

 

 

Four more children were added to the family during the 1880s, with the full family listed in the census of 1891 at Fisherton Street in the parish of Fisherton Anger, Salisbury.  Frank Searle was 34 and a fishmonger, Emily Searle was 35, Frank Henry Searle was 13, Daisy E Searle was 11, Albert E Searle was eight, George W Searle was seven, Frederick W Searle was four, and Wallis W Searle was two years of age.  Visiting the family was Richard K Collett from Buckinghamshire who was recorded in error as 29, when he was nearer 31, the younger brother of Emily Searle.  The Searle family was affluent enough to employ a domestic servant, sixteen-year-old Martha Hacker. 

 

 

 

After a further ten years the family was residing in a dwelling on the High Street in the Salisbury parish of St Thomas, from where Frank was continuing his work as a fishmonger.  However, during the first decade of the new century Frank and Emily took over the management and running of a boarding house within the New Sarum district of Salisbury, where they were living in 1911.  Emily and Frank were both 54, with Frank described as the boarding house keeper, Emily from Wooburn and Frank from Salisbury.  The only two children still living with them were George Searle who was 27 and born at Wingrave in Buckinghamshire, and Ronald Victor Searle who was 13 and born in Salisbury.

 

 

 

Just over two years later, the death of Frank Searle was recorded at Salisbury register office (Ref. 5a 182) during the third quarter of 1913, when he was 56.

 

 

 

 

72Q2

Thomas Charles Collett was born at Wooburn Green in 1857, his birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 356) during the third quarter of the year.  He was the eldest son of William and Fanny Collett and was three years old in the census of 1861.  He had left school by the time he was 13 in 1871, when he was working with his sister Emily (above) at the nearby paper-mill in Wooburn Green when they were still living at the family home in Wycombe Lane.  Over the following years he joined his father when he became a boot and shoemaker, as he was in 1881 when he was 22 and still living with his family at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green, when he was described as a cordwainer in the census that year.

 

 

 

Six months after the census day in 1881 the marriage of Thomas Collett and Rosetta Crockett took place at Wooburn on 17th September 1881, when Thomas was 24 and the son of William Collett, and Rosetta was 23 and the daughter of William Crockett.  The wedding was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 769), when the witnesses were Alice Ody and Thomas George Thomas.  Rosetta, or Rose/Rosa as she was known, was born at Wooburn Moor and her birth was registered at Wycombe on 30th December 1857.  Her mother Lucy Crockett, nee Smith, signed the birth certificate with the mark of a cross.

 

 

 

In 1891 the family living at Elizabeth Cottages on Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green was made up of William aged 33 and a boot maker, Rosa who was also 33 and their first four children.  William was nine, Walter was seven, Fanny was five and Arthur was one year old.  Ten years later in March 1901 Thomas Collett was 43 and a boot maker with his own account working at home and his wife Rose Collett was 43, when they were still living in Wycombe Lane.  Their son William Collett was 19 and was employed as a railway packer, while Arthur was 11, Lucy was nine, Jack was seven years old and Tom was one year old.

 

 

 

By April 1911, Thomas Collett was 54, the same age as his wife Rose, when they were still living at Wooburn Green with William T Collett aged 29 who was a plate-layer on the railway, Jack Collett who was 16 and Tom Collett who was 12.  All five members of the household were confirmed as having been born at Wooburn.  Three years later Thomas Collett was no longer a boot maker, instead he was a postman, as seen in the photograph here, taken in 1914, after his two eldest sons William and Walter had enlisted to join in the Great War. The full picture included the two boys in their army uniform, together with his wife Rose.

 

 

 

Thomas Collett died eight years later when his death was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 1324) during the first quarter of 1922 at the age of 65.  His widow survived him by many years when Rosetta Collett nee Crockett died in 1949.

 

 

 

72R1

William Thomas Collett

Born in 1882 at Wooburn Green

 

72R2

Walter George Collett

Born in 1885 at Wooburn Green

 

72R3

Maud Louisa Fanny Collett

Born in 1887 at Wooburn Green

 

72R4

Arthur Collett

Born in 1889 at Wooburn Green

 

72R5

Lucy Maud Collett

Born in 1891 at Wooburn Green

 

72R6

Jack Collett

Born in 1895 at Wooburn Green

 

72R7

Tom Collett

Born in 1899 at Wooburn Green

 

 

 

 

72Q3

George Francis Collett was born at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green in 1859, his birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 394) during the first two months of the year.  It was also at Wooburn that he was baptised on 12th March 1859, a son of William and Fanny Collett.  Tragically, seven days later George Francis Collett died at Wooburn Green on 19th March, with the details of his death recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 260).

 

 

 

 

72Q4

Richard Collett was born at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green with his birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 391) during the first quarter of 1860.  He was one year old in the census of 1861 when the family was still living on Wycombe Lane and, by the time he was 12 in 1871, he had already finished his schooling and was working as a shoe-closer alongside his shoemaker father William Collett.  No record of him has been found within the census of 1881 but in 1891 he was a visitor at the Wiltshire home of his married sister Emily Searle (above) at Fisherton Street in the village of Fisherton Anger near Alderbury, Salisbury.  On that occasion, the last mention of him anyway in Great British, he was curiously described as Richard K Collett from Buckinghamshire who was 29 (sic), a bachelor and a student in theology.

 

 

 

 

72Q5

George Henry Collett was born at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green, but after the census day in 1861, with his birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 368) during the third quarter of that year.  As the son of William and Fanny Collett, he was baptised at Wooburn on 9th November 1861 but died there just over four months later, on 22nd February 1862.

 

 

 

 

72Q6

Alice Mary Collett was born at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green with her birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 390) during the last three months of 1863, another daughter of William and Fanny Collett.  It was simply as Alice Collett aged seven years that she was listed with her family at Wycombe Lane in 1871, and was still living there with them in 1881, by which time, 17-year-old Alice and her sister Mercy (below), were described as labourers in the glazing room at the local paper-mill.  Two years later, the marriage of Alice Collett and Albert Woolley was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 638) during the first quarter of 1883.  Their first child was born when they were still living in Wooburn Green but, just like other members of her family, Alice eventually left Wooburn when she and Albert, and their daughter Fanny, moved to Kent.  It seems highly likely that Alice met Albert through her work at the paper-mill and that it was his work there that result in the family’s move south. 

 

 

 

By 1891 the young family was residing at Unity Street in Milton-next-Sittingbourne, Kent, from where Albert Woolley was 29 and a papermaker from Snodland in Kent.  His wife Alice from Wooburn Green was 27 and their daughter Fanny Woolley was six years of age.  Three more children were born at Sittingbourne, before the family moved to New Colney Road in Dartford, where they were recorded in the census of 1901.  Albert A Woolley was again working as a papermaker at the age of 39, his wife Alice M Woolley was 36, daughter Fanny S Woolley was 16 – both of them born at Wooburn Green, while the three Sittingbourne children were Elsie Woolley who was 10, Edith A Woolley who was seven and Cornelius W Woolley who was five.

 

 

 

The same six members of the family were still living in Dartford in 1911 and all of them listed under their full names.  Papermaker machinist Albert Arthur Woolley was 49, Alice Mary Woolley was 47, Fanny Sarah Woolley was 29, Elsie Woolley was 19, Edith Alice Woolley was 17, and Cornelius William Woolley was 15.  Completing the family was Alice’s widowed mother Fanny Collett, aged 77 from Brize Norton, who may have still been living with the family at Dartford when she passed away there in 1924.  Fifteen years after the death of his mother-in-law, the death of Alfred A Woolley was recorded at Dartford register office (Ref. 2a 1245) during the first quarter of 1939.  Alice continued to live in Dartford after losing her husband and it was there also that the death of Alice M Woolley was recorded (Ref. 5b 335) during the third quarter of 1953 when she was 89 years of age.

 

 

 

 

72Q7

Mercy Eliza Collett was born at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green, her birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 433) during the first three months of 1866.  Mercy was five years of age in 1871, when she and her family were still residing on Wycombe Lane and where she they were still living in 1881 when Mercy was 15 and a glazing room labourer at the paper-mill.  The marriage of Mercy Eliza Collett and William Edward Gasson was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 937), the wedding having taken place at Wooburn on 26th December 1888 when Mercy was 22 and confirmed as the daughter of William Lawrence Collett, and William was 24, the son of William Edward Gasson senior.  Shortly after they were married William’s work at the Wooburn paper-mill resulted in a move to Kent, the county of his birth, where he continued to work in the paper-making business.  It was at Eglington Road in Swanscombe that they settled, where their three children were born.

 

 

 

That was their address on the day the next census was conducted in 1891 and where Wm E Gasson was 26 and working as a paper maker and calendar man.  His wife Mercy E Gasson from Buckinghamshire was also 26, while their daughter Margaret A Gasson was still under one year old, having been born there.  Their son was born there a couple of years later so, by 1901, the family of four was again residing at Eglington Road in Swanscombe.  William from Rochester in Kent was 37 and still working at the paper-mill, but as a ruler-man.  Mercy from Wooburn was 35 and the two children were confirmed as Margaret who was 10 and Norman who was seven, both born at Swanscombe.  On that day, Mercy’s recently widowed mother Fanny Collett, aged 68, was staying with the family.

 

 

 

During the next few years Fanny Collett left the Gasson household, when she went to live with Mercy’s older married sister Alice Woolley in Dartford.  Also, just after the census in 1901, Mercy presented William with their fourth and last child, the enlarged family still living in Swanscombe in 1911.  By then William Edward Gasson was 46 and still working as a paper maker.  Mercy Eliza Gasson was 44, Margaret Annie Gasson was 20, Norman William Gasson was 17, and Harold Aubrey Gasson was nine.  

 

 

 

 

72Q8

Clara Minnie Collett was born at Wooburn Green during the summer of 1868, the daughter of William Collett and Fanny Hollis, whose birth was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 453) in the third quarter of the year.  She was two years old at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green in 1871 and was 12 years of age in 1881.  It was at Wooburn on Christmas Eve in 1887 when Clara Minnie Collett married Charles Frederick Norris from Loudwater, adjacent to Wooburn Green.  Charles was 23 and the son of William Norris and Clara was 19, the daughter of William Collett, as recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 956).  The birth of Charles Frederick Norris was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 343) during the first quarter of 1865.  Once married the couple initially settled at Swanscombe in Kent to where Clara’s sister Mercy (above) moved after she was married in the following year.

 

 

 

In 1891 the young family was recorded at 4 Belle Vue Cottage, Swanscombe Lane in the village of Swanscombe near Dartford in Kent, as Chas F Norris who was 26 and a paper maker, Clara Norris was 22, and their daughter Lucy was six months old.  Staying with the family that day was Clara’s younger brother William Collett (below).  After the birth of their son the family moved to Maidstone and, in 1901 they were residing at 83 Milton Street when Chas F Norris was 36 and a paper maker at the local paper mill.  Clara M Norris was 32 and the two children were Lucy who was 10 and Chas L Norris who was six.  Staying with the family that day was Clara’s niece Fanny Collett from Wooburn Green who was 14 and the daughter of Clara’s older brother Thomas Collett (above), aka Maud Louisa Fanny Collett. 

 

 

 

62 Church Road, within the parish of Tovil, to the south-west of Maidstone town centre, was where the family was residing by the time of the census in 1911.  Paper maker Charles F Norris, from Wycombe, was 45, Clara Norris from Wooburn was 42, Lucy Norris was 20 and a paper sorter, and Charles L Norris was 16 and a paper layer.  Both children were confirmed as having been born at Swanscombe.  The death of Charles Frederick Norris was recorded at Maidstone on 31st January 1931 and his Will was proved in London on 18th March 1931, when his personal effects were left to his daughter Lucy Gertrude Larkin, the wife of Richard Larkin who she had married at Maidstone in the summer of 1926.  Sadly, it was only a few months prior to her daughter’s wedding day, that the death of Clara M Norris was recorded at Maidstone (Ref. 2a 997) during the second quarter of 1926 when she was 57 years of age.

 

 

 

 

72Q9

William Lawrence Collett was born at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green at the end of 1870, his birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 490) during the first quarter of 1871.  He was recorded simply as William Collett in the following census returns whilst, on the two occasions that he was married, he used his full name.  He was around three months old on the day of the Wooburn census of 1871 and was ten years old in 1881 when he and his family were still residing at Wycombe Lane.  In 1891 William from Wooburn was 20 and a general labourer when he was lodging with his older married sister Clara Norris nee Collett (above) at 4 Belle Vue Cottage, Swanscombe Lane in the village of Swanscombe near Dartford in Kent.  It was during the following year that William’s work had possibly taken him to Wiltshire, where met and married (1) Elizabeth Pike.  She was born at Wilsford in 1869 with her birth recorded at nearby Amesbury in the second quarter of that year.  She and her parents, Joseph and Ann Pike, were living at Great Durnford, just south of Wilsford in 1871 and had moved to Bishops Down Farm Cottages in Milford, Alderbury, near Salisbury by 1881.

 

 

 

It was also at Alderbury where William Lawrence Collett married (1) Elizabeth Pike and where the event was recorded (Ref. 5a 355) during the second quarter of 1892.  Their wedding day had been arranged as a matter of some urgency since, only days after they were married, Elizabeth gave birth to the first of her two children at nearby Odstock.  By the time of the birth of the couple’s second child, the family was living in Henley-on-Thames, after which they settled a few miles away in Maidenhead.

 

 

 

According to the census in 1901 William Collett from Wooburn was 30 and a fishmonger living at 19 Risborough Road in Maidenhead with his family.  His wife Elizabeth Collett from Wilsford in Wiltshire was 31, his son William Collett was eight years of age and had been born at Odstock in Wiltshire, and his daughter Winifred Collett was five years old and had been born in Henley.  Just under five years later, the death of Elizabeth Collett, nee Pike, was recorded at Maidenhead register office (Ref. 2c 268) during the first three months of 1906, when she was only 36.  It was around fifteen months after being widowed when William Lawrence Collett married the much young (2) Eva Jane Bell from Wargrave to the west of Maidenhead, where the wedding was recorded (Ref. 2c 885) during the second quarter of 1907.  Eva was born at School Lane in Wargrave, the youngest child of James and Jane Bell, and was baptised at Wargrave on 7th April 1889.  In 1901 Eva J Bell, aged 12 years and from Wargrave, was the only child still living with her parents at Moffatt Street in Maidenhead.

 

 

 

On the occasion of the next census in 1911 and, at the age of 40, William Collett was still a fishmonger living in Maidenhead at 20 College Rise with his new wife Eva Collett who was only 22.  Living with the couple was William’s daughter Winifred Collett who was 15 and described as assisting at home.  The census return also confirmed that he and Eva had only been married for four years and had no children.  No record of the death of William Lawrence Collett has been found to date but, it seems highly likely that his widow, Eva Collett died on 17th October 1946 when she was staying at The Lamb Inn at Chalgrove in Oxfordshire.  Probate of her Will was granted at Oxford on 5th March 1947.

 

 

 

72R8

William Lawrence Collett

Born in 1892 at Odstock, Wiltshire

 

72R9

Winifred Maud Collett

Born in 1896 at Henley-on-Thames

 

 

 

 

72Q10

Alfred Ernest Collett was born at Wooburn Green, the last child of William Collett and Fanny Hollis.  His birth was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 495) during the third quarter of 1876.  He was four years of age and 14 years old in consecutive census returns in 1881 and 1891 when Alfred was living with his family on Wycombe Road in Wooburn Green.  For the latter of these, he had already left school and was employed as a labourer.  Just before the end of the old century Alfred married Mary Edith Drain, the event taking place at Westminster on 26th August 1899, with their first child born around fifteen months after.  Alfred was 23 and the son of William Lawrence Collett, a shoemaker, and Mary was 32, the daughter of James Drain, a farmer.  The census in 1901 revealed the family living at 23 Crab Tree Lane in Fulham, London.  At the age of 24 married Alfred E Collett from Wooburn was a painter and paper hanger.  His wife Mary E Collett was 35 and from Southminster in Essex, while their son was Alfred L Collett was four months old and born at Fulham.

 

 

 

Ten years later, in April 1911, the family was living at 52 Foord Street in Rochester, Kent, where Alfred Collett was 34 and still working as a house painter.  On that occasion his wife was described as Edith Collett from Southminster who was 44 and, also by then, the couple had three children living there with them.  They were Alfred Collett who was 10, Irene Collett who was eight and Olive Collett who was five and born at Southend, whereas the two older children had been born in Fulham.  Although no record of the passing of Alfred or Mary has been found, it was Malden in Essex that the birth of Mary Edith Drain was recorded (Ref. 4a 191) during the last three months of 1865.

 

 

 

72R10

Alfred Lawrence Collett

Born in 1900 at Fulham

 

72R11

Edith Irene F Collett

Born in 1902 at Fulham

 

72R12

Olive Mercy Collett

Born in 1905 at Southend

 

 

 

 

72Q11

Ruth Collett was born at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green in 1859 and was the eldest child of George Collett and Ann Wood.  Her birth was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 384) during the second quarter of the year.  In the Wooburn census of 1861 Ruth was one year old, coming up two years of age, and was still there with her family in 1871, when she was 12 and still attending the village school.  On completing her education, Ruth entered domestic service and secured a position at the boarding house of Esther Ann Kimber, from Emberton in Buckinghamshire, at Ocklynge Villas in Eastbourne in 1881, where she was described as Ruth Collett from Wooburn who was 22.  Interestingly, her sister Annie (below) was also living and working in Eastbourne, Sussex, by 1891.

