PART FIFTY-THREE

The South Wales Branch Line

Updated November 2011

	This is the family line of cousins Heather Holloway nee Collett (Ref. 53S6) of New Zealand and Raymond Collett (Re. 53S7) of Australia, both of whom have been instrumental in its construction. It was Heather who kindly provided the old photographs, while Ray provided the details for the appendix, which is dedicated to the 150^th Anniversary Celebrations in January 2011.
	When Ray was working on his family history some years ago, he received information from the Head Librarian at Newport Public Library that the grandfather of Henry Collett who settled in New Zealand in 1861 was Walter Collett who was born at Kempsford in 1767, where he was also baptised in 1771. It has since been revealed that Walter was the son of Lawrence Collett and his wife Mary Day, who feature in Part 1 – The Main Gloucestershire Line. This would place his age at 33 when he married in 1800, and 48 at the time of the birth of his youngest child. However, Walter’s wife was younger than him by eight years, so it would be perfectly acceptable for her to have given birth to son Samuel when she was 40.
	What is of further interest is that the Head Librarian at Newport was none other than John Collett, who was a descendent of Walter Collett, the younger brother of Henry who settled in New Zealand in 1861, he being William John Collett (Ref. 53R18)
	Confirmation of this information means that this family line has its origin in the Gloucestershire family of Thomas Collett who was born in 1485 (Ref. 1D1). See Part 1 – The Main Gloucestershire Line.
53M1	WALTER COLLETT (Ref. 1M20) was born at Kempsford in 1767, but was baptised there around four years later on 16.07.1771, the son of Lawrence Collett and Mary Day. It is known that he was married to Mary from the baptism record for their youngest son Samuel, which took place at St Woolos Church in Newport during the June quarter of 1816, the child having been born either earlier that year or towards the end of the previous year.
	It was to London that Walter had made his way once he was an adult, and it was there that he met his future wife. The marriage of Walter Collett and Mary Marshall took place at St Saviours Church in Southwark, London on 30.07.1800, the bride being named as the daughter of John and Sarah Marshall. Mary Garle Marshall was born at Southwark on 11.03.1775 and was baptised there, at the Church of St Olave on 29.03.1775.
	All of this has now been confirmed as being correct by Heather Holloway nee Collett from New Zealand, the three times great granddaughter of Walter Collett, and by Raymond Collett of Australia, the great grandson of Henry Collett.
	It is also established that another Henry Collett (Ref. 1M28), a first cousin of Walter (Ref. 1M20), left Gloucestershire and moved to London where he was married just eighteen months before Walter Collett married Mary Marshall. There is a further connection with London, in that it was there also that Walter’s likely eldest son, Henry Collett was married.
	No record has so far been found to confirm that Henry was the son of Walter Collett and Mary Marshall, or that he was the brother of Walter and Samuel, the couple’s other two sons. Where there is a possible link is that the children of both families (Walter’s and Henry’s) were born at Christchurch, and both had sons called Walter. Also in the census of 1881, Samuel, the son of Walter, was living at Royal Oak Hill in Christchurch, where Walter, the son of Henry, was also living at that time.
	There is another possible link, albeit perhaps a bit tenuous, in that the wife of Samuel Collett was from Ireland, and it was in a later generation of the Collett family that a daughter was taken in by an Irishman and his family, following the death of the child’s mother around the time that she was born.
	By the time of the first national census in June 1841, Walter and Mary were living at Collett Cottage on Church Hill in Christchurch, the dwelling being on the south-facing slope, about one hundred yards from the summit of the hill. In the cottage next door, was living the widow of their son Henry, who had been killed in a tragic accident in 1838. The two dwellings were locally known as the Collett Cottages. It was there also that both families were still living in 1851.
	It was just after the census in 1851 that the couple’s next door neighbour, and daughter-in-law Charlotte Collett nee Bray, married Henry Price. When that happened, Walter and Mary took in to live with them Charlotte’s eldest son Henry Collett age 14, who worked under the guidance of his grandfather as a butcher and a vet for the next three or four years. Walter had retired in 1850, so this occupied his time during his twilight years. By the time Walter Collett died at Christchurch in 1858 at the age of 91, his grandson Henry had already emigrated to Australia during the previous year.
	By the time of the census in 1861, Walter’s wife Mary was recorded as a widow at the age of 84. At that time in her life she had living with her at Christchurch, and presumably looking after her there, her granddaughter Catherine Collett, the eldest daughter of her son Samuel who was also living nearby with the rest of his large family.
	The widow Mary Collett nee Marshall died during 1870 and shortly before the next census in 1871. She was 95 years of age at the time of her passing. The headstone on her grave, together with other Collett gravestones, are almost the first ones on the left as you pass through the gate of the churchyard at the top of Church Hill.
	53O1	Henry Collett		Born in 1806 at London?
	53O2	Walter Collett		Born circa 1810 at Newport?
	53O3	Samuel Collett		Born circa 1815 at Newport
53O1	HENRY COLLETT was born in 1806 and his occupation was that of a butcher, the same as that of his father Walter Collett. He was only thirty-two years old when he was tragically killed in an accident with a horse on 30.09.1838, his death being registered within the Newport district of Monmouthshire.
	Just over five years earlier he had married Charlotte Bray at All Souls Church in St Marylebone in London on 20.05.1833, Charlotte having been born at St Aldersgate in London during 1805. All Souls Church was designed by John Nash, favourite architect of King George IV, to provide an eye-catching monument where the newly laid-out Regent Street linked Piccadilly with the new Regent's Park. The church was consecrated in 1824 by the Bishop of London, and it was therefore a very prestigious place to be married around that time. The church is still a splendid building today, as shown in this recent photograph. Once they were married the couple moved to Christchurch, to the immediate north-east of Newport in South Wales, where their three children were born.
	It was just fourteen days after their son Walter was baptised, that the boy’s father, Henry Collett, was killed in a dreadful horse accident, an account of which appeared one week later in the Newport Merlin on 6^th October 1838.
	By the time the census in 1841, his widow Charlotte Collett was 36 and was living at Collett Cottage on Church Hill in Christchurch with her three children, the cottage adjoining that of her late husband’s parents. The three children living with her were her daughter Charlotte who was seven, and her sons Henry, who was four, and Walter who was two years old.
	Ten years later in 1851, the same family was still living at Collett Cottage on Christchurch Hill in Christchurch, which was the same dwelling as in 1841, but with a slightly different address name. On that occasion Charlotte Collett was 45 years old and her children were Charlotte 16, Henry 14, and Walter who was 13.
	No record of Charlotte or her son Henry has been found in any later census, and the reason for that is that Charlotte became Charlotte Price when she married Henry Price, who was a butcher like her first husband. And it may have been that action by his mother which weakened her son's resolve to remain living with her in Christchurch. Initially, he had moved next door to live with his grandparents, where he spent the next three or four years, before finally leaving England for Australia in 1857.
	53P1	Charlotte Collett		Born in 1834 at Christchurch
	53P2	HENRY COLLETT		Born in 1837 at Christchurch
	53P3	Walter Collett		Born in 1838 at Christchurch
53O3	Samuel Collett was born around the end of 1815 or the beginning of 1816. He was baptised on 09.06.1816 at St Woolos Cathedral in Newport, when he was confirmed as the son of Walter and Mary Collett.
	It was around 1842 that Samuel married Catherine from Ireland, the marriage producing eight known children for the couple. Once married it would appear that Samuel and his wife settled in Christchurch where it is known that all of their children were born.
	The Christchurch census of 1851, within the Caerleon & Newport registration district, listed the family as Samuel 34, his wife Kate as 36, and their five children at that time as Walter 7, Catherine 6, William 4, Susan 2, and baby Emily who was not yet one year old.