 

 

 

In 1887 Ruth gave birth to daughter, although no record of a marriage has been discovered prior to that date.  It is therefore possible that the child was base-born, but given the father’s name.  May Saunders was born at Loudwater near High Wycombe, her birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 642) during the third quarter of 1887.  Her daughter was then raised by Ruth’s parents at Wooburn where she was three years old in 1891 and 14 in 1901 when she was carrying out office duties at the nearby papermill.  However, it was ten years earlier that the marriage of Ruth Collett and William Humphrey was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 893) during the second quarter of 1891.  William was born at Wingrave near Aylesbury and was the son of Joseph and Ann Humphrey.  Their son Reginald Humphrey was born shortly after they were married, confirmed by the census in 1901.

 

 

 

By that time the family of three was residing at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green, where William Humphrey was 37 and a dresser in a tarpaulin factory, Ruth Humphrey was 39 and their son was nine years of age.  During the following years Ruth first-born child returned to live with her.  According to the Wooburn census of 1911 the family comprised William Humphrey a tarpaulin maker aged 47, his wife Ruth who was 49, their son Reginald who was 19, plus May Saunders aged 23 and an assistant dressmaker who was described as the niece of William Humphrey.  The status of niece, if correct, might indicate that May Saunders was in fact the base-born daughter of Ruth’s unmarried younger sister Annie Eliza Collett (below).

 

 

 

The death of William J Humphrey was recorded at Amersham register office (Ref. 3a 2063) during the second quarter of 1940 when he was 76.  His widow survived him by just less than four years when the death of Ruth Humphrey was recorded at Aylesbury register office (Ref. 3a 1904) during the first three months of 1944 at the age of 84.

 

 

 

 

72Q12

Anne Eliza Collett was born at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green either at the end of 1861 or early in 1862 and was baptised there on 23rd November 1862, the second child of George and Ann Collett.  Her birth as Anne Eliza Collett was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 377) during the first quarter of 1862.  As Annie Collett, she was 10 ten years old in the Wooburn census of 1871 and was 19 in 1881, by which time she was one of two domestic servants at the Wooburn home of elderly William Williams.  After a further ten years Annie Collett was still employed in domestic service, when she was 28 and a parlourmaid at Upperton Road in Eastbourne, the home of Frederick and Elizabeth Fellows, a retired couple living on their own means.  During the next six years Annie returned to Wooburn where, during the first three months of 1897 she died, her death recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 422) when Annie Eliza Collett was 35.  It was at Wooburn that she was buried on 6th February 1897.

 

 

 

Footnote:  It is equally possible that it was Annie Eliza Collett who gave birth to May Saunders at Wooburn in 1887, rather than Annie’s slightly older unmarried sister Ruth Collett (above).  Either way, the child was passed into the care of Ruth and Annie’s parents, as recorded in the 1891 and 1901 census returns.  After Anne’s premature death before the end of the century, and sometime between 1901 and 1911, May Saunders was taken into the family of Annie’s married sister Ruth, where she was described as the niece of William and Ruth Humphrey. 

 

 

 

 

72Q13

GEORGE COLLETT was born at Wooburn Green in 1864, his birth registered at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 403) during the second quarter of that year.  He was seven years old in the Wooburn census of 1871, a son of George Collett and Ann Wood.  On leaving school he took up the occupation of boot maker, the same as his father, with whom he was still living at Wooburn Moor at the age of 16 in 1881.  George Collett later married (1) Charlotte Howard, the event recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 883) during the second quarter of 1889.  Two years later George Collett was 27 and was living at Wooburn Green with his wife Charlotte who was 24.  With them was their first child Alice May Collett who was not yet one year old in the census in 1891.  Tragically, Charlotte died shortly thereafter, at the age of 28, probably giving birth to a second child who also did not survive.  The death of Charlotte Collett was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 443) during the last three months of 1893.  After over two years as a widower, George Collett married (2) Alice Ann Elizabeth Francis at Exeter in Devon on 31st January 1896.  The birth of Alice Ann Elizabeth Francis, the daughter of W Francis, was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 435) during the first three months of 1864, when her place of birth was confirmed as the hamlet of Loudwater, immediately north of Wooburn Green.

 

 

 

According to the census in 1901, George and Alice were living at Berghers Hill, a hamlet in the parish Wooburn, by which time there were four children living with the couple.  George was described as George Collett junior, who was 36 and a postman of Wooburn and Alice Ann Collett was 37 and from Loudwater.  George’s daughter Alice May Collett was 10 years old, while the new children were George W Collett who was three, Annie Eliza F Collett who was two and Frank Collett who was only five months old.  Six years later, the couple’s youngest daughter on that census day, Annie Eliza Frances Collett, died in 1907.

 

 

 

The Wooburn Green census in 1911 recorded the family residing at Bonnymede in the village and stated that the couple had been married for fifteen years and had given birth to seven children, of which only six were still alive.  George was still a postman at the age of 47 and Alice A E Collett was also 47.  The seven children with them were Alice May Collett aged 20, George William Francis Collett aged 13, Frank Collett who was 10, Robin Stanley Collett who was eight, Ephraim Richard Collett who was five, Benjamin James Francis Collett who was three and Annie Eliza Frances Collett who was one year old and named in honour of her sister of the same name who had died just prior to her birth.  The child who had already died may well have been one of the couple’s first children born before 1901, unless George was mistakenly referring to a child who had died around the time of the death of his first wife.

 

 

 

Alice Ann Elizabeth Collett, nee Francis, lived a long and full life and died at the great age of 101 in 1965.  Her passing was recorded at High Wycombe register office (Ref. 6a 569) during the first three months of that year.

 

 

 

72R13

Alice May Collett

Born in 1890 at Wooburn

 

The following are the children of George Collett by his second wife Alice Ann Elizabeth Francis:

 

72R14

George William Francis Collett

Born in 1897 at Wooburn

 

72R15

Annie Eliza Francis Collett

Born in 1899 at Wooburn

 

72R16

Frank Collett

Born in 1900 at Wooburn

 

72R17

Robin Stanley Collett

Born in 1902 at Wooburn

 

72R18

Ephraim Richard Collett

Born in 1905 at Wooburn

 

72R19

Benjamin James Francis Collett

Born in 1907 at Wooburn

 

72R20

ANNIE ELIZA FRANCIS COLLETT

Born in 1909 at Wooburn

 

 

 

 

72Q14

Mary Collett was born in 1867 at Wooburn Green, where she was three years of age in 1871 and 12 in 1881.  On both occasions she was recorded in the respective census returns as Mary Collett.  She was another daughter of George and Ann Collett whose birth, registered at the same time as Polly Collett (Ref. 72Q19) at Wycombe, should not be confused with her, with one unreliable source suggesting that they were the same person.  Annoyingly, no such birth record has been found for Mary, nor marriage, or death, just the two aforementioned census entries.

 

 

 

 

72Q15

Charles Collett was born at Wooburn Green during the first three months of 1871, his birth registered at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 466) in the second quarter of that year.  On the census day in 1871, baby Charles Collett had only just been born and was already living in Wooburn with his family.  Tragically for the family, Charles Collett died at Wooburn on 21st February 1872 when he was still under one year old, his death recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 321).

 

 

 

 

72Q16

Minnie Collett was born at Wooburn Green in 1874, her birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 481) during the second quarter of that year, a daughter of George and Ann Collett.  She was six years of age in 1881 and was 16 and a dressmaker in 1891, by which time she was living at the family home in Wooburn Moor with her father and younger sister Florence, her mother on a visit elsewhere that year.

 

 

 

 

72Q17

Florence Collett was born at Wooburn Green in the summer of 1879, the last child born to George Collett and Ann Wood, her birth registered at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 529) during the third quarter of the year.  She was one year old in 1881 and was at school in 1891 when, at the age of 12, Florence and her family were residing at Wooburn Moor in Buckinghamshire.  She was still living with her family on the day of the census in 1901, when she was only eighteen months away from being a married woman.  The Wooburn Moor census that year recorded Florence as being 21 and dressmaker, having her own account and working at home with her sister Minnie (above).

 

 

 

It was during the fourth quarter of 1902 when the marriage of Florence Collett and William Robarts was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1521), where he sister Minnie was named as one of the witnesses.  The marriage produced a total of seven children, all of their births recorded at Wycombe register office when, for the last four children, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.  They were Annie May Robarts in 1903, Colin William Robarts in 1906, Winifred Ruth Robarts in 1907, Reginald Robarts in 1912, Douglas L Roberts in 1917, Ronald T Roberts in 1919, and Frederick J Robarts.  Florence lived a long life, most likely spent in Buckinghamshire, where her death was recorded (Ref. 6a 439) in 1963 at the age of 83.

 

 

 

 

72Q18

Lizzie Collett was born at Wooburn Green in 1864 whose birth, as Lizzie, was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 399) during the third quarter of that year, the first child of Ephraim Collett and Jane Allen.  Despite that, her parents gave her name as Eliza Collett when she was six years of age on the day of the Wooburn census in 1871.  By 1881, Lizzie Collett from Wooburn was said to be 17 years old when she was the only servant working at the Cookham, Berkshire, home of elderly widow Ann Smith, when she was described as the servant of all works.  Where she was in early 1891 has not been discovered, but it was on 26th December 1891 that Lizzie Collett married William Wood at Wooburn.  William was 28 and the son of Walter Wood, while Lizzie was 27 and the daughter of Ephraim Collett.

 

 

 

Their marriage produced at least five children for the couple, even though all five were never recorded with the family which was residing at Kew in Surrey, where William Wood had been born and where he was employed as a park keeper in both 1901 and 1911.  He was 38 in 1901, when his wife Lizzie from Wooburn was also 38 and their eldest child was Jane Wood aged eight years and born at Kew, where all of their children were born.  Ten years later, it was at Watcombe Cottages in Kew that William was 48 and Lizzie was 47.  By then their eldest daughter was no longer living with them, instead her four siblings were named as Maud Wood who was 16, William John Wood who was 13, Leonard Maurier Wood who was nine, and Ida Edith Wood who was four. 

 

 

 

 

72Q19

Polly Collett was born at Wooburn Green in 1867 and her birth was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 447) during the third quarter of that year.  She was three years of age in the census of 1871 and, on leaving school, she secured work as a general domestic servant at the home of the Smith family at Dalston Road in Hackney, London, where she was on the day of the census in 1881.  In error, she was recorded by her employers as being 15 years old and from Wooburn.  The marriage of Polly Collett and Joseph Stevens took place at Wooburn on 29th October 1887, when Polly was 21 and confirmed as the daughter of Ephraim Collett, and Joseph was described as being 27 and the son of Thomas Stevens.  The event was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 955).

 

 

 

According to the census in 1901 Joseph Stevens from High Wycombe was 41 and a French polisher, his wife Mary was 34 and their five children were William Stevens who was 12, Harriet Stevens who was 10, Annie Stevens who was eight, Eva Stevens who was four, and Daisy Stevens who was two years of age, all of them born at High Wycombe where the family was living at Pennington Row in the town.  Although, no record of the family has been found within the next census of 1911, it was at Wycombe register office (Ref. 6a 427) that the death of Polly Stevens was recorded during the second quarter 1958 when she was 90.

 

 

 

 

72Q20

Maud Collett was born at Wooburn Green during the final weeks of 1869, with her birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 500) during the first three months of 1870.  She was one year old in the census of 1871 and 11 years of age in the next Wooburn Green census of 1881, but was not living with her family in 1891.  Two years later Maud Collett married (1) Charles Cole at Wooburn on 26th December 1893, the event recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1026).  Maud was 24 and confirmed as the daughter of Ephraim Collett, with Charles being 29 and the son of Daniel Cole.  Charles was a carman working on the railway and fathered a son and a daughter before his premature death.  However, before being widowed, Maud and Charles were residing at Egham Hill in Egham, Surrey, in 1901.  Charles from Upper Basildon was 37, Maud was 30 and their two London born children were George Cole who was six and born at Hornsey, and Alice M Cole who was four and born at Islington.

 

 

 

Charles’ work with the railway ultimately took him and his family to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire and it was at the register office in the town that his death was recorded (Ref. 3a 628) during the first three months of 1909 when he was 44 years old.  His passing meant that Maud had to seek work to support her family and in 1911 she was described as a boarding house keeper when she was still living in Aylesbury with just her daughter Alice who was 14 and from Finsbury Park.  Maud Cole from Wooburn Green was 41 and a widow.  Five years later Maud Cole married (2) Harry J Gills in Aylesbury, where the event was recorded (Ref. 3a 1976) during the second quarter of 1916.

 

 

 

 

72Q21

Ben Collett was born at Wooburn Green, possibly during the first few weeks of 1872, the son of Ephraim and Jane Collett, whose birth was recorded at High Wycombe (Ref. 3a 502) during the first quarter of 1872.  He was aged nine years and 19 years in the next two census returns for Wooburn in 1881 and 1891, when he was living at Wooburn Green with his family and, in the latter, he was employed as a general labourer.  No record of him has been found in the census of 1901, although the military record of Ben Collett born in Buckinghamshire in 1872 only includes the years of service from 1908 to 1915.  It was during the second quarter of 1910 that his marriage to (1) Jessie Cowley was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1474) when the witnesses were Elizabeth Biggs and William Albert Saunders.  By the time of the census in April 1911, the childless couple was living at Wooburn Lane in Wooburn Green, the home of Ben’s younger married sister Ella Hersee (below).  The census return confirmed that the couple had only been married for one year and that Ben Collett of Wooburn was 40 and a domestic gardener and his wife Jessie was 28 and a housewife who had been born at West Handley in Derbyshire.

 

 

 

On that day, Ben and Jessie were preparing for the arrival of their son, who was born a few months later.  That child may have been their only child, while he was fifteen years of age when the death of Jessie Collett was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1137) during the first quarter of 1925 when she was only 45.  After a year as a widower, Ben Collett married (2) Clara Stallwood, the event recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 2222) during the second quarter of that year.  The death of Ben Collett was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 6a 474) during the first quarter of 1952, when his age was recorded as being 79.

 

 

 

72R21

Alan Ben Collett

Born in 1911 at Wooburn Green

 

 

 

 

72Q22

Daisy Collett was born at Wooburn Green either late in 1873 or early in 1874, the daughter of Ephraim and Jane Collett, whose birth was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 494) during the first three months of 1874.  In 1881 she and her family were living at Wooburn Green, when Daisy Collett was seven years old.  Ten years later, at the time of the census in 1891 Daisy Collett was still living in Wooburn Town but as a lodger with the family of carter Charles Lewis from Gloucestershire.  She was named as Daisy Collett from Wooburn who was 17 and working at the local paper mill.  It was seven years later, on 12th October 1898 and at Wooburn, that Daisy Collett married William Marshall Read, the event recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 1347) when Daisy was 24 and the daughter of Ephraim Collett, and William was 23, the son of Japheth William Marshall Read.  The witnesses were Albert Edward King and Fanny Louisa Howard.  By March 1901 the couple was living in Taplow with two children.  William Read was 24 and a bricklayer’s labourer from Drinkstone in Suffolk, Daisy Read from Wooburn was 26, Esme M Read (M = Marshall?) was one year old and also born at Wooburn, and Cecil B Read had been born after the family had moved to Taplow and he was only a few months old.

 

 

 

 

72Q23

Lily Eliza Collett was born at Wooburn Green in 1876 with her birth registered at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 513) during the second of the year, another daughter of Ephraim Collett and Jane Allen.  She was listed as Lily E Collett aged five years, in the Wooburn Green census of 1881 and was absent from the family home in 1891.  The reason for that, was that she was already working as a general servant in the London Shaftesbury Avenue home of the family of Frederick G Netherclift, a hand-writing expert.  Just three weeks before the next census day, Lily Collett the daughter of Ephraim Collett was 26 when she married Thomas Edward House at Wooburn on 6th March 1901, Thomas being 32 and the son of Thomas Edward House senior.  One year later the childless couple was residing at Heath Road on Queens Square in Twickenham, where Thomas E House was a barman working in a nearby inn.  He was 33 and his wife Lily House was 26, both of them simply confirmed as having been born in Buckinghamshire.  Just over seven years later, Thomas and Lily were in Wooburn, where Thomas Edward House died on 2nd May 1908 when he was only 39 years of age.

 

 

 

Curiously, two years prior to the death of her husband, Lily Lizzie Collett, the daughter of Ephraim and Jane Collett was baptised at Wooburn on 30th March 1906, her married sister Naomi (below) also having been baptised only three years earlier.  By 1911 Lily had returned home to look after her elderly widowed father Ephraim at his house in Wooburn, when she was described in the census return as Lily House, a widow aged 36 from Wooburn, who was the housekeeper.  Ten years later, and just prior to the death of her father, Lily House married (2) John Fryer, the event recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1824) during the first three months of 1921.  They were married for nearly twenty years, when the death of Lily Fryer was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 2950) during the first quarter of 1940, when she was said to be 63 years of age.

 

 

 

 

72Q24

Eva Collett was born at Wooburn Green during the last three months of 1877, her birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 524), following which she was baptised Wooburn on 28th August 1878, a daughter of Ephraim and Jane Collett.  She was three years old in the Woburn Green census of 1881, and was still living there with her family in 1891 at the age of 14, from where she was already working as a general domestic servant.  It was around her twentieth birthday that Eva Collett married Thomas George Feasey, the event recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1329) during the fourth quarter of 1897.  Thomas’ sister Ruth Feasey was one of the witnesses.  Although no record of the couple has been identified in Great Britain censuses of 1901 and 1911, it was at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 2527) that Thomas George Feasey married Emily Goodger during the third quarter of 1921.  Likewise, no record of the death of Eva Feasey has been found, so it is possible Thomas who married Emily may have been her son rather than her husband.