	Within the next ten years a further three children were added to the family. So by the time of the census of 1861 the completed family comprised Samuel 45, his wife Kate 44, and seven of their eight children; Walter 17, William 14, Susan 12, Emily 10, Charles 8, Thomas 6, and four years old Henry.
	The couple’s eldest daughter Catherine was living nearby in Christchurch with her widowed grandmother Mary Collett, whom she was looking after in her old age.
	During the next ten years Samuel’s eldest son left home to be married, although he and his wife were living not far away from the family in 1871. The census return that year recorded the family of Samuel Collett as living ‘near the church’ in Christchurch.
	Still living with fifty-four years old Samuel and fifty-five years old Catherine, were sons William 24, Thomas 17, and Henry 15, together with their daughter Emily who was twenty. Head of the household Samuel was described as having been born in Newport whose occupation was that of a farmer of sixty-eight acres of pasture land. All of his children were confirmed as having been born at Christchurch.
	The absence of unmarried daughter Catherine is a mystery, although it is possible that daughter Susan may have been married by then. Son Charles was also missing and has so far not been identified in 1871.
	Living right next door to Samuel and his family in 1871 was the Collett family of his nephew. This was the ship-wright Walter Collett, his wife Mary Ann Thomas, and their family.
	According to the census of 1881, Samuel Collett of Newport was sixty-five and was living with part of his family at Royal Oak Hill in Christchurch, from where he worked as a cattle dealer. Living with him was his wife Kate who was sixty and from Cork in Ireland, and three of their unmarried children.
	These were their daughter Kate who was thirty-seven, and their two youngest sons Thomas who was twenty-seven, and Henry who was twenty. All three children were confirmed as having been born at Christchurch.
	Since no record of Samuel or his wife Kate or Catherine has been found in the next census of 1891, it must be assumed that they had both passed away during the 1880s.
	53P4	Walter Collett		Born in 1843 at Christchurch
	53P5	Catherine Collett		Born in 1844 at Christchurch
	53P6	William Henry Collett		Born in 1846 at Christchurch
	53P7	Susan Collett		Born in 1848 at Christchurch
	53P8	Emily Collett		Born in 1850 at Christchurch
	53P9	Charles Collett		Born in 1852 at Christchurch
	53P10	Thomas Collett		Born in 1854 at Christchurch
	53P11	Henry Collett		Born in 1856 at Christchurch
53P1	Charlotte Collett was born at Christchurch near Newport in 1834 and was baptised there on 15.06.1834, the daughter of Henry Collett and his wife Charlotte Bray. With the death of her father in 1838 when she was four years old, Charlotte was living at Church Hill in Christchurch in June 1841 when she was seven years old.
	Upon leaving school Charlotte entered into domestic service and by 1851, when she was sixteen years old, she was working as a servant at the house of the Reed family at 42 High Street in Newport.
	She went on to marry William Williams and had a craft shop in Newport in the latter years of the 1850’s. Her brother Henry (below) had been engaged to her husband’s sister Sally Williams, but this did not result in them ever being married.
	Sometime shortly after these events Charlotte passed away without having any children, although the cause of death has not been determined.
53P2	HENRY COLLETT was born at Caerleon on 17.03.1837, and was baptised a month later at Christchurch near Newport on 23.04.1837, the son of butcher Henry Collett and Charlotte Bray. He was just 18 months old when his father was killed in a horsing accident, and by the time of the census in June 1841 when he was 4 years old and was living with his mother and two siblings at Collett Cottage on Church Hill in Christchurch.
	Henry was still living at Collett Cottage on Church Hill in Christchurch with his widowed mother and younger brother Walter (below) at the time of the census in 1851 when he was 14 years of age. Shortly after this, and after thirteen years as a widow, Charlotte re-married, when she took Henry Price as her second husband.