 

 

 

 

72Q25

Naomi Collett was born at Wooburn Green in 1879 with her birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 647) during the second quarter of the year.  She was one year old and 12 years of age in the 1881 and 1891 Censuses, while living at Wooburn Green with her family.  When she was 21, she was living in the Hammersmith area of London, where she was working as a general domestic servant in March 1901 at the Goldhawk Road home of the Hinds family of London.  It was during the third quarter of the following year that she married George Howard on 27th August 1902, when Naomi was 23 and the daughter of Ephraim Collett, and George was 25 and the son of Richard Howard.  Their wedding was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1565), where the witnesses were Fanny Gertrude Wood and Michael Ludgate.  Seven years later Naomi’s niece Maud Louisa Fanny Collett (Ref. 72R3) married Jessie Ludgate in 1909.

 

 

 

Unlike other members of her Collett family, no baptism as a child has been located at Wooburn for Naomi so, it was not surprising to discover that ten months prior to the birth of her first child, Naomi Collett Howard was baptised as an adult at Wooburn on 2nd April 1903, the daughter of Ephraim and Jane Collett.  According to the next census in 1911 Naomi and her family were living in Wooburn Green, when she had been married for eight years.  George Howard was 34 and a mill hand at the nearby paper-mill, Naomi was 32, and their children were Alice Ivy Margaret Howard who was eight and baptised at Wooburn on 2nd February 1904, Clare Naomi Winifred Howard who six (born Q4 1905) and Annie May Howard who was five (born Q1 1907).  Every member of the Howard family had been born at Wooburn Green.  Staying with the family on that day were James Howard, aged 28, and Albert Wells who was 25.

 

 

 

George Howard was residing at Normans Cottages in Wooburn when he died on 9th January 1950 when his personal estate of £692 7 Shillings was passed to his widow Naomi Howard.  Just over eleven years after his passing, eighty-one-year-old Naomi Howard of 5 Normans Cottages in Wooburn Green died on 8th February 1961 at the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital in Taplow when administration of her estate valued at £453 19 Shillings was granted to her married daughter Alice Ivy Margaret Gosling.

 

 

 

 

72Q26

Ella Collett was born at Wooburn Green on 10th January 1881, another daughter of Ephraim and Jane Collett, who was living there with her family on the census day that year, when Ella was just two months old.  Her birth was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 606) during the first quarter of that year.  She was still living there with her family in 1891 when she was ten years of age, and again in 1901 when Ella was 20 and a domestic cook.  It was four months after that census day, on 5th August 1901 when Ella Collett married Henry George Hersee, the event recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1510) during the third quarter of 1901.  Henry was 28 and the son of Charles Hersee, while Eva was only 20 and confirmed as the daughter of Ephraim Collett.  The witnesses were Thomas John Bass and Mary Ann Price. 

 

 

 

The couple’s first children may have been a honeymoon baby, since the baptism of Elizabeth Maud Hersee took place at Wooburn on 6th July 1902.  Their third daughter Lilian Louisa Alice Hersee was baptised at Wooburn on 21st October 1908.  By the time of the next census in 1911, insurance agent Henry George Hersee was 38, Ella Hersee of Wooburn Green was 30, and their three children were Elizabeth Maud Hersee who was eight, Lilian Louisa Alice Hersee who was two, and Dorothy Pearl Hersee who was six months old.  Staying with the family that day, as lodgers, at Wooburn Lane in Wooburn Green was Ella’s married brother Ben Collett and his wife Jessie, who were expecting the birth of their first child. 

 

 

 

Two more children were added to the Hersee family, one each side of the Great War.  The birth of Winifred V Hersee was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1730) during the third quarter of 1915 and likewise Edward H W Hersee, whose birth was recorded there (Ref. 3a 2139) during the second quarter of 1920.  In each case, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.  Henry George Hersee died during the summer in 1950 when he was 77 and living at Newport Pagnell, with his death recorded at North Bucks register office (Ref. 6a 294).  His wife Ella Hersee nee Collett had already passed away during the previous year, when administration of her personal estate was granted to Henry George Hersee, a retired fishmonger.

 

 

 

Their eldest daughter Elizabeth M Hersee married Cyril T Fletcher, the event recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 2264) during the last quarter of 1927 and it was also at Wycombe register office that the wedding of Dorothy P Hersee and Charles E Wing was recorded (Ref. 3a 3071) during the last three months of 1944.

 

 

 

 

72Q27

Allen John Collett was born at Wooburn Green, his birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 596) during the second quarter of 1882.  As Allen J Collett of nine years his was living with his family at Wooburn Green in 1891 and was listed Allen John Collett, aged 19 and from Wooburn Green, when he was serving with the army as a private in the infantry at Reading Barracks on the day of the next census in March 1901.  At the time of the census in 1911, he was simply listed in the census return as John Collett from Wooburn who was 29 and a male nurse, while living in the Maidenhead area of Berkshire with his wife Annie Collett who was 33 and born in Beaconsfield.  No record of their marriage has been found and later that same year Annie possibly gave birth to a daughter, whose birth was recorded at Maidenhead register office (Ref. 2c 388) during the second quarter of 1911.  Whether Frances L M Collett was their first child has not been proved.

 

 

 

 

72Q28

Dennis Collett was born at Wooburn Green in 1884 and was the youngest son of Ephraim and Jane Collett.  His birth was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 633) during the third quarter of the year.  He was seven years old in 1891 when he and his family were still residing in Wooburn Green, as they were in 1901, by which time Dennis was a coal carter aged 16.  At the age of 27, unmarried Dennis Collett from Wooburn was still living there in 1911 with his widowed father and married sister Lily House, recently widowed, when he was described as general labourer.  It is likely Dennis remained a bachelor all his life and continued to live in the Wooburn area of Buckinghamshire.  Since it was at Wycombe register office (Ref. 6a 547) that the death of Dennis Collett, aged 83, was recorded during the last three months of 1967.

 

 

 

 

72Q29

Lily A Collett was born at Wooburn Green in 1888, the last child of Ephraim Collett and Jane Allen, and curiously the second to be given the name Lily, whose older sister was alive and later married to raise a family of her own.  To make things even more complicated, no record of the birth of Lily A Collett has been found.  It was again as Lily A Collett aged two years that she was recorded with her family at Wooburn Green in 1891 and again in 1901 when Lily Collett was 12.  Nine years later, at Wooburn on 21st February 1910, Lily Collett married Frederick Charles Wheeler, the son of James and Alice Wheeler of Wooburn Town.  Lily was 21 and confirmed as the daughter of Ephraim Collett and Frederick was 23 and confirmed as the son of James Henry Wheeler, their wedding recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1307).  The marriage produced a son and a daughter, both named after two of Lily’s older siblings.  On the day of the Wooburn census in 1911, Frederick Wheeler was 24 and a dryer-man working in the paper trade, Lily Wheeler was 22 and their son Dennis Wheeler was not yet one year old.  Their daughter Naomi A Wheeler was born a year later, her birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 1912) during the first three months of 1912, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.

 

 

 

 

72Q30

Lorenzo George Collett was born at Wooburn on 10th January 1863, the first-born child of Richard Collett and Mary A Hancock, who left England for Salt Lake City in Utah shortly after he was born.  However, his birth was registered at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 397) 1863 and just around nine months after his parents were married there.  Once he was settled in America he was recorded as Richard George Collett, the son of Richard and Mary Collett.  In the Salt Lake City census of 1880, 17-year-old George from England was a shoemaker living there with his family.  Two years later he was baptised into the Church of Latter Day Saints on 3rd January 1882.  On 22nd August 1891, Richard George Collett returned to Salt Lake City after his 1890 Mormon mission overseas, when his parents were acknowledged as Richard Collett and Mary Hancock at the Priesthood Office of Elder Ord Seventry. 

 

 

 

The Salt Lake City Directory for 1885-86 identified shoe-laster Richard G Collett as an employee at the Z C M I Shoe Factory, when his address was 338 Wall Street.  Having the same occupation, employer, and home address, was George E Collett who was very likely related to Richard, although no connection has yet been found.  The Utah Gazetteer published in 1892-93 also included shoemaker Richard Collett, but working at a general store, when he was residing at 36 Almond Street with his family.

 

 

 

Later in his life he was made a High Priest with his ordination date being 29th November 1914, his church described as 19 Salt Lake Stake.  Richard George Collett was 68 years 6 months and 3 days old when he died on 3rd August 1932 at 75 Main Street, the husband of Elizabeth Collett and the son of Richard George Collett and Mary A Hancock.  His death certificate confirmed his date of birth as 10th January 1863, that he had been a shoemaker at the Z C M Factory, had been retired for fifteen years, had resided in America for 68 years, and that the cause of death was cerebral haemorrhage, with chronic myocarditis being a contributing factor.  The information of his passing was his son Richard George Collett junior of 75 Main Street, and was buried at the City Cemetery in Altonah, Duchesne, Utah, on 7th August 1932

 

 

 

According to the census in 1900, Richard George Collett and Elizabeth Cecilia Hovey had been married for sixteen years, during which time they had produced seven children, all of whom were still living.  The family was living at Precinct 41 in Salt Lake City that day, when Richard was working as a shoemaker at the age of 37.  Elizabeth was also 37 but born in Utah during May 1863.  The seven children were recorded as Etta L Collett 14, later referred to as Henrietta, Richard Collett 13, Lorren Collett 10, Frederica Collett who was eight, Alice Collett who was six, Luella Collett who was four, and Annie Collett who was two years old.  The family was later completed with the birth of the couple’s last two children during the following decade.

 

 

 

In 1910 the family was living at 27 Almond Street in Salt Lake City, where Richard George Collett was 47, and Elizabeth Cecilia Collett was 46.  In addition to the children, also staying with the family that day was Elizabeth’s older brother Dan Hovey, confirmed as the brother-in-law of head of the household Richard.   Eight of the couple’s nine children were recorded living with them, just daughter Frederica missing, having died at 27 Almond Street on 28th December 1906 at the age of 14.  Henrietta was 23 and employed as a cashier in a dry goods store, with the census return stating in error that her year of birth was 1887.  Richard George junior was 22 and a clerk with the railroad.  The third child was named as Lorren D Collett aged 20 who was born in 1890, a wrapper in a retain clothing store.  Next, after missing Frederica, was Alice Collett aged 15, Luelle Collett aged 14, Annie Collett aged 12, Jean Collett who was seven, and five-year-old son Lynn Collett.

 

 

 

By 1920 the family was residing at 329 Apricot Street in Salt Lake City, where they were recorded as Richard G Collett from England who became an American citizen in 1878, who was 55 and a property clerk at the Safety Building, the owner of his own house.  His wife Elizabeth C Collett was also 55, while their daughters were Luella Collett who was 22 (sic) and Nan Collett 19 (sic) both employed at the nearby telephone exchange, and Jean Collett aged 17, together with son Lynn Collett who was 15.  Nan was obviously the family name for daughter Annie, who was also recorded as Nan in many later records.

 

 

 

According to the census in 1930 the family was living at 75 First Avenue – two years later referred to as 75 Main Street.  The property, at an estimated value of $5,500 was owned by Richard G Collett who was 59 and the County’s Deputy Recorder with the Salt Lake County.  Elizabeth was also 59 when, on that day, four of the couple’s eight surviving children were recorded with them.  They were Jean Collett who was 26 and a book-keeper with the State Department, Lynn Collett who was 24 and a book-keeper with a loan company, married daughter Etta Collett Blaine, a widow, who was 40 and a department head working at a department store, and married daughter Nan Collett Bach, also a widow, who was 30.  Also living there were three of Richard and Elizabeth’s grandsons, the three young children of their daughter Nann.

 

 

 

Two years later, at 75 Main Street in Salt Lake City, Richard George Collett died on 3rd August 1932 and was buried at the City Cemetery on 7th August 1932.  Sometime after that most of the members of the family left the family home, leaving just Elizabeth Collett, a widow at 77, still at Salt Lake City in 1940 with only her unmarried son Lynn Collett who was 36, having no stated occupation.  After a further seven years Elizabeth Cecilia Collett nee Hovey, born on 24th May 1863, died on 24th June 1947 at the age of 84, when she was buried with her husband two days after.  The record of her death confirmed she was the daughter of Orlando D Hovey and Frederica K Peterson.

 

 

 

72R22

Henrietta Leone Collett

Born in 1887 at Salt Lake City

 

72R23

Richard George Collett Junior

Born in 1888 at Salt Lake City

 

72R24

Orlando Delorne Collett

Born in 1890 at Salt Lake City

 

72R25

Frederica Collett

Born in 1892 at Salt Lake City

 

72R26

Alice Irene Collett

Born in 1894 at Salt Lake City

 

72R27

Luella Collett

Born in 1896 at Salt Lake City

 

72R28

Annie Collett

Born in 1898 at Salt Lake City

 

72R29

Jean Collett

Born in 1902 at Salt Lake City

 

72R30

Lynn Hovey Collett

Born in 1904 at Salt Lake City

 

 

 

 

72Q31

Alice Mary Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 10th April 1865, the second child and eldest daughter of shoemaker Richard Collett and his wife Mary.  As Alice Mary Collett she was baptised into the 19th Ward of the Church of Latter Day Saints on 5th November 1978, when she was the daughter of Richard Collett and Mary Hancock.  Two years later the census in 1880 recorded the fact that 14-year-old Alice had finish school and was at home, helping her mother look after the large family living at Almond Street within Ward 19 of Salt Lake City.  Twenty years after that day, the census of 1900 stated in error that she was 32 and born in April 1868, when she was still living with her parent at 36 Almond Street in Salt Lake City, but with no stated occupation.  By then her father was a grocer, so she may have been helping him.

 

 

 

In between those times, the Salt Lake City Directory for 1885-86 included four members of the Collett family, the first of them being Miss Alice Collett of 46 Almond Street who was employed at the Z C M I Shoe Factory, as was her father Richard who was a foreman there.  A few years later, within the Utah Gazetteer for year 1892-93, Miss Alice Collett of 36 Almond Street was a dressmaker, along with seven other members of the Collett family of Salt Lake City, listing their occupations and addresses, three of which were Alice’s siblings, Richard (aka Lorenzo – above), Ralph (below), and sister Mamie.

 

 

 

Not long after 1900, Alice Mary Collett married Orlando Dana Hovey, with whom she gave birth to a daughter Thelma Mae Hovey who was born in California on 26th February 1904.  Orlando was born at Salt Lake City on 26th April 1854 and was therefore eleven years older than Alice.  The Los Angeles census in 1920 recorded the family at 521 Bonnie Beach Place in San Antonio Township, where Orland D Hovey was 65 and the owner of the property, employed as a freight man with the Salt Lake City Railroad Company, Alice M Hovey was 54, and Thelma M Hovey was 16.  After a further four years, the marriage of Thelma Mae O’Rourke Hovey, daughter of Orlando D Hovey and Alice M Collett, and (1) Irving Earl Sage from New York was conducted at Los Angeles on 17th July 1924.  Thet marriage quickly end in divorce, with Thelma marrying for a second time in 1928, as described below.

 

 

 

One year before Thelma was married for the first time, it is possible that she accompanied her parents on a visit to England, with the return journey back to New York taking place 7th July 1923, when her mother Alice was described as a housewife aged 55.  Nine months after Thelma was married for a second time in four years, her father died in Los Angeles on 25th March 1929.  For the census 1930 widow Alice Mary Collett Hovey from Salt Lake City was head of the household at the age of 64, when her married daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter were living with her.  Five years later Alice was 69 in 1935, while it was three years after that census day that she died at Los Angeles in 1938.

 

 

 

Thelma Mae Hovey married (2) Edgar Willard Bowers at Santa Ana, Orange County in California on 17th June 1928.  On that occasion Thelma was 24 and had recently been divorced from her first husband.  Edgar was also 24, and a bachelor from West Virginia, the son of George Bowers and Cora Steele.  Two years after their wedding day, and confirmed in the census of 1930, the couple and their only known child were staying at 3722 Eagle Street in Montebello, Los Angeles, the home of widow Alice Mary Hovey who was 64 and the owner of the property.  Alice was the head of the household, when her son-in-law Edgar Bowers was 25 and a salesman in dry goods, and when her daughter Thelma Mae Bowers was 26, and her granddaughter was seven-month-old Shirley Bowers.

 

 

 

At some later time, Thelma and Edgar were divorced but on 1st October 1950 they were married for a second time.  The record of that second marriage described Edgar Willard Bowers as 46 and divorced once in his life, while Thelma was also 46 but admitted to being divorced twice during her life.  At that time in his life Edgar was residing at 815 South Indiana Avenue in Los Angeles, the son of George M Bowers and Cora Steele, when Thelma was residing at 200 South Alhambra Avenue, Monterey Park in Los Angeles.  The marriage was conducted at Whittier Foursquare Church in Whittier, Southern California in Los Angeles County.  Thelma Mae O’Rourke Hovey was living at Beaverton, Washington County in Oregon, when she died on 22nd April 2004, having celebrated her one hundredth birthday two months earlier.

 

 

 

 

72Q32

Frank Collett was born at Salt Lake City in the State of Utah during 1868, where he was living with his parents Richard Collett and Mary A Hancock in 1880 when he was 12.  Four years later, Frank had left school and was working as a delivery boy for William Wood, when his address was reported in the Salt Lake City as 36 Pine Street.  A few years later, around 1892-23, he was living at 669 East 2nd South Street from where he was a clerk working for the Freeze Merchant Company, through which he may have met his future wife.  Shortly thereafter he married Lillian May Perry (aka Lilian May Freeze) by whom he had a daughter who was born in 1896 and a son who was born in 1899, with two later sons given the additional forename of Freeze.  Lillian was the daughter of Henry Perry from Canada.  In 1880 Lillie Perry was eight years old when she was living with her widowed father and her family at Henry’s Fork in Sweetwater, Idaho.

 

 

 

In 1900 Frank and Lillian were residing at Precinct 47 in Salt Lake City, where Frank Collett from Utah was 32, and his wife Lilian M Collett, also from Utah, was 28, while the couple’s two children were Marion Collett who was four years old, and James P Collett who was one year old.  During the next decade a further four children were added to their family, as confirmed in the next census in 1910.  Frank was 42 and a motorman working with street cars, his wife May was 37, and their six children were Marion Collett aged 13, James Perry Collett aged 10, and Frank F Collett who was eight, all of whom were attending school, plus Maude Collett who was five, Ruth Collett who was three, and Bruce F Collett who was one year and three months old.  Their address that day was Logan Court South 9th East Street within Ward 5 of Salt Lake City.  The census return also revealed the couple had been married for 14 years, during which time May had given birth to six children, all still living.

 

 

 

Two more children were born into the family at Salt Lake City during the next ten years, and in 1919 and 1918 respectively, the couple’s two eldest children were married there.  Both the marriage record and the death record for the couple’s eldest child Marion Collett Platts, gave her mother’s name as May Freeze, while her father was confirmed as Frank Collett.  Following the two family weddings, their son James and his young wife and their first child were still living with Frank and Lilian May at 844 Menlo Avenue in Salt Lake City in 1920.  By then Frank was 51 and the home owner who was again employed as a motorman but with street railway.  May was 47, Frank junior was 18, Perry was 20 and his wife Eunice was 19, Maude was 15, Ruth was 13, Bruce was 10, while the latest arrivals were Edna who was eight, and Florence who was four.  The couple’s grandchild was Beth Collett who was only three months old.

 

 

 

According to the next census in 1930, the family was again living at 844 Menlo Avenue where Frank Collett was 61 and a street car operator, May Collett was 55, Frank F Collett was 28, Bruce Collett was 21, Edna Collett was 19, and Florence Collett was 14.  That year the family’s home had a value of $2,000, one of the more expensive properties on the avenue.  After a further five years, the only child living with Frank and his wife was their daughter Florence.  Frank Collett was 67, May Freeze Collett was 63, and Florence Collett was 20, when the family home was still at Menlo Avenue, when plans for Florence’s forthcoming wedding were well advanced.

 

 

 

By 1940 Frank Collett was 72 and his wife May Collett was 66 when they were living alone at Ward 5 in Salt Lake City Precinct on the occasion of the census that year, which also confirmed that the couple had been residing at the same address in 1935.  It was just three years later that Frank Collett passed away near the end of October 1943, and was buried on 1st November 1943.  Upon the later death of his widow her burial record at the City Cemetery stated that May Freeze Collett was laid to rest on 20th April 1957.

 

 

 

72R31

Marion Collett

Born in 1897 at Salt Lake City

 

72R32

James Perry Collett

Born in 1899 at Salt Lake City

 

72R33

Frank Freeze Collett

Born in 1902 at Salt Lake City

 

72R34

Maude Collett

Born in 1904 at Salt Lake City

 

72R35

Ruth Collett

Born in 1906 at Salt Lake City

 

72R36

Bruce Freeze Collett

Born in 1909 at Salt Lake City

 

72R37

Edna Collett

Born in 1911 at Salt Lake City

 

72R38

Florence Collett

Born in 1915 at Salt Lake City

 

 

 

 

72Q33

Ralph Collett was another son of Richard Collett and his first wife Mary Hancock from England who was born at Salt Lake City in 1869, but who was not baptised there until 5th November 1878.  Just after the census in 1890, Ralph was living with his family at 36 Almond Street, when he was recorded in the Utah Gazetteer as a mason.  He later married Mary L MacLeod, aged 37, at Salt Lake City on 27th March 1902.  On that day, Ralph gave his age as 34 – being 1868, the year his brother Frank (above) was born, instead of his actually age of 32.  Eight years later, the same couple was married for a second time at Salt Lake City on 1st March 1910, when Ralph Collett aged 41 married Mary L Collett who was 46, a more accurate statement of his age.  Upon his death, seven years after that second ceremony, on 20th September 1917, and his burial at Salt Lake City Cemetery on 23rd September 1917, he was confirmed again as the son of Richard Collett and Mary Hancock.  His last address was 916 Laird Avenue and the cause of death was carcinoma.  He was recorded as being 48, placing the year of his birth as 1869, his actual date of birth very likely being 27th December 1869.

 

 

 

 

72Q34

William Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 19th August 1873, who was later baptised into the Church of 19th Ward on 3rd January 1882.  In the census of 1900, when he and his family were living at 36 Almond Street, 26-year-old William was a butcher.  After his father Richard died in 1904, William stepped in to help his mother Mary run the family’s grocer’s store, as confirmed in the census of 1910 when William Collett aged 35 (sic) was described as a salesman at the grocery store.  Once again the family home was at 36 Almond Street

 

 

 

William was married sometime during the following decade but, tragically, he was a widower by the time of the next census in 1920.  On that day he was recorded at 121 West 13th Street in Kansas City, when he was one of four men lodging there, three of them being middle-age widowers.  William from Utah was 47 and a restaurant cook, as was one of the other men, while one was a hotel clerk, the other a hotel barkeeper.  Could they all have been working at the same place together and be living in hotel provided accommodation?  Ten years later William Collett was in Los Angeles where he died on 13th April 1930 at the age of 56.

 

 

 

 

72Q35

Alice Mary Collett, who was known as Mary and Mamie, was born at Salt Lake City on 25th December 1874, the sixth child of Richard Collett and Mary A Hancock.  She was blessed into the Church of 19th Ward on 4th February 1875, and was baptised using her full birth name on 1st May 1883.  On completing her education, Mamie Collett was listed in the Utah Gazetteer published in 1892/3 as working at Des Wool Manufacturers (?).  Five or six years later, on 31st August 1898, Mary Collett married James E Lawless at Salt Lake City, when Mary was 23 and James was 21.  An unnamed daughter of James and Mary was born 5th August 1907 when James was 30 and a teamster living at 40 Almond Street.

 

 

 

It is now established that the unnamed female child born on 5th August 1907 was Lilian Mary Lawless, who was living with her family in 1930.   By them she had just given birth to a base-born son, who was also living there with her. Curiously, head of the household that day was Mary Collett Lawless aged 56, daughter Lilian was 23, son James was 20, and grandson Edward Colton Lawless had only just been born.  Five years later, in the census of 1935, there were just three members of the family residing in Salt Lake City, and they were James Edward Lawless senior who was 57, Mary Collett Lawless who was 61, and James Edward Lawless junior aged 25. 

 

 

 

It was also at Salt Lake City that Mary Collett Lawless died on 16th August 1938 and was buried in the City Cemetery aged 63 three days after.  At that time in her life her home address was 328 Almond Street when once again her parents were confirmed as Richard Collett and Mary Hancock, with her widowed husband named as James E Lawless.

 

 

 

 

72Q36

Rachel May Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 13th March 1878 and from the early 1890s the family was living at 36 Almond Street where, in 1900 Rachel was 21 but with no occupation.  Prior to that Rachel received a blessing at the Church of 19th Ward on 2nd May 1878, and was later baptised on 30th March 1886 when she was confirmed as the daughter of Richard G Collett and Mary A Hancock.  It was on 22nd September 1904 at Salt Lake City when Rachel May Collett married John Proctor Moss, both of them 26 years of age.  Their daughter Mary Louise Moss was born at 432 Fletcher Street in Salt Lake City on 28th July 1911.  That was their third child, all living, when John’s occupation was that of a book-keeper.

 

 

 

The two earlier children were Olive Merle Moss born on 1st July 1905 and Jack Richard Moss born on 28th March 1910.  According to the census in 1930 the full family was living at 164 East South Temple, SLC, where John was 51, Rachel was 52, Jack was 20, Mary was 18, and their daughter Merle was married and recorded as Merle Williams aged 24.  Staying with the family was John’s widowed father Joseph Moss aged 75.  By 1935, the couple was still residing in Salt Lake City, but with just two of their three children.  John P Moss was 57, Rachel M Collett Moss was also 57, Jack R Moss was 25, and Mary L Moss was 24.

 

 

 

As Rachel Collett Moss she died on 14th February 1953 at the Latter Day Saints Hospital in Salt Lake City, where she was buried.  Her death certificate provided the following details: she was the wife of John Proctor Moss; their home was at 215 South 3rd East Street in Salt Lake City; she had been in hospital for two days, and had lived all of life in Salt Lake City; her parents were Richard Collett from Oxfordshire and Mary Hancock from Buckinghamshire; the cause of death was cardiac failure, three days after suffering a heart-attack; and she was to be buried at the City Cemetery at the age of 74.

 

 

 

 

72Q37

Fanny Collett was born at the 19th Ward in Salt Lake City on 3rd December 1879 and was six months old in the census of 1880 conducted on 2nd June that year.  It was during December she was entered into the Church of Latter Day Saints.  That was the only time she was recorded with her family, simply because just a year later Fanny Collett died at Salt Lake City on 9th August 1881, the cause of death being whooping cough.  On being buried at the City Cemetery in Salt Lake the following day, she was confirmed as the child of Richard and Mary Collett.

 

 

 

 

72Q38

Millicent Collett, who was known as Millie, was born at Salt Lake City on 23rd April 1881 who, at the again of 19 was living with her family at 36 Almond Street in 1900.  Two years later the marriage of Millicent Collett, aged 20, and Frank Crockett, aged 26, was conducted at Salt Lake City on 21st April 1902 in the Church of Latter Day Saints.  Their son Frank Wayne Crocker was born on 24th July 1903, who blessed on 6th September 1903 at the Church of 19th Ward, when his mother was named as Millie Collett, the wife of Frank Crockett.

 

 

 

Other Salt Lake City records say the Millicent Collett was the mother of Richard Blaine Crocker who was born in 1906, the father being Frank Crocker, and again when Richard of 1625 South West Temple Street died on 11th October 1923 when he was 17 years 10 months 24 days old and working as cashier at the New House Hotel.  Millie lived a long life and died at Salt Lake City on 22nd February 1979.

 

 

 

On the death of her daughter Laura Virginia Crocker Rees, born on 17th March 1909, who passed away at the age of 92 at Idaho Falls on 21st April 2001, her obituary listed her family as parents Frank W Crocker and Millicent Collett Crocker, and siblings Frank Wayne Crocker, Blaine Crocker, plus eight members of her Rees family.  

 

 

 

 

72Q39

Eleanor Elizabeth Collett, known as Nellie, was born at Salt Lake City, on 9th November 1883, the tenth and last child of Richard Collett by his second wife Sarah Linnell.  Under her full name she was blessed into the Church of the 19th Ward of Salt Lake City on 3rd January 1884.  It was on 1st December 1891 at the Church of the 19th Ward that Eleanor was baptised.  In 1900 the family was residing at 36 Almond Street when Nellie Collett was 17 having no stated occupation or attendance a high school.  It was there also that Nellie was 26, possibly helping her widowed mother and brother William at home or in the family’s grocer’s store.

 

 

 

Two years later Eleanor E Collett and John Conrad Irwin were married at Salt Lake City on 19th June 1912, the same day that she was granted membership to the Church of Latter Day Saints as Eleanor E Collett Irwin.  Their marriage produced two children, the first being son John Conrad Irwin junior who was born on 2nd November 1915.  Two year after, their daughter Frances Marian Irwin at born at Salt Lake City on 21st May 1918.

 

 

 

  In 1930 the census that year recorded the four of them at Croydon Election Precinct where John senior was 43 (46) and an oiler working at a cement factory.  His wife Eleanor E Irwin was recorded as 43 (sic) when she was 47, while John junior was 14 and Frances was 11.  The four members of the family were still together in 1935, by which time John Conrad Irwin was 51, Eleanor Elizabeth Collett Irwin was 52, John Conrad Irwin junior was 20, and Frances Marian Irwin was 17.

 

 

 

John Conrad Irwin was born on 4th October 1884 at Paris, Idaho, the son of Joseph Irwin and Elisa B Vaterlaus Eleanor, and was 77 when he died on 15th February 1962 in hospital at Croydon in Morgan County, having been there for just one day.  His home was in Morgan City from where he had previously worked as a killburner for the Red Devil Cement Company.  The cause of death was coronary thrombosis, the death certificate reporting that it was only ten minutes after the heart-attack that he died.  After six years as a widow Elizabeth Collett Irwin died on 31st May 1968 at Morgan City in Morgan County, Utah.  John had been laid to rest at South Morgan Cemetery where he was later joined by Nellie.

 

 

 

 

72R1

William Thomas Collett was born at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green on 17th February 1882, the eldest child of Thomas Collett and Rosetta Crockett, his birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 696) during the second quarter of that year.  In the census of 1891 William was nine years old and was still living with his family at Elizabeth Cottages on Wycombe Lane.  When he was 19 in 1901, he was a packer with the railway, again living at the family home in Wycombe Lane.  He was still a bachelor living at home in 1911 when he was 29 and a plate-layer on the railway.

 

 

 

On 19th May 1913 he was still employed as a plate-layer by the Great Western Railway at Wooburn Green Station when he was injured in an accident that damaged his finger.  It may have been that incident that resulted in him returning to work as a packer, rather than a plate-layer. 

 

At the outbreak of war during the following year he joined the 1st Battalion of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Regiment as a corporal, service number 202997, with whom he served on the Western Front.      This photo was taken in 1914 at enlistment.

 

 

 

He first landed in France on 9th December 1916, just after the end of the first Battle of the Somme.  Later in the war William joined the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry and was appointed as an officer with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, an appointment that was rare for someone passing from the rank and file to the position of officer.  Later still, he was promoted to Lieutenant and after the war, in August 1921, he was awarded the Victory Medal and other British medals.

 

 

 

After the war in 1919 William bought Garth Cottage on Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green for £500 from a Mister Milner who had been letting the property to William's parents, but then wished to sell the property.  William conducted this purchase while still in France awaiting demobilisation.  It was at Garth Cottage that William Thomas Collett was still living when died in his own bed at eight o’clock on the evening of 21st April 1961.

 

 

 

 

72R2

Walter George Collett was born at Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green during the third quarter of 1884, the second child of Thomas and Rosetta Collett, his birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 629).  He was one year old when he was baptised at Wooburn on 23rd September 1885.  He was seven years old in 1891 when he was with his family at Elizabeth Cottages in Wycombe Lane, but curiously was absence from the home in 1901 and again in 1911.  Where he was on those occasions has not been discovered, while he was back how at Wycombe Lane in 1914 when he and his older brother both joined the British Army at the start of the Great War.  A photograph was taken around that time with the brothers in their uniforms and with their parents.  During the fourth quarter of 1921 the marriage of Walter G Collett and Doris (Dolly) Rackstraw was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 2187).  The marriage produced two children, both births recorded at Wycombe; Doris during the third quarter of 1923 (Ref. 3a 1610) and Edward during the third quarter of 1926 (Ref. 3a 1489).  On both occasions the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Rackstraw.  The death of Walter G Collett was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 6a 453) during the last three months of 1958, when he was 74.

 

 

 

72S1

Doris J Collett

Born in 1923 at Wooburn/Wycombe

 

72S2

Edward George Collett

Born in 1926 at Wooburn/Wycombe

 

 

 

 

72R3

Maud Louisa Fanny Collett, who was known within the family as Fanny, was born at Wooburn Green on 24th April 1887, the eldest daughter of Thomas and Rose Collett.  Her birth, using her full name, was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 658) during the second quarter of 1887.  She was incorrectly entered on the census return in 1891 as being Fanny Collett who was five years old, unless that was a misinterpretation of three.  By the time she was 14 she was absent from the family home in Wycombe Lane and was staying with her aunt Clara Norris nee Collett at 83 Willow Street in Maidstone, Kent, Clara being Fanny’s father’s younger sister.  Clara's husband Charles Norris was a paper-mill worker, while their two children were Lucy and Charles. 

 

 

 

It was towards the end of 1908 that Louisa Maud Collett (sic) married Jessie Ludgate (1881-1958) when the event was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1551).  That was confirmed in the census of 1911, which stated the couple had been married for two years and had given birth to two children, of which only one was still alive.  The couple was living at Wooburn with their surviving daughter Rosa Maud Ludgate who was one year, when Jessie Ludgate was 29 and a paper maker and Maud Louisa Fanny Ludgate was 24.  Staying with the family that day was Fanny’s brother Arthur Collett (below) who was 21.  Maud Louisa Fanny Ludgate died at Stepney in 1950.  It may be of interest that Maud’s aunt, Naomi Collett (Ref. 19q24), had a Michael Ludgate as a witness at her wedding in 1902.

 

 

 

Rosa Maud Ludgate, who was born at Wooburn on 3rd May 1909, was twenty years of age when she married Frank Blundell, with their wedding day recorded at the London Stepney register office (Ref. 1c 618) during the third quarter of 1929.  Rosa was 70 years old and still living in London when she died, with her passing recorded at Hackney register office (Vol 12 1516) early in 1980.  The much earlier death of her husband had been recorded at Stepney register office in the summer of 1958.

 

 

 

 

72R4

Arthur Collett was born at Elizabeth Cottages on Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green on 3rd June 1889 and was the fourth child of Thomas and Rose Collett.  His birth was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 656) during the third quarter of 1889.  He was one year old and 11 years old in the two census returns for 1891 and 1901 when, on both occasions he and his family were living at Wooburn.  By the time he was 21, according to the census in 1911, Arthur Collett from Wooburn was still living there, albeit with the family of his married sister Maud Louisa Fanny Ludgate (above).  Arthur was still a bachelor and was working as a shop assistant.  It was three years later when Arthur Collett married Eva Louisa Phyllis Robinson at West Ham where the event was recorded (Ref. 4a 47) during the fourth quarter of 1914.  The first of their two children was born nine months later.  Eva was born at Finningham in Norfolk in1888 and she died on 6th October 1939 at East Ham in Essex.  Arthur Collett died many years later at Barking in Essex on 10th November 1971.