	This may not have been easy for Henry to accept, because it was around the time of his mother’s second marriage that he is understood to have moved in with his grandparents, who were living in the adjoining Collett Cottage. With his grandfather Walter Collett being a butcher and a vet, Henry gained a better understanding of animals, which stood him in good stead for later in his life. However, it would appear that the time spent with his grandfather may have been limited to just four or five years, by which time he was around 17 years old.
	At that time there was a thriving transport industry taking horses from nearby Newport to America and there is some anecdotal evidence that Henry worked on one of those ships. Certainly it was not uncommon for boys of 12-16 to be crewing.
	It was also during that period in his life that Henry became engaged to be married to his sister-in-law Sally Williams, the sister of William Williams who married Henry’s sister Charlotte (above). Sadly, about three years before his grandfather died in 1858, Henry left Christchurch and also broke off his engagement to Sally Williams.
	The next episode in his life found Henry shipwrecked at Alexandria in Egypt, where he became involved in the Crimea War [1853-1856]. He joined the Transport Service taking mules from there, and from Spain, to the Crimean Peninsula. At one stage of the war, the Transport Service was called into action for the attack on Sevastopol and, although no record has been found to confirm that Henry was serving ashore at the time of the event, it is possible that he was involved in some way or other, from the stories that he relayed later to his children.
	After the war, he eventually found his way back to England, from where, on Friday 31^st July 1857, he sailed out of Liverpool on board the ‘Annie Wilson’ as an unassisted emigrant engineer, bound for Australia. He was 20 years and 4 months, when he said farewell to his family, never to return to his homeland.
	Just over three months later Henry Collett arrived at Hobson’s Bay in Melbourne on Tuesday 3^rd November, where the ‘Annie Wilson’ was one of around 300 or 400 ships bringing gold-seekers to Australia from distance shores. From that time onwards he worked for last two months of 1857 on a ship taking horses to Bombay and Sepoy for the mutineers of the Indian Rebellion. Afterwards he sailed to the new Cellular Jail on the Andaman Islands.
	The Cellular Jail is one of the murkiest chapters in the history of the colonial rule in India. Though the prison was only started in 1896, the history of using the Andaman island as a prison dates back to the India Rebellion in 1857. So it seems highly likely that Henry’s cargo was one of prisoners captured during the rebellion.
	It must have been after that when Henry Collett, with the money he had earned, settled back in Australia where he first tried his luck working on the Victorian goldfields with the Mills family, who had been his travelling companions on the ‘Annie Wilson’. They all headed to the Daisy Diggings one hundred miles north-east of Melbourne, where eighteen months earlier the ‘Emu Gold Rush’ had established a make-shift town of ten thousand miners. However, they arrived too late to make their fortune.
	Melbourne was awash with unemployed miners, so Henry was fortunate in that he was able to return to the occupation in which he had the most experience, that of working with animals, when he accepted an animal husbandry job in Geelong in Victoria. After a few years raising sheep it is understood that on Tuesday 7^th January 1861 Henry walked onto the wharf at Geelong where he was offered a further job involving stock husbanding at sea. He accepted the job of shepherd on board the ship ‘Sarah H Snow’ carrying 3050 sheep to Otago in New Zealand.
	When the ‘Sarah H Snow’ dropped anchor at Port Chambers in Dunedin on the evening of 26^th January 1861 he was still only 23. It was on the south island that he finally settled down to begin a new life and yet another branch of the Collett family. It was at Te Waimate, a pioneering sheep station of some 98,000 acres, about 100 miles from Dunedin that he initially settled, before going Raincliff seven miles north-west of Pleasant Point. Raincliff was another pioneering sheep station of some 50,000 acres, and it was there that he fortuitously met Ann Jane Davis, a Welsh girl, travelling as a companion with Mrs Christie from Scarborough who was to rejoin her husband, who was a surgeon serving in the North Island Maori Wars, which were at their height at that time.