 

 

 

72S3

Rosa F Collett

Born in 1915 at West Ham

 

72S4

Vera M Collett

Born in 1918 at West Ham

 

 

 

 

72R5

Lucy Maud Collett was born at Elizabeth Cottages on Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green on 7th January 1891, the youngest daughter of Thomas and Rose Collett.  Curiously she would have been nearly three months old for the census in 1891 when she was absent from the family.  In March 1901, when Lucy was nine years old, she and her family were still living at Wooburn.  On leaving school she entered into domestic service, and by the time she was 19 in 1911 she was still living and working in Wooburn, but not at the home of her own family.  Just over seven years after that census day, at the age of 27, the marriage of Lucy Collett and Frank Peasley was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 2134) during the last three months of 1918.  It may have been only nine months after their wedding day that Lucy gave birth to twin daughters on 15th May 1919. 

 

 

 

Frank Peasley was born at Loose in Kent, just south of Maidstone, on 1st December 1893 with his birth recorded at Maidstone register office (Ref. 2a 735) during the first quarter of 1894.  He was the second child of James and Sarah Peasley and was baptised at Loose on 14th October 1894.  Every member of his family, except Frank, was born in Buckinghamshire, with the young family living at Wooburn in 1901 and 1911, where possibly Lucy met Frank while at school there.

 

 

 

The couple’s two children were Florence K Peasley and Olive Rosa May Peasley, with their births recorded at Wycombe register office in that order as (Refs. 3a 1273-143 and 3a 1273-144) during the second quarter of 1919, when their mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.  Frank Peasley from Maidstone in Kent was 68 when he died at Windsor in 1962, with his death recorded at Berkshire register officer (Ref. 6a 295), while it was twelve years after being widowed that Lucy Maud Peasley nee Collett died at Wycombe during the last quarter of 1974, when her death was recorded Buckinghamshire register office (Vol. 19 1239) at the age of 83.

 

 

 

The couple’s eldest daughter Florence married Frederick J Alleway at Wycombe, where their wedding was recorded (Ref. 3a 4085) during the last three months of 1941.  However, by that time, the younger daughter had been married for eighteen month, when the wedding of Olive R M Peasley and John C Keats was also recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 3957) during the second quarter of 1939.  The later death of Olive Rosa May Keats was recorded at Waltham Forest register office (Vol. 2551d d55) at the start of 1997.

 

 

 

 

72R6

Jack Collett was born at Wooburn Green on 10th July 1895, the son of Thomas and Rose Collett, his birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 735).  He was seven years old in 1901 when he and his family were living on Wycombe Lane in Wooburn Green.  By the day of the next census Jack had left school and, at the age of 16, was working as a mill hand at the local paper-mill, while he still living with his family at Wooburn.  Ten years later the marriage of Jack Collett and Florence E Maskell was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 2511) during the third quarter of 1921.  Florence (aka Florrie) was born at Hoxton in London    in 1898, the second child of Frederick B Maskell and his wife Emma L Maskell.  The marriage of Jack and Florrie is understood to have produced two children for the couple, although only the birth of Jack’s son and namesake has been unearthed.  His birth was recorded at Mile End Old Town (Ref. 1a 480) during the third quarter of 1922, when the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Maskell.

 

 

 

Two years prior to the wedding of Jack and Florence, the only other child born to Collett / Maskell parents was Eunice Collett whose birth and death were recorded within days of each other at Leicester register office during the summer of 1919; the birth at (Ref. 7a 272) and her death as (Ref. 7a 154).

 

 

 

72S5

Jack Collett

Born in 1922 at Mile End Town

 

72S6

a Collett child

Born circa 1925

 

 

 

 

72R7

Tom Collett was born at Wooburn Green on 9th September 1899, the last child of Thomas Collett and Rosetta Crockett.  He was two months old when he was baptised at Wooburn on 9th November 1899, the church register confirming his parents as Thomas and Rosetta Collett.  Tom was one year old in 1901 and was 12 in the Wooburn Green census of 1911 when he was still attending the local school.  Two years later Tom started work as a lay boy in the cutting room at Glory Mill, a Wiggins Teape paper-mill in Wooburn Green.  It was much later, during the third quarter of 1925, that Tom Collett married (1) Elizabeth Gertrude Cam, the event recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 2558).  Elizabeth was the daughter of George and Mary Cam and was born at Waterstock in Oxfordshire in 1898.  At the age of three years, she and her family were living at Hinton Road in Hurst, midway between Twyford and Wokingham.  Tragically, Elizabeth Gertrude Collett nee Cam died in Windsor Hospital when she was 38, possibly from stomach cancer, although earlier she had contracted rheumatic fever, as a result of which she suffered from a heart condition.  Her death was recorded at Windsor register office (Ref. 2c 433) during the third quarter of 1936.  Three years after the death of his wife, Tom married (2) married Beatrice Clara White at Wooburn, where Beatrice was working as a secretary in the Administration Department of Glory Mill.  Their wedding was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 6268) during the third quarter of 1939.

 

 

 

During the following year, Tom caught his hand in the rolls of paper in Glory Mill, crushing the hand and losing some fingers and by the time he retired he only had one finger on his left hand.  The damage to his hand also meant he was unfit for serve during the Second World War.  In 1960 Tom has appointed to the position of Assistant Mill Manager for Production at Glory Mill in Wooburn.  It was then four years after that when he retired after over fifty years at Glory Mill, during which time he had been awarded the British Empire Medal for services to papermaking.  In 1975 he suffered the loss of his second wife, when the death of Beatrice Clara Collett nee White was recorded at Wycombe register office on 12th December 1975.  She had been born on 19th December 1903 and was buried at the Chilterns Cemetery in Amersham.  It was ten years later when Tom Collett died at Wooburn Green on 4th February 1985, following with he was buried with Beatrice at Amersham, his death recorded at Wycombe register office.

 

 

 

 

72R8

William Lawrence Collett was born at Odstock, Wiltshire, on 5th May 1892 and was the eldest of the two known children of William Lawrence Collett and Elizabeth Collett, with his birth recorded at Alderbury (Ref. 5a 180) where his parents were only married a few days earlier.  He was approaching two months old when William Lawrence Collett, the son of William Lawrence and Elizabeth Collett, was baptised at Odstock on 26th June 1892.  The family of four was living at Risborough Road in Maidenhead in 1901 where William Collett from Odstock was eight years old.  Just five years later his mother suffered a premature death at the age of 35, following which his father remarried.  No record of William Lawrence Collett junior has been found in 1911, however, it was three years later that William L Collett married Louisa, the event recorded at Rochford register office in Essex (Ref. 4a 1389) during the last quarter of 1914.  Earlier that same year, the birth of William L Collett was also recorded at Rochford, during the first three months (Ref. 4a 1402) when the mother’s name was confirmed as Louisa Johnson.  Curiously, two years later, the birth of Dorothy E Collett was also recorded at Rochford register office but, on that occasion, the mother’s name was stated as being Louisa Dent.  At the end of his life William was still residing in Essex and it was at the Rochford register office (Ref. 4a 1934) that his death was recorded during the third quarter of 1970 when he was 78 years of age.

 

 

 

72S7

William Lawrence Collett

Born in 1914 at Rochford

 

72S8

Dorothy E Collett

Born in 1916 at Rochford

 

 

 

 

72R9

Winifred Maud Collett was born at Henley-on-Thames in 1896 the second child of fishmonger William Collett and his first wife Elizabeth.  Her birth was recorded at Henley (Ref. 3a 794) during the first three months of that year.  In the census of 1901 Winifred was five years old when living with her family at 19 Risborough Road in Maidenhead.  Her mother died shortly after that, so she was still living with her father and his second wife at Maidenhead in 1911, but at 20 College Rise, when 15-year-old Winifred Collett was assisting in the home.

 

 

 

 

72R10

Alfred Lawrence Collett was born on 17th November 1900 at 23 Crab Tree Lane in Fulham and was the first-born child of Alfred Ernest Collett and Mary Edith Drain.  It was also at that address where Alfred L Collett was five months old and living with his parents in 1901.  The birth of Alfred Lawrence Collett was recorded at Fulham register office (Ref. 1a 312) during the last two months of 1900.  From Fulham, the family moved to Southend, where Alfred’s youngest sister was born, before the completed family settle in Rochester, Kent.  On the day of the next census in 1911, the five of family was residing at 52 Foord Street in Rochester, where Alfred Collett was 10 years old.  It has not yet been determined whether Alfred was ever married, while the death of Alfred Lawrence Collett was recorded at Chatham register office in Kent (Vol. 16 0542) during the spring on 1980, when he was 79.

 

 

 

 

72R11

Edith Irene F Collett was born at 23 Crab Tree Lane, Fulham, where her birth was recorded (Ref. 1a 218) during the fourth quarter of 1902.  Simply named as Irene Collett from Fulham, she was eight years of age in the census of 1911, by which time she and her family were living at 52 Foord Street in Rochester, Kent. 

 

 

 

 

72R12

Olive Mercy Collett was born at Southend on 15th December 1905, the last of the three children of Alfred Ernest Collett and Mary Edith Drain.  Her birth was recorded at the Essex Rochford register office (Ref. 4a 714) during the first three months of 1906.  Shortly after being born, the family moved south of the Thames Estuary and was recorded at 52 Foord Street in Rochester, Kent, in 1911 when Olive was five years old.  She never married remained living with her father at Chatham in Kent, where the death of Olive Mercy Collett was recorded (Vol. 16 0579) during the early months of 1976, four years before her father passed away.

 

 

 

 

72R13

Alice May Collett was born at Wooburn in 1890, her birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 657) during the second quarter of 1890.  She was just under one year old in the Wooburn Green census of 1891, while ten years after Alice May Collett was 10 when living with her family at Berghers Hill, a hamlet near Wooburn Town.  After a further decade Alice May Collett was 20 and her place of birth was said to be Wooburn Moor, when under occupation she was described as ‘helping in the home’ which, by then was at Bonnymede in Wooburn Green.  She never married and was only 39 years old when her death was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 997) during the second quarter of 1930.

 

 

 

 

72R14

George William Francis Collett was born at Wooburn in 1897, the first-born child of George Collett by his second wife Alice Ann Elizabeth Francis.  His birth was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 759) during the last three months of that year.  It was simply as George W Collett that he was living with his family at Berghers Hill in 1901, when he was three years of age.  After leaving school, George William Francis Collett was 13 and a part-time newspaper boy who was living with his family at Bonnymede in Wooburn Green.  The death of William G Collett was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 908) during the second quarter of 1924 when he was only 26.

 

 

 

 

72R15

Annie Eliza Francis Collett was born at Wooburn Green in 1899, her birth recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 804) during the first quarter of that year.  She was the eldest daughter and second child of George Collett and Alice Ann Elizabeth Francis.  It was at Berghers Hill, a hamlet midway between Wooburn and Wooburn Green, that two-year-old Annie Eliza Collett was living with her family in 1901.  Tragically, she did not survive and died at Wooburn on 27th June 1907 aged eight years, where her full name was recorded in the parish records.  In addition to that, the death of Annie Eliza F Collett was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 450) during the second quarter of 1907.  The next daughter born to George and Alice was given exactly the same name.

 

 

 

 

72R16

Frank Collett was born at Wooburn in 1900 with his birth was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 757) during the final three months of the year.  He was five months old in the Berghers Hill census of 1901 when living there with his family, while ten years later, when Frank was 10 years old, he and his family were residing at Bonnymede in Wooburn Green.  Sadly, he was yet another member of his to suffer a premature death, when his passing, at the age of 21, was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1029) during the fourth quarter of 1921.

 

 

 

 

72R17

Robin Stanley Collett was born at Wooburn Green in 1902, one of the sons of George and Alice Collett, whose birth was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 909) during the third quarter of that year.  In 1911 he was eight years old when he was living with his family at a property named Bonnymede in Wooburn Green.  It was during the first quarter of 1929 that the marriage of Robin S Collett and Ada E Ives was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1624).  Their short marriage produced just one child before, tragically, Robin S Collett suffered another premature death in early 1935, when his passing was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1331) during the first three months of the year, when he was only 32 years of age.  The earlier birth of his daughter was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 1679) during the second quarter of 1930.

 

 

 

72S9

Daphne R Collett

Born in 1930 at Wooburn Green

 

 

 

 

72R18

Ephraim Richard Collett was born at Wooburn Green on 16th July 1905 with his birth recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 950) during the third quarter of that year, and was five years old in the Wooburn Green census of 1911 when he and his family were living at Bonnymede.  Just as with his younger brother Benjamin (below), no record of Ephraim having been married has been found, while his death, as Richard Ephraim Collett, was recorded at Eton register office (Ref. 6a 967) during the summer of 1971, when he was 66 and around six months before his brother Benjamin passed away.

 

 

 

 

72R19

Benjamin James Francis Collett was born at Wooburn on 10th August 1907 and his birth, like all of those of his siblings, was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 979) during the third quarter of the year.  He was three years old in 1911 when he was recorded under his full name in the census for Wooburn Green at Bonnymede.  No record has been found to suggest that he was ever married but, unlike many of his siblings, he did enjoy a long life in the Wooburn area, when the death of Benjamin James F Collett was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1268) during the spring of 1972 when he was 64.

 

 

 

 

72R20

ANNIE ELIZA FRANCIS COLLETT was born at Wooburn Green, with her birth recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 965) during the third quarter of 1909.  The male spelling of her third forename comes from her mother’s maiden-name, also used in three of her older siblings, one of which was also the first Annie Eliza Francis Collett who sadly died two years before Annie was born, after whom she was named.  Annie was two years old in the Wooburn Green census of 1911 and it was nineteen years later when the marriage of Annie E F Collett and William H Halson was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 3329) during the third quarter of 1930.  Sadly, they had only been married for twelve years, when the death of Annie E F Halson, nee Collett, was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1216) during the third quarter of 1942, when she was only 32 years old.  As a result, her daughters were raised by Annie’s parents, George and Alice Collett.  Annie Eliza Francis Collett was the great grandmother of Oscar Richard Kelly.

 

 

 

 

72R21

Alan Ben Collett was born at Wooburn Lane in Wooburn Green on 31st May 1911, the son of Ben Collett and Jessie Cowley.  His birth was recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1931), where his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Cowley.  His future wife was ten years younger than Alan, having been born at Amersham (Ref. 3a 1742) during the second quarter of 1921.  Alan was 38 when he married Joan L White, aged 28, at Amersham (Ref. 6a 692) during the third quarter of 1949.  It was also at Amersham that their two known children were born.  Their daughter’s birth was recorded at Amersham (Ref. 6a 388) during the first quarter of 1955, while no record of a marriage for her has been found so far.

 

 

 

The later death of Alan Ben Collett was recorded at Wycombe register office (Vol. 19 1287) during the spring of 1987 when he was 76.

 

 

 

72S10

David Collett

Born in 1952 at Amersham

 

72S11

Valerie Collett

Born in 1955 at Amersham

 

 

 

 

72R22

Henrietta Leone Collett was the first-born child of Richard George Collett and Elizabeth Cecilia Hovey and was born at Salt Lake City on 14th June 1887.  She was known in the family as Etta and it was as Etta L Collett that she was 14 in the 1900 Census, when she and her family were living at Precinct 41 in Salt Lake City.  By the time she was 23, Henrietta Collett was working as a cashier at a dry goods store.  Eight years later, the Salt Lake City marriage of Etta Collett and Robert A Blaine of Jacksonville aged 26 was conducted on 23rd January 1918.  Etta’s embarrassment at being the older person, gave her age as 27, when in fact she was 30 years old.  The brides younger sister Alice Collett was one of the witnesses, who was married there five months later.

 

 

 

Two years after, the Salt Lake City census in 1920 listed the childless couple as Robert A Blaine from Florida who was 30 and an agent over men and boys, and Etta Blaine was 29 (sic) instead of 33, living at Precinct 56.  No record of any children has been found and it was eleven year later that Henrietta Leone Collett Blaine was 44 years 5 months and 26 days old when she died at 75 Main Street in Salt Lake City on 10th December 1931, after which she was buried at the City Cemetery on 13th December 1931.

 

 

 

The record of her death confirmed her parents were Richard G Collett and Elizabeth Hovey.  Her obituary, in which she was referred to as Etta, published in the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper, referred to many members of her family, as follows:

 

Her parents Mr & Mrs R G Collett, brothers Richard Collett, Lorren Collett, and Lynn, sister Miss Jean Collett, and married sisters Mrs Alice New, Mrs Luella Jensen, and Mrs Nan Bach, and her husband Mr Robert A Blaine.

 

 

 

 

72R23

Richard George Collett Junior was born on 3rd October 1888 at Salt Lake City, the second child of Richard and Elizabeth Collett.  He was 13 years old in 1900 and was 22 in 1910, when he and his family were living at 27 Almond Street in Salt Lake City, from where he was employed as a clerk with the railroad.  At the start of the second decade of the century, Richard completed a mission for the Church of Latter Day Saints, returning to Salt Lake City on 23rd May 1913, when his date of birth was recorded at 3rd October 1887, previously reported as such in the census of 1900.  Richard was recorded as being 28 within the Military Draft form completed on 5th June 1917 when his home address was 2496 South Ninth Street, Salt Lake City, a book-keeper with a merchant bank, and a married man with one child.  His was also recorded in the Military Draft for 27th April 1942 when his wife was named as Amy A Collett and when he was employed at the company of W C Garbett.

 

 

 

From this information we know that Richard married Amy prior to 1917, with the wedding of Richard George Collett Junior and Amy M Ashton conducted at Salt Lake City on 19th April 1916.  The family was subsequently recorded in the Salt Lake City census of 1920 at 840 Coatsville Avenue, the property owned by Richard.  By that time Richard was 32 and again a book-keeper with a bank, Amy was 28 and daughter Maxine was two years and eight months old.  The birth of couple’s second child happened just after that census day, as confirmed in 1930.  The US census that year continued to record the family at Salt Lake City, but at a rented dwelling on Second Avenue.  Richard was 42 and an accountant with a shop in the city, his wife Amy Ashton Collett from Logan Utah was 39, daughters Maxine Collett and Ladonna Collett were 13 and 10, son Richard George Collett was seven and born at Monroe in Sevier County Utah, Shirley Collett was four, and Dean Collett was one year eleven months old.  Except where stated, the other members of the family were all born at Salt Lake City.

 

 

 

The whole family was still together in Salt Lake City at their longer term home at 953 McClelland Street, when the next census was conducted in 1935, when they were described as follows.  Richard George Collett was 46, Amy May Ashton Collett was 44, Maxine Collett was 18, Ladonna Collett was 15, Richard George (Dick) Collett was 12, Shirley May Collett was nine, and Dean Ashton Collett was seven years old. 

 

 

 

Five years later the family was preparing itself for the marriage of eldest child Maxine, who was to be married shortly after the census day in 1940.  The completed census return listed the family, again residing at 953 McClelland Street, as Richard aged 51 and a painter currently working in the church, Amy who was 49, Maxine who was 22, Donna who was 19, Richard who was 17, Shirley who was 13, Dean who was 11, and late arrival Carol V Collett who was only six months old.  Upon the death of daughter Shirley, included in the names of her siblings was Carol Weidner.  Twenty-six years after that census day, Richard George Collett died in Salt Lake City on 11th February 1966 and was buried in the City Cemetery on 15th February when he was 77 years old.

 

 

 

72S12

Maxine Collett

Born in 1917 at Salt Lake City

 

72S13

Ladonna Collett

Born in 1920 at Salt Lake City

 

72S14

Richard George Collett

Born in 1923 at Monroe, Utah

 

72S15

Shirley May Collett

Born in 1926 at Salt Lake City

 

72S16

Dean Ashton Collett

Born in 1928 at Salt Lake City

 

72S17

Carol V Collett

Born in 1939 at Salt Lake City

 

 

 

 

72R24

Orlando De Loren Collett (Delorne) was born at Salt Lake City on 10th April 1890 and was another son of Richard and Elizabeth Collett, who was baptised on 15th June 1890.  At the age of ten years he was recorded in the Salt Lake City census of 1900 as Lorren Collett a possible throwback to his father’s actual birth name of Lorenzo, which was later changed to Richard.  The census return that year described him as student who had been born during April 1890, when he was living there with his growing family.  By 1910, when the family was residing at 27 Almond Street in Salt Lake City, his name was recorded in that year’s census as Lorren D Collett who was 20 and working as a wrapper in a retail clothing store. 

 

 

 

It would appear to have been towards the end of the First World War, when he was around 27 years of age, that he married Edna Burt who presented him with twin daughters, who did not survive, and later a son in 1920.  The two girls were born at Albion, Boone County in Nebraska on 7th April 1918; Bettie Edith Collett died on 24th April and was buried the following day, and Bonnie died on 1st May and as also buried the very next day.  The census in 1920 identified the three members of the family living at 324 Reeve Terrace, Linden Avenue in Salt Lake City.  Orlando was 29 and renting the property, from where he was working as a salesman at a department store.  His wife Edna was 28, and their son De Lorrian (sic) was one month old

 

 

 

By 1930, Orlando was the owner of the family home at 539 Central Street in Salt Lake City, when he and his wife were both 40 years old and the property had a value of $4,000.  Orlanda on that day was employed by the County Government Office as a Deputy Sheriff, when son Dale was ten years old.  Edna B Collett suffered a premature death five years later, when she died at 539 Central Street on 16th February 1935, when she was 42 years 11 months and 5 days old.  She had been born as Edna Burt on 11th March 1892, the daughter of Andrew Burt and Kate Howard, and was buried at the City Cemetery on 19th February 1935.  The day before she was buried her husband signed the Sexton’s Grave Opening Order for the grave owned and occupied by her late father-in-law Richard George Collett to be opened for Edna to be buried there.

 

 

 

When his eldest sister died in 1931, Orlando was again referred to as Lorren Collett in her obituary while, eleven years later, the US Military Record dated 27th April 1942 listed him as Orlando De Loren aged 52 and living in Salt Lake City, where he was employed by the Associated Oil & Gas Company.  On that occasion, his next-of-kin was recorded as his mother Elizabeth Collett, with his wife Edna B Collett no longer being alive.

 

 

 

Two years prior to that date, Orlando De Loren Collett was 50 years old when he was recorded in the Salt Lake City census of 1940.  The only person living there with his was his 21-year-old son Dale De Loren Collett.  Orlando Delorne Collett was 55 years old when he died at 539 Central Street in Salt Lake City on 25th November 1945, after which he was buried at City Cemetery in Salt Lake City on 28th November 1945.  The record of his death confirmed that he was a widower and a salesman.

 

 

 

72S18

Bettie Edith Collett                       twin

Born in 1918 at Albion, Nebraska

 

72S19

Bonnie Edith Collett                     twin

Born in 1918 at Albion, Nebraska

 

72S20

Dale De Loren Collett

Born in 1919 at Salt Lake City

 

 

 

 

72R25

Frederica Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 23rd July 1892 and was eight years old in the census of 1900 when living with her family 27 Almond Street.  Nearly six years later she died on 28th December 1906 and buried two days after at Salt Lake City when she was only 14 years old.  She was the fourth child of Richard George Collett from England and Elizabeth Cecilia Hovey from Utah and was the only one not to survive to adulthood.

 

 

 

 

72R26

Alice Irene Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 12th June 1894, the youngest daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Collett.  She was baptised into the church on 6th September 1902.  At the age of six years, one year earlier, Alice and her family were recorded at Precinct 41 in Salt Lake City, while it was at 27 Almond Street that 15-year-old Alice was living with her family in 1910.  It was on 18th June 1918, five months after attending her eldest sister’s wedding as a witness in January 1918, that Alice Irene Collett aged 23 married Thomas New from Hereford, Deaf South, Texas, who was 25.  Their son was Douglas New who was born in 1930, when he was already living with Alice in the census that year.  Her married name was acknowledged in the 1931 obituary for her eldest Etta Blaine.

 

 

 

Alice Irene Collett New and son Douglas New were still together at Salt Lake City in 1940 when Alice was 45, while Douglas was 10 years of age and had been born at Long Beach in California.  However, it was ten years later on 11th April 1950 that unmarried Douglas New was head of the household at Long Beach, California, when he was recorded as being 25, when he was only twenty, who had his mother living there with him, with Alice I New from Utah being 54 years of age.  His mother was living in Los Angeles when he died on 26th May 1954, just two week short of her sixtieth birthday.

 

 

 

 

72R27

Luella Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 28th March 1896, another daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Collett.  She was four years old in 1900 at Precinct 41, and was 14 in 1910 but at 27 Almond Street.  After completing her education, secured work at the local telephone exchange and, by the time of the census in 1920, Luella Collett was a supervisor there, where her younger sister Nan was also employed.  Instead of being 24, the census return recorded her age in error as 22.  Around the mid-1920s Luella Collett married widower Neils J Jensen from Denmark who already had three grown up daughters from his previous marriage.  There was a twenty-year age gap between Luella and Neils, with Luella giving birth to two sons by 1930.

 

 

 

That year the census recorded the family was Neils Jensen as 54, Luella Collett Jensen as 34, Alice Davis Jensen 24, Dorothy Jensen 22, Ardella Ruth Jensen 20, and Richard Deval Jensen who was three and Jay Robert Jensen who was one year old.  Both boys had been born at Sacramento, California.  It was just Neils, Luella and their two sons who were recorded in the census of 1940.  After a further forty-one years, Luella Collett Jensen died on 22nd January 1981, and was buried at the City Cemetery in Salt Lake City, at the age of 84.

 

 

 

 

72R28

Annie Collett, who was known as Nan, was born at Salt Lake City on 22nd March 1898, another daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Collett.  She was two years old in the census of 1900 when living at Precinct 41 in Salt Lake City.  At the age of nine she was baptised there into the 19th Ward of the Church of Latter Day Saints on 2nd August 1907, when she was confirmed as the daughter of Richard George Collett and Elizabeth Cecilia Hovey.  In 1910, and at the age of 12, she and the family were recorded at 27 Almond Street and, after another decade, it was at 329 Apricot Street there were living when Annie was recorded in error as 19, when she was employed as a telephone operator, under the supervision of her older sister Luella (above). 

 

 

 

Not long after that census day the marriage of Annie Nan Collett and Allen Bach took place on 4th October 1920, with the first of their three children born just over two years later at Oakley in Idaho.  The couple’s second son was also born at Oakley, but tragically after the birth of the third and last son at Bingham in Utah, Allen Bach died, living Nan with three young children to care for.  It was as a widow that she returned to Salt Lake City to live with her parents at 75 First Avenue (later renamed 75 Main Street), where Nan Bach was 30 years of age, and her three boys were recorded as Keith Bach who was seven, Robert G Bach who was five, and Gerald F Bach who was two years of age.  By 1935, and again in 1940, Nan and her three sons were back at Oakley, Cassia County in Idaho, where she was 37 and 42, Keith was 12 and 17, Robert was 10 and 15, and Gerald was 8 and 13, but as Jerry in 1935.

 

 

 

Keith Allen Bach was born on 18th December 1922 and died on 14th August 2009 at Vista in California who, on 2nd November 1942 enlisted with the US Air Corps at Salt Lake City for the duration of the Second World War.  His service number was 19171577 and was a private, who had attended high school for four years and on leaving was employed as a checker.  He later married and had children of his own.

Robert George Bach was born in 31st January 1925 and died 31st March 2000.  Gerald Fred Bach was born on 21st September 1927 and he died on 26th November 2009.

 

 

 

Annie Nan Collett Bach was sixty-nine when she died at Sacramento in California on 1st October 1967, after which her body was returned to Salt Lake City where she was buried in the City Cemetery on 5th November 1967.

 

 

 

 

72R29

Jean Collett was born at 27 Almond Street in Salt Lake City on 8th June 1902, the youngest daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Collett.  Jean was seven years of age in 1910 at 27 Almond Street, was 17 in 1920 at 239 Apricot Street, and was 26 in 1930 at 75 Main Street, when she was a book-keeper with the State Department.  Upon the death of her eldest sister in the following year Jean was still not married and described in the obituary as Miss Jean Collett.  Furthermore, it was the same situation in 1935, when Jean was again living with her mother and younger Lynn (below).  

 

 

 

Two years later, on 23rd November 1937 Jean married Raymond Dedrick Robinson in Salt Lake City, and two years after that their son Steven Brent Robinson was born there.  The Salt Lake City census in 1940 recorded the three members of the family as Raymond from Salina, Utah, who was 41, Jean from Salt Lake City who was 38, and their baby son who was not yet one year old.  Jean Collett Robinson died on 22nd July 1983 aged 81.

 

 

 

 

72R30

Lynn Hovey Collett was the son and ninth and last child of Richard George Collett and Elizabeth Cecilia Hovey who was born at 27 Almond Street in Salt Lake City on 1st September 1904.  It was there also that his family was still living in 1910 when Lynn was said to be five years of age.  He was 15 in 1920 when the family home was a 329 Apricot Street, and was 25 and a book-keeper with a loan company in 1930, by which time he and his family were residing at 75 First Avenue.  The family then suffered the loss of Lynn’s eldest sister Etta Leone Blaine in 1931, he was named as one of her brothers in her obituary, and in 1932 when his father passed away at 75 Main Street in Salt Lake City.  He never married and at the age of 36 he was the only member of the family still living with his widowed mother in 1940, when the census return did not mention a job of work.  His mother died in 1947, and Lynn Collett was 59 years old when he died on 3rd June 1964 at Salt Lake City.  His burial record at the City Cemetery on 6th June stated that he was single.

 

 

 

 

72R31

Marion Collett was born at Salt Lake City in Utah on 4th June 1897, the eldest child of Frank Collett and Lilian May Freeze nee Perry.  She was four years old in 1900 when she and her family were living at Precinct 47 in Salt Lake City, and by 1910 the family was living at Ward 5 in Salt Lake City, where Marion was 13.  She later married David John Platts in Salt Lake City on 27th September 1919.  David was the son of Charles Platts and Sarah Hilton, and had been born at Salt Lake City on 23rd June 1891.  At the time of their wedding Marion’s father was named as Frank Collett, while it is curious that her mother was listed as May Freeze, the name also given to Marion’s younger brother Frank Collett (below).  It was the same situation at the time of the death of Marion Collett Platts, when her husband was recorded as David John Platts, her father as Frank Collett, and her mother as May Freeze.  Marion Platts nee Collett died at Salt Lake City on 26th July 1954 at the age of 57, when her date of birth was again recorded as 4th June 1897.

 

 

 

 

72R32

James Perry Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 28th September 1899, the son of Frank Collett and Lilian May Freeze (Perry).  As James P Collett he was one year old in 1900 when he and his parents were residing at Precinct 47 in Salt Lake City.  Ten years later in 1910 he was listed under his full name of James Perry Collett, when he was 10 and was again living with his family at Ward 5 in Salt Lake City.  By that time, in addition to his older sister Marion, the family had increased with the birth of four more children, Frank F Collett, Maude Collett, Ruth Collett, and Bruce Collett.  His military draft registration dated 12th September 1918 confirmed his date of birth and that he was residing at the family home at 844 Menlo Avenue in Salt Lake City, when his next-of-kin was his mother Mrs May Collett.  At that time in his life he was a teamster employed by Alec Watson at 456 South West Street.  Two months later he was married.

 

 

 

James was 19 when he married Eunice Adeline Tollitt at Salt Lake City on 23rd November 1918.  His mother May Freeze Collett gave her written consent to their marriage and was one of the witnesses.  Eunice was 18, having been born in Utah on 18th June 1901, the daughter of Matthew Harrison Tollitt and his wife who was formerly Carver.  Matthew was the base-born son of Mary Harrison by an unknown father and when he was in his teenage years his mother married Mr Tollitt who subsequently adopted her son.  By the time of the census in 1920 James Perry Collett and his wife had been blessed with their first child, when the three of them were still living with James’ parents at 844 Menlo Avenue in Salt Lake City.  On that occasion James was recorded as Perry J Collett aged 20 and a deliveryman for a laundry, Eunice Collett was 19, and their daughter Beth Collett was three months old, having been born at Salt Lake City in September 1919.

 

 

 

In all, a total of ten children were born to James and Eunice, as listed below, although two of them did not survive to adulthood.  The two who did not survive were Marjorie Collett who died as a teenager on her walk to school, and her sister Beverley Collett who died fifty days after she was born.  The death certificates for both girls gave their parents as James Perry Collett and his wife Eunice Tollitt.

 

 

 

Annoyingly, no record of the family has been found amongst the census records for 1930.  Five years after that, ten members of the family were still together on the census day in 1935.  They were James Perry Collett who was 36, Eunice Adel Tollitt who was also 36, Beth Collett who was 16, Majorie Collett who was 13, Virginia Collett who was 12, June Collett who was 10, James Perry Collett junior who was eight, Donna Collett who was six, Douglas Frank Collett who was four, and Gerald Bruce Collett who was two years old.  Eldest daughter Beth Collett was married two years later.

 

 

 

By 1940 the expanded family was residing at 225 Kensington Avenue within Ward 1 of Salt Lake City Precinct.  James P Collett was 41 and a dairyman working at a nearby dairy, Eunice was 39, and the seven children still living with them were Virginia Collett who was 16, June Collett who was 14, James Collett who was 13, Donna Collett who was 10, Douglas Collett who was nine, Gerald Collett who was six, and George Collett who was two years old.  A few years later some members of the family travelled west to California, when they settled at San Leandro in Alameda County overlooking San Francisco East Bay. 

 

 

 

After the passing of another decade, the family was reduced in size to just James and Eunice and four unmarried children.  On the census day in 1950 James P Collet was 50 and an airplane parts packer at a naval air station as San Leandro, Alameda County.  Eunice T Collett was 49, James P Collett junior was 23, Douglas F Collet was 19, Gerald B Collett was 16, and George R Collett was 12 years of age.

 

 

 

It was there, on 1st November 1973 where James Perry Collett died at the age of 74.  Just under ten years after being widowed Eunice Adeline Collett nee Tollitt also passed away at San Leandro on 6th February 1983, where she was buried with James.  James Perry Collett was the grandfather of Kathy Ringwood of Washington in the USA, with her mother being his third daughter Virginia Collett.

 

 

 

72S21

Beth Collett

Born in 1919 at Salt Lake City

 

72S22

Marjorie Collett

Born in 1922 at Salt Lake City

 

72S23

Virginia Collett

Born in 1923 at Salt Lake City

 

72S24

June Collett

Born in 1924 at Salt Lake City

 

72S25

James Collett

Born in 1927 at Salt Lake City

 

72S26

Beverley Collett

Born in 1928 at Salt Lake City

 

72S27

Donna Collett

Born in 1930 at Salt Lake City

 

72S28

Douglas Frank Collett

Born in 1931 at Salt Lake City

 

72S29

Gerald Bruce Collett

Born in 1934 at Salt Lake City

 

72S30

George Raymond Collett

Born in 1938 at Salt Lake City

 

 

 

 

72R33

Frank Freeze Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 23rd January 1902 and was the third child of Frank Collett and May Freeze (Lilian May Perry).  On the day of the census in 1910, eight-year-old Frank Freeze was living with his family at Logan Court South 9th East Street in Salt Lake City.  On leaving school Frank followed in his father’s footsteps and in 1920, at the age of 18, Frank junior was an automobile mechanic still living with his family at 844 Menlo Avenue.  During the following decade he had a change of career when, in 1930 he was a florist who, at the age of 28, was still single and living with his family at 844 Menlo Avenue.

 

 

 

It was three years after that when Frank Freeze Collett and Harriet S Orgill were married by licence at Salt Lake City on 15th August 1933.  On that day the groom’s parents were confirmed as Frank Collett and May Freeze.  Two years later the childless couple was recorded in the Salt Lake City census of 1935, where Frank was 33 and Harriet was 29 and had been born at Raymond, Alberta in Canada.  Fifteen years later the couple was residing at Wilmington Avenue on the day of the census in 1950, when Frank was 48 and custodian of school buildings for the Board of Education, and Harriet was 43 and a registered nurse at the general hospital.  Lodging with the couple was another registered nurse Bertha C Sheete who was 23.  Frank was 69 when he died in Salt Lake City on 1st February 1971 and was buried three days after.

 

 

 

 

72R34

Maude Collett was another daughter of Frank and May Collett who was born in Salt Lake City on 16th May 1904.  She was five years old in 1910 at Logan Court and was 15 in 1920 when living with her family at 844 Menlo Avenue in Salt Lake City.  It was on 4th May 1929 that Maude Collett was married by licence to William R Thomas.  William was 30 and the son of William Thomas and Annabelle Coon, while Maude was confirmed as the daughter of Frank Collett and May Freeze.  Not long after their wedding day William was working as a clerk at an airport, while Maude was a saleslady at a department store. 

 

 

 

During the next three years Maude gave birth to two daughters, Shirley Thomas on 25th February 1931 who died on 30th September 2002 as Shirley Thomas Hook, and Patricia Thomas in 1933, when the parents were confirmed as William Raymond Thomas and Maude Collett Thomas.  The four members of the family were living at Markea Court in 1940, where William was 40 and an office manager at a potash company, Maude was 35, Shirley was nine, and Patricia was seven years of age.  Maude Collett Thomas was 78 when she passed away at Millcreek Township in Salt Lake City on 26th June 1982, and was buried at Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park.  It was at the same cemetery that her married sister Edna Collett Fleming (below) was buried there in 1992, where her husband had been buried just over one year earlier.

 

 

 

 

72R35

Ruth Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 9th August 1906, the fifth child of Frank and May Collett, when 37-year-old Frank was a motorman.  Ruth was three years of age in the census of 1910 when she and her family were recorded at Logan Court, and was 13 in 1920 by which time the family home was at 844 Menlo Avenue, Salt Lake City.  Nine years later Ruth Collett and Stoneson Grant were married on 21st February 1929 at Salt Lake City, when Ruth was 22 and a book-keeper, the daughter Frank Collett and May Freeze.  Stoneson Grant had been born at New York on 15th August 1903, was an engineer and the son of Charles Stoneson Grant and Grace Foye Rogers.  The two witnesses to the wedding were Ruth’s son to be married sister Maude Collett (above) and Ruth’s future brother-in-law William R Thomas.

 

 

 

Around nine months after they were married Ruth gave birth to a son Richard R Grant, who was still a baby of a few months when recorded with his parents at 837 Markea Avenue in the Salt Lake City census of 1930.  Stoneson Grant was 26 and a motor supplier’s salesman, and Ruth Grant was 23.  By 1940 the family was living at Pocatello in Idaho when Stoneson Grant from New York was 36 and a salesman at a wholesale automotive company, where his wife Ruth Grant was 33 and their son Richard R Grant was ten years old, both of them from Utah.

 

 

 

It was very likely that it was Stoneson occupation that resulted in the family moving around the country, with them recorded at San Jose in California, by which time Stoneson was still working in the automotive trade at a motor factory when he was 46 and a teacher and operating manager instructing staff members how to manage the parts department.  Ruth was 43 and a cost accountant with a label printing company, while their son Richard was 20 and at high school. 

 

 

 

 

72R36

Bruce Freeze Collett was born at Logan Court South 9th East Street in Salt Lake City on 25th January 1909, another son of Frank Collett and May Freeze.  Two weeks later on 10th February 1909 he was accepted into the  11th Ward of the Church of Latter Day Saints, and was one year old for the census of 1910 at Logan Court.  He was ten years of age in 1920 at 844 Menlo Avenue in Salt Lake City and was 21 in 1930, he was still living with his family at 844 Menlo Avenue, when he was a cutter at a garment factory.

 

 

 

On 15th May 1934, the wedding of Bruce Collett, a cutter, and Dorothy Elise Hurd, a stenographer, was conducted at Salt Lake City when Bruce was 26 and the son of Frank Collett May Freeze residing at 844 Menlo Avenue.  Dorothy, also 26 and born on 30th June 1907, was the daughter of Walter C Hurd and Kate Erskine of 777 7th Avenue.  After three years their marriage was blessed with the birth of a son, with the three members of the family still living at Salt Lake City in 1940.  Bruce Freeze Collett was 31 and working as a collector of money from parking meters for the City Council, Dorothy Hurd Collett was 32, and Walter Collett was three years old.

 

 

 

Bruce Collett died on 17th June 1975 at the age of sixty-six.  On the 18th June his widow Dorothy Hurd Collett signed the Sexton’s Grave Opening Order for the grave owned by her late father Walter C Hurd, in order for her husband to be buried there, which he was on 23rd June 1975.  Dorothy Elise Hurd Collett remained living in Salt Lake City, where she died at the end of 1988.

 

 

 

72S31

Walter Bruce Collett

Born on 23 05 1937 at Salt Lake City

 

 

 

 

72R37

Edna Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 18th March 1911 and was eight years old in 1920, another daughter of Frank and May Collett, with whom she was still living in 1930 at Menlo Avenue in Salt Lake City.  On the census day that year Edna Collett was 19 and a stenographer working in stocks and bonds.  Edna Collett was still 19 years old when she married Alfred Eugene Fleming a few weeks later on 20th August 1930 at Salt Lake City.  Alfred was 20 and was the son of Alfred M Fleming and Helen Bourne.  Curiously, Edna’s parents were recorded as Franklin Collett and May Green instead of Mar Freeze.  By 1940 Edna had given birth to two daughters when the four members of the Salt Lake City family were recorded as Alfred Eugene Fleming who was 30, Edna Collett Fleming who was 28, Barbara Jean Fleming was eight and Daryl Joyce Fleming was three years old. 

 

 

 

Around the middle of the next decade a son was added to their family, as confirmed in the census of 1950, with the family residing at 1738 East Yale Avenue.  Head of the household A Eugene Fleming was 40 and a sales manager with a wholesale electric manufacturer, his wife Edna was 39, Barbara was 17, Joyce was 13, and Donald Fleming was six years of age.  Alfred Eugene Fleming was born at Salt Lake City on 1st November 1909, and was 80 years old when he died Millcreek Township in Salt Lake City on 23rd July 1990.  It was there also, eighteen months after being made a widow, that Edna Collett Fleming died on 12th January 1992, also aged 80, when she was buried with her husband at Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park.  Ten years earlier, her older married sister Maude Collett Thomas had passed away at Millcreek Township in Salt Lake City, and was also buried at Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park.

 

 

 

 

72R38

Florence Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 16th April 1915, the last child born to Frank Collett and Lilian May Freeze nee Perry.  In the census returns for 1920 and 1930 Florence and her family were living at 844 Menlo Avenue when Florence was four years of age and 14 years old and attending school.  She was the only child still living with her parents 1935, at the age of 20, when she was preparing to be married for the first time.  It was in that same year that Florence Collett married (1) Harmon Ogden Wheat, a truck driver, on 29th May 1935.  Florence was 20 and the daughter of Frank and Lilian May Freeze Collett of Menlo Avenue, with Harmon being 24 and the son of Hohn Ogden Wheat and Alma Ethel Warren.

 

 

 

The childless couple was together and residing in Salt Lake City in 1940, with Harmon Ogden Wheat from Miami was 29, and Florence Collett Wheat was 25.  With the war in Europe, Harmon served as a private with the Air Corps and after the war he did not return to his wife.  Instead in 1950 he was once again living with his widowed mother at Ogden, Weber County in Utah, while Harmon was a cost accountant with the Army Supply Deport at the age of 39.  What happened to separate the couple is not known, although they must have been divorced before the end of the war.

 

 

 

Florence Collett Wheat was 28 when she married (2) Osmer Howard Ellis who was 36 and the son of John H Ellis and Sarah Howard, their wedding ceremony carried out at Grand Island, Hall County in Nebraska on 6th March 1944.  Tragically, just ten years later Florence Collett Ellis was 38 years of age when she died at home at 243 South 8th Street East in Salt Lake City on 23rd May 1953.  The record of her death revealed that it was her husband Osmer Howard Ellis who was the informant of her premature passing.  The same document also confirmed her parents were Frank Collett and May Freeze  The cause of death was unknown, but declared to be natural, and it was at the City Cemetery that she was buried.

 

 

 

 

72S1

Doris J Collett was born in 1923, her birth recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 3a 1610) during the third quarter of that year, the elder of the two children of Walter George Collett and Doris Rackstraw.  The birth record also confirmed that the mother’s maiden was Rackstraw.  It was also at Wycombe that her marriage to Henry J Pilgrim was recorded (Ref. 6a 963) during the last three months of 1960.

 

 

 

 

72S2

Edward George Collett was born in 1926, the son of Walter George Collett and Doris Rackstraw.  His birth was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 3a 1489) during the third quarter of 1that year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Rackstraw.  He was twenty-six when he married Wendy P Harris in 1952, the event recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 6a 1211) during the third quarter of the year.

 

 

 

72T1

Michael George Collett

Born in 1953 at Wooburn/Wycombe

 

72T2

Pamela J Collett

Born in 1955 at Wooburn/Wycombe

 

72T3

Jayne S Collett

Born in 1959 at Wooburn/Wycombe

 

 

 

 

72S3

Rosa F Collett was born at West Ham where her birth was recorded (Ref. 4a 464) during the second quarter of 1915, the eldest of the two daughters of Arthur Collett and Eva Louisa Phyllis Robinson.  The record of her birth confirmed her mother’s maiden was Robinson.  Rosa and her sister Vera (below) were married on the same day in a joint wedding, as confirmed by the consecutive records at East Ham register office.  Rosa F Collett married Arthur Henry J W Warner (Ref. 4a 690) during the third quarter of 1939.  Arthur was born at Green on 5th May 1914 and he died at Havering in Essex during the month of November 1995.

 

 

 

 

72S4

Vera M Collett was born in 1918 and her birth like that of her sister Rosa (above) was recorded West Ham register office (Ref. 4a 354) during the second quarter of that year, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Robinson.  It was at East Ham in Essex that the marriage of Vera M Collett and Arthur G W Brown was recorded (Ref. 4a 700) during the third quarter of 1939.  Arthur was born at West Ham in the third quarter of 1912 (Ref. 4a 266) and his passing was recorded at Redbridge in Essex (Ref. 5d 584) during the second quarter of 1966.

 

 

 

 

72S8

Dorothy E Collett was born in Essex and her birth was recorded at Rochford register office (Ref. 4a 1327) during the first quarter of 1916, the daughter of William Lawrence Collett and Louisa Dent.  The marriage of Dorothy E Collett and William C Stalley was recorded at Southend-on-Sea in Essex (Ref. 4a 1869) during the second quarter of 1949.  It was during the following year that Dorothy presented William with their only known child, with the birth of Julie E Stalley recorded at Rochford register office (Ref. 4a 774) during the last three months of 1950.

 

 

 

 

72S10

David Collett was born in 1952, his birth recorded at Amersham register office (Ref. 6a 381) during the second quarter of 1952, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as White.  He was the eldest of the two children of Alan Ben Collett and Joan L White.  He was 21 years old when his marriage to Jean Patterson was recorded as Amersham (Ref. 6a 906) during the second quarter of 1973.  So far, the research has not identified any children.

 

 

 

 

72S12

Maxine Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 11th April 1917 and was the first-born child of Richard George Collett (junior) and Amy May Ashton.  Right up to her wedding day she lived with her family in Salt Lake City, being two years eight months old in 1920 at 840 Coatsville Avenue, being 13 in 1930 at Second Avenue, and at 953 McClelland Street where she was 18 in 1935 and 22 in 1940.  On that latter day she was working at the local hospital as an elevator operator.  Shortly thereafter, the marriage of Maxine Collett and Charlie Andrew Halvorsen took place at Farmington in Davis County, Utah on 9th June 1940 when the bride was 20 (instead of 23) and the groom was 21.  The two sets of parents were oddly recorded as Archie Collett and Amy Ashton of 953 McClelland Street in Salt Lake City, and A A Halvorsen and Grace Brown.  Charlie was born at Salt Lake City on 31st October 1918 and was employed as a car checker, when Maxine was an elevator girl.

 

 

 

Despite having nine children, no record of the family has been found in 1950.  It was as Maxine Collett Halvorsen that she died on 21st September 1996 at West Jordan in Salt Lake County, Utah, and was laid to rest at Redwood Memorial Cemetery in Salt Lake City.  The military service record for Charlie A Halvorsen confirmed that he was born in 1918 who, on 15th June 1944 was a private and a skilled switchman working on the railroad, and living at Fort Douglas, Utah.  The record stated that he had not yet been assigned to a branch of the army.  Sixty-two years later, Charlie Andrew Halvorsen died at Taylorsville, Utah on 4th February 2006 at the age of 87.  His obituary referred to him as a fireman.

 

 

 

The obituary also confirmed that he had married for a second time after Maxine had died ten years earlier.  The other family members listed with his parents Andrew A Halvorsen and Grace C Brown, his two sisters Eleanor Beckstead and Emma Dolowitz, his late wife Maxine and his current wife Mary Swan, and his nine children by Maxine, and the three children from the earlier marriage of Mary Swan.

 

 

 

 

72S13

Ladonna Collett was born at 179 Coatsville Avenue in Salt Lake City on 19th June 1920, the second child of Richard George Collett and Amy May Ashton.  She was ten years old and 15 years of age in the censuses conducted in 1930 and 1935, when living with her family in Salt Lake City.  Later public records confirm that Ladonna D Collett was still living in Salt Lake City from 2005 to 2008, prior to moving to Cottonwood Heights, having previously lived at 4849 Memory Lane, and earlier at Holladay City in Salt Lake County, Utah.

 

 

 

No record has been found of a marriage, although it is clear from her later obituary that there was a man in her life, who was the father of her five children, also named in the same obituary.  It was therefore as Ladonna (sometimes written as La Donna) that she died on 13th January 2009 at Cottonwood Heights in Salt Lake City at the age of 88, and was buried at Mountain View Memorial Estates Cemetery.  Her obituary printed in the Deseret News on 18th January included references to her parents Richard George Collett and Amy May Ashton Collett, sisters Maxine and Shirley, and brother Dean Collett.  It also named her husband as Elbert Burl (or Burrell) Newport, and their children as Carol Weidner, Rusty, Connie, Jim, and Sue Hansen.

 

 

 

La Donna or Ladonna, remains a bit of a mystery, with the details of her “husband” appearing to suggest that he was born at Bingham Canyon, Salt Lake County on 18th October 1924, so was four years younger than Ladonna, who died in Salt Lake City on 12th November 1998.  The Salt Lake City census in 1950 identifies Elbert Newport aged 25 and carrying out repairs of home appliances for a retail home appliances store living at Roberta Street.  Listed with him was his wife Donna Newport who said she was 28 (La Donna would have been 30, so embarrassed by the age difference maybe?), and three children, Elbert Dean Newport who was three, Connie Newport who was two, and Jimmie Newport born in October 1949.  Of these, only Connie and Jim were named in the obituary above.

 

 

 

 

72S14

Richard George Collett (the third) was born at Monroe in Sevier County Utah in 1923, the third child and eldest son of Richard George Collett (the second) and Amy May Ashton.  He may have been born at 840 Coatsville Avenue, where his family had been living three years earlier, while it was at Second Avenue that Richard was seven years old in 1930.  In 1935 at 953 McClelland Street she was 12-year-old Dick Collett and was simply R G Collett aged 17 in the next census of 1940, when he and his large family were again residing at 953 McClelland Street.

 

 

 

 

72S15

Shirley May Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 4th April 1926 and was four years old in the 1930 census at Second Avenue, another daughter of Richard and Amy Collett.  In 1935 and 1940 the family home was 953 McClelland Street where Shirley M Collett was nine years and 13 years of age respectively.  

Shirley May Collett married Glen Henry Sutter on 4th December 1948, and later sealed in the Logan Temple on 12th February 1963.  By 1950, the childless couple was living at Second Avenue in Salt Lake City where Glen was 22 and Shirley was 23.  At that time in his life Glen H Sutter was employed as a shipping clerk with retail paint store.

 

 

 

Their married produced three children, and they were Debra Blanchette Sutter, Richard Sutter, and Tamee Sutter.  Glen had been born at Montpelier, Bear Lake, Idaho on 6th August 1927, the son of Rudolph Sutter and Zella Meeks, and he died on 16th May 2000 at Salt Lake City, and was buried at Mountain View, Memorial Estate on 20th May.  His obituary confirmed that he was survived by his wife of 52 years and the three children named above.

 

 

 

Two years after being widowed, Shirley May Collett Sutter died at Salt Lake City on 4th August 2002 and was buried with her husband the next day.  Her obituary, published in the Salt Lake Tribune, listed her husband as the late Glen Sutton, and her children as unmarried Debra Blanchette, Tamee Farr and husband Lionel Farr, son Richard and his wife Marilyn Sutter, and her three siblings Ladonna Collett, Dean A Collett, and Carol Weidner and her husband David Weidner. 

 

 

 

 

72S16

Dean Ashton Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 30th September 1928 and was the youngest son born to Richard and Amy Collett.  He may have been born at Second Avenue where he was living with his family in 1930 at the age of one year eleven months.  That appears to be a temporary address for the family, having previous owned the property in which his parents were living in 1920, while awaiting completion of a new home at 953 McClelland Street, where they were living in 1935 and 1940.  As Dean Ashton Collett he was seven years old, and eleven years of age respectively. 

 

 

 

At the age of 21, Dean Collett of 953 Second Avenue, SLC, was a passenger onboard the S S Grispslolm sailing out on Gothenburg on 17th July 1950, arriving in New York in that month, returning as a tourist from a visit to Sweden.  It was as Dean Ashton Collett that he died on 13th June 2023 aged 94 at Cottonwood Heights, Salt Lake County and was buried at Mountain View Memorial Estate Cemetery.  His obituary was printed in the Salt Lake Tribune on 16th June 2023, when the only named person was Sophie Malinka Thompson.

 

 

 

No record of Dean becoming a married man has been found, nor has it been discovered how Sophie Malinka Thompson was connected with him.  The only other details found were that in 1998 he was a resident at Ogden in Weber County, Utah, and from 2006 onwards he was residing in Salt Lake City.

 

 

 

 

72S17

Carol V Collett was six months old in the census of 1940 and was born at 953 McClelland Street in Salt Lake City on 3rd October 1939, a very very late last child for Richard George Collett (junior) and Amy May Ashton whose first child was born in 1917.  All that is known about her is that she married David Weidner, with Carol and David both named in the obituary of Carol’s older married sister Shirley May Collett Sutter in 2002.  David Albert Weidner was born on 5th May 1938 at Salt Lake City, and died at Holladay City in Salt Lake County on 27th December 2017, where Carol’s older sister Ladonna Collett (above) was turn at the start of the 21st Century.  He was the son of Joseph and Ruth Weidner.

 

 

 

 

72S20

Dale De Loren Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 14th November 1919, the only surviving child of Orlando Le Loren Collett and Edith Burt.  He was one month old in 1st January 1920 census, when he and his parents were living in rented accommodation at 324 Reeve Terrace, Linden Avenue in Salt Lake City.  In 1930 his father was the owner of the family home at 539 Central Street in Salt Lake City, when Dale was ten years old, and where his mother died in 1935, where Dale aged 20 and his widowed father were again living in 1940.  Five years after that census day Dales father passed away, leaving him an orphan at 25, but who had already become a married man who had started a family of his own, making his father a grandfather prior to his death.

 

 

 

The Salt Lake City census of 1950 listed the family as Dale D Collett who was 30 years of age and an IBM supervisor working for the Wholesale Gasoline Corporation, his wife Grace L Collett who was 28, Craig D Collett who was seven, Dale B Collett who was four, and William B Collett who was two years old.  It has been assumed that their oldest son was Craig De Loren, while the B in the names of the two younger sons was Brent, their mother’s maiden-name.  By that time, Dale had inherited his father’s property at 539 Central Avenue, where the family was living in 1950.

 

 

 

Dale De Loren Collett was 85 years old and residing at Normandy Park, King County in Washington when he died on 17th February 2005 and was confirmed as the son of Orlando D Collett and Elizabeth Burt.

 

 

 

72T4

Craig De Loren Collett

Born in 1943 at Salt Lake City

 

72T5

Dale Brent Collett

Born in 1946 at Salt Lake City

 

72T6

William Brent Collett

Born in 1948 at Salt Lake City

 

 

 

 

72S21

Beth Collett was born on 14th September 1919 at 844 Menlo Avenue in Salt Lake City, the home of her paternal grandparents, with whom she was living with her parents James Perry Collett and his wife Eunice Adeline Tollitt in 1920.  Beth was three months old and was the first of the couple’s ten children.  She was 10 years old in 1930 and was 15 in 1935, when she and her family were living at 225 Kensington Avenue.

 

 

 

Beth Collett was only 17 when she was married by licence on 11th September 1937 to Charles Gerald Bettridge who was 22.  Beth was living at 225 Kensington Avenue in SLC and was already working as a clerk, with Charles was working on the railroad, had been born at Centerville, Davis County, Utah, on 5th December 1914, the son of Joseph Henry Bettridge and Ruth Cuthers.  The witnesses were Beth’s father James Perry Collett, and Charle’s father Joseph H Bettridge.

 

 

 

During the next couple of years Beth gave birth to two sons at Salt Lake City; Gerald Blaine Bettridge was born in 1938, and Kenneth Perry Bettridge born on 24th July 1939, who died on 5th June 1989 at Union City in Alameda County, California.  The Salt Lake City in 1940 recorded the four of them as Charles Gerald Bettridge who was 26, Beth Collett Bettridge who was 21, and their son aged two years and one year respectively.

 

 

 

Upon the death of Beth Collett Bettridge on 6th January 1978 at Alameda County, her date of birth was recorded as 4th September 1919.  Just over one year after her passing, Charles Gerald Bettridge also died there on 3rd February 1979.

 

 

 

 

72S22

Marjorie Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 24th January 1922, the second of the ten children of James and Eunice Collett.  When she was 15 years 3 months old, and a student attending Bryant School, Marjorie was walking along Canyon Road in the Big Cottonwood district of Salt Lake City, she was hit by a motor vehicle and received serious injuries.  She was still alive when the medics arrived at the scene of the accident, but tragically she died enroute to the general hospital.  The death certificate confirmed that she died at Salt Lake City on 26th April 1937 when she was 15 years 3 months 2 days and the daughter of James Perry Collett and Eunice Tollitt of 946 East 2nd South Street, SLC.  The cause of death was a fracture of the skull resulting from an incident with an automobile driving off road.  Four days later her body was laid to rest in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

 

 

 

 

72S23

Virginia Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 3rd June 1923, another daughter of James and Eunice Collett.  She was seven years old in 1930, and was 12 in 1935 and 17 years of age in 1940 when the family was recorded at 225 Kensington Avenue.  It would appear that Virginia was married twice in her life, and no long after one another.  It was later that same year when the marriage of Virginia Collett and (1) Bayard Russell Welte took place on 2nd August 1940 and was recorded at Davis County, Utah.  The bride was confirmed as the daughter of James Perry Collett and Eunice Tollitt Collett of 225 Kensington Avenue, Salt Lake City, who was a waitress.  Bayard had been born on 23rd July 1919, the son of William Welte and Delores Otto and he later married Louise T Becnal on 29th November 1942 in Los Angeles.  He was 23 and she was 16.

 

 

 

What actually happened between 1940 and 1942 is not known at the moment, but it was almost exactly two years later that the marriage of Virginia Collett and Allan Dale Ringwood took place on 4th July 1942 at Evanston, Uinta County, Wyoming, in the Church of the Latter Day Saints.  Allan had been born on 14th March 1924, and died twelve years before the death of his wife.  It was at Alameda County in California that his death was recorded as 16th May 1987, after which he was buried at the Chapel of the Chimes Memorial Park in Hayward.

 

 

 

Virginia Collett Ringwood died on 8th December 1999 at Seattle, Washington, when her obituary was published in the Salt Lake Tribune on 10th December containing the following information.  She was 76 and a former newspaper reporter from Salt Lake City, the wife of Allan Dale Ringwood, and the mother of Michael Ringwood and whose two sons Richard and Mark were named as her grandsons.  Also listed were her four youngest Collett siblings, Donna Rodriguez, Douglas Collett, Jerry Collett, and Raymond Collett.  An obvious omission from the list is her daughter, Kathy Ringwood of Washington, USA.  Kathleen Anne Ringwood was born on 31st August 1953, with her birth recorded at Alameda County, when her mother's maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.

 

 

 

 

72S24

June Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 21st December 1924, another daughter of James and Eunice Collett, who was recorded with her family in 1930, and in 1935 and 1940 at 225 Kensington Avenue.  Very little is known about her, although the Social Security Numerical Identification Files for Carson City Nevada seem to suggest that she was married twice in her life.  The files certainly confirm she was the daughter of James P Collett and Eunice A Tollitt, and that in July 1941 she was simply June Collett, three years after she was June Pouget in May 1944, and by April 1960 she was June Abston.  At the end of her life, when she died in January 1988, she was still June Abston.

 

 

 

 

72S25

James Perry Collett junior was born at Salt Lake City on 4th February 1927, the fifth child of James Perry Collett and Eunice Adeline Tollitt.  As simply James Collett he was 13 in the census of 1940 when he was one of only four children still living at 225 Kensington Avenue in Salt Lake City, where they had been in 1935, when he was eight years of age.  In 1950 James was 23, single, and still living with his parents but at San Leandro, Alameda County in California, where he was employed as an auto mechanic with a car assembly company.  James Perry Collett died at Santa Clara, Alameda County on 30th May 1993.  What happened to him between 1950 and 1993 is still not known, except that he was residing in San Lorenzo in the autumn of 1990.

 

 

 

 

72S26

Beverley Collett was born at 254 South 9th East Street in Salt Lake City on 30th April 1928, the sixth child of James and Eunice Collett.  Sadly, she was only one month and nineteen days when she died on 19th June 1928 and was buried during the following day.  The death certificate stated the cause of death was lobar pneumonia, her parents were James Perry Collett and his wife Eunice Tollitt, and that she was buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery.  Her older sister Marjorie was buried with her nine years later, after she was involved in a fatal road traffic accident.

 

 

 

 

72S27

Donna Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 12th June 1929 and would have been one year old in the 1930 census, if a copy of it could be located.  She was another daughter of James and Eunice Collett and was six years old in the census of 1935 when the family home was at 225 Kensington Avenue, as it was again in 1940, when she was ten years of age.  Towards the end of the 1950s, Donna Collett married Louis J Rodriguez.

 

 

 

That was confirmed in the census of 1950, when the childless couple was living at San Leandro in Alameda County, to where her parents had already moved from Utah sometime after 1940.  The census return described the couple as recently divorced Louis J Rodriguez from California who was 21 and working as a street maintenance man for the city, while Donna Rodiguez was 20 and a machine operator at a canning factory.  Prior to May 1998 Donna Rodriguez had been living at 1711 at Carbon County in Utah.  In the following year her older sister Virginia Collett Ringwood died at Seattle and, within her obituary was a reference to her sister Donna Rodiguez, as there was when her brother Douglas (below) died in 2006.  It was on 11th July 2011 that she died at San Leandro, Alameda County, California, at the age of 82, and was buried at Lone Tree Cemetery in Hayward.

 

 

 

 

72S28

Douglas Frank Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 6th February 1931, another son of James and Eunice Collett.  In 1935 and 1940 he and his family were living at 225 Kensington Avenue, but thereafter the family left Utah when they moved to California, where they were living in 1950.  It was in San Leandro, in Alameda County, where 19-year-old Douglas was taken on by a cannery company where he worked as a jitney driver, transporting goods or personnel from one location to another.  At that time in his life, he was still living with his parents and three other siblings.

 

 

 

The move to San Leandro was a permanent one, as it was there that he died on 25th November 2006 at the age of 75.  His obituary acknowledge that his wife was Adeline Collett and, although no children were named, three grandchildren were next in the list, and they were Ronnie Collett, Alicia Collett, and Joseph Collett.  Also included were siblings Donna Roriguez and husband Louis, Ray Collett and wife Marilyn, and Jerry Collett and wife Judy.

 

 

 

Taking his three grandchildren in order, it seems highly likely that Ronnie was Ronald Douglas Collett who was born on 17th December 1979, that Alicia was Alicia Marie Collett was born on 18th January 1984, and that Joseph was Joseph Ronald Collett who was born on 4th August 1994.  All three births were recorded at Alameda County, but with three different mother’s maiden-names: Singer, Vegas, and Quijas – could that be a form of Vegas!  Around the time that their grandfather passed away, Ronnie was living in San Leandro, Alicia was living at Pleasanton in Alameda County, and Joseph was living

 

 

 

Although it is yet to be verified, it seems very likely that the father of those three children were in fact Ronald Douglas Collett who was born on 5th October 1956, whose birth was also recorded at Alameda County like the children.  His date of birth also sitting very comfortably between the births of Douglas Frank Collett and Ronald Douglas Collett junior.  The birth record also gives the maiden-name of his mother as Butchart.  Piecing together other parts of the picture, Adelina Butchart was born on 1st April 1933, two years younger that Douglas – which fits, and she was born at San Diego, California.

 

 

 

72T7

Ronald Douglas Collett

Born in 1956 at Alameda County

 

 

 

 

72S29

Gerald Bruce Collett, who was known as Jerry, was born at 225 Kensington Avenue, Salt Lake City in 1934, where he was living in 1935 and 1940 at the ages of two and seven respectively.  He was around ten years old when his family moved to San Leandro, Alameda County, where he and his family had settled by 1950, when Gerald was 16 and working as a stacker of roofing materials.  In the obituary for his older brother Douglas Frank (above) in 2006, Gerald was referred to as brother Jerry Collett, with his wife being Judy.  That has led us to discover the 1974 wedding on Gerald B Collett and Judith A Shreiber at Carson City in Nevada on 10th August that year.  No issue has been found.

 

 

 

 

72S30

George Raymond Collett was born at 225 Kensington Avenue in Salt Lake City on 7th May 1937 and was three years old in the census of 1940 when still living at 225 Kensington Avenue, just prior to his family moving to California.  He was the tenth and last child of James Perry Collett and Eunice Adeline Tollitt.  On arrival in the sunshine state, the family made their home at San Leandro, in Alameda County, where they were recorded in 1950, when George was 12 years old.  George was still living at San Leandro at the start of the new century, but it was at Chico in Butte County California, where he died on 28th July 2019.  In the 2006 obituary for his brother Douglas Frank, George was referred to as Ray Collett, whose wife was Marilyn.  Who she was, when and where they were married, and did they have any children, are all questions that we hopefully be address in the near future.

 

 

 

 

72T1

Michael George Collett was born in 1953, his birth recorded at Wycombe register office (Ref. 6a 609) during the second quarter of that year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Harris, the wife of Edward George Collett.  In 1982 Michael G Collett married Toni Fenton, the wedding recorded at Wycombe (Vol. 19 1685) during the second quarter of the year.  Nine months later Toni presented Michael with the first of their two children.  Both births were recorded at Wycombe register office, the first during the fourth quarter of 1982 (Vol. 19 1957), the second during the third quarter of 1984 (Vol. 19 2250.  On both occasions the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Fenton.

 

 

 

72U1

Daniel George Collett

Born in 1982 at Wooburn/Wycombe

 

72U2

Jason Frank Collett

Born in 1984 at Wooburn/Wycombe

 

 

 

 

72T2

Pamela J Collett was born in 1955, the second child and eldest daughter of Edward and Wendy Collett.  Her birth, like those of her two siblings, was recorded at Wycombe (Ref. 6a 559) during the final three months of the year.  Pamela was twenty-two when she married John M Waite, the event recorded at Wycombe register office (Vol. 19 1852) during the third quarter of 1978.

 

 

 

 

72T3

Jayne S Collett was born in 1959, the third and last child of Edward George Collett and Wendy Pamela Harris.  It was at Wycombe that her birth was recorded (Ref. 6a 837) during the second quarter of 1959.  Jayne was nearly twenty-two when she was married to Eoin Donnelly, as recorded at Wycombe (Vol. 19 1088) during the first three months of 1981.

 

 

 

 

72T5

Dale Brent Collett was born at Salt Lake City on 3rd March 1946, the middle child of the three sons of Dale De Loren Collett and Grace L Brent.  As Dale B Collett he was four years old in the Salt Lake City census of 1950, when his father was an I B M supervisor with a wholesale gasoline corporation.  There is then a big gap in his life which still needs to be filled.  Who was the wife of his three children, who must have passed away prior to Dale’s departure from the planet at the start of the new century.

 

 

 

He was 54 years old when, as Brent D Collett Ph D the son of Grace Collett, he died on 10th November 2000 and was buried at Salt Lake City.  His obituary published on 14th November stated that prior to his passing he had been a bishop and was the father of Barry, Kevin, and Craig Collett.  Others named, but yet to be positively identified were: Jared Peterson Collett, Lorna (his wife?), Melissa Marie Collett, Bethany Jean Gace Collett, Brandon Brent Collett, Joshua Delorne Collett, Grace Collett, and Brent Collett.

 

 

 

72U3

Barry Collett

Date of birth unknown, possibly in Utah

 

72U4

Kevin Collett

Date of birth unknown, possibly in Utah

 

72U5

Craig Collett

Date of birth unknown, possibly in Utah

 

 

 

 

72T6

Ronald Douglas Collett was born on 5th October 1956, with his birth recorded at Alameda County, when his mother’s maiden-name was recorded as Butchart.  It has therefore been assumed that he was the only child of Douglas Frank Collett and his wife Adelina Butchart, although no record of their wedding has yet been found or confirmed.  From the 2006 obituary of the aforementioned Douglas Frank Collett three grandchildren were named, and their details are now included below.

 

 

 

72U6

Ronald Douglas Collett

Born in 1979 at Alameda County, Ca.

 

72U7

Alicia Marie Collett

Born in 1984 at Alameda County, Ca.

 

72U8

Joseph Ronald Collett

Born in 1994 at Alameda County, Ca.