	Henry Collett married Ann Jane Davis on 05.04.1864 at St Mary’s Church in the small coastal settlement of Timura, which lies about ten miles south-east of Pleasant Point on the south island. This photograph is believed to have been taken on their wedding day. Over the following years Henry and Anne resided in the Pleasant Point district of South Canterbury, where Henry established himself as a well-respected member of the local community.
	The marriage produced five children for Henry and Anne although, tragically, the first of these died within the first six months of her life, and the last also did not survive beyond three months. The three surviving children were Elizabeth Collett, Walter Henry Collett, named jointly after his grandfather and father respectively, and Charlotte Ann Collett named jointly after her grandmother and mother respectively.
	This Collett family was the first of the new pioneering breed of foreign settlers to leave their homelands for the fertile lands of South Canterbury. In fact, so new to this land were they, that Henry’s and Ann’s first child was the very first white man’s child to be born at Raincliff Station, where they lived and farmed some 50,000 acres of land.
	Following the tragic death of their first child, Henry and Ann left Raincliff shortly after. Helped by the Purnell family of Raincliff, Henry paid eighty pounds cash for 40 acres of land on the Opihi River, and there he built a wooden hut close to the river where his second child was born. The new farm that he established there was White Rock Farm, in Opihi Flats, midway between Raincliff and Pleasant Point in South Canterbury.
	There was high drama on the day that the child was born. The Tengawai, Opihi and Opuha Rivers were all in a state of flood that day, which caused problems for the midwife to reach the family. However, it was during the floods in the following year that the couple’s temporary home, the wooden hut near the river, was washed away, with Ann and baby Elizabeth narrowly escaping being drowned, while Henry was hurriedly returning from sheep shearing in the MacKenzie country.
	As a result Henry built a more substantial three-bedroom limestone cottage on a rise behind the site of his first house, and a little further away from the river. He called it ‘Daisy Hill’ after the goldfield in Australia. The heavy rain in early part of 1870 ruined the fuel for his horses when the oat stacks sprouted. To become financial again, Henry and Ann left White Rock Farm, when they took a small cottage in Silverstream (now Kimbell) on Three Springs Station, where the couple’s third child was born at the end of 1870. It was while they lived there that Henry rode to work on Burkes Pass Station.
	By the time of the birth of the couple’s final two children, the family was once again living on the farm at Daisy Hill, although sadly it was also there that the youngest child died when she was just six months old. The illustration on the right, of the three surviving children of Henry and Ann, has been extracted from a larger picture of the children and was probably made around 1879 when Elizabeth was twelve, Walter was nine, and Charlotte was six. That year was memorable, since it was the year that the local school first opened (see below). The vivid colours and ornate embroidery on Walter’s suit suggests that this was a sepia photograph to which the colours have been added.
	Henry’s three surviving children were all initially educated at home at Daisy Hill, that is, until a school was built and opened at Opihi Downs in 1879. It was ten years later when Henry, a follower of the Anglican faith, heard of the plans to build a church at Temuka, that he offered to provide the limestone for the project which was cut from his Pigeons Cliff Farm. So over the following weeks and months the parishioners carted 500 loads of limestone to Temuka to build the imposing gothic Church of St Joseph, which eventually had seating accommodation for 600 people.
	Such was his success, Henry continued to buy more land, and in 1901 and 1902 he purchased 30 acres along the south bank of the river, and 20 acres alongside the road to the Point. His last purchase of 80 acres took place in 1902 and was the most coveted land of all; the magnificent White Cliffs, so admired by his wife Ann in the Autumn of 1864 when she passed by as a young woman on her way to Raincliff Station. It was later that same year, on 07.07.1902 that Henry Collett was carried, unconscious, into the hospital at Temuka, where died during the next day at the age of 65. The reason for his hospitalisation was that he had fallen from his horse, when someone was giving him a leg-up into the saddle.
	The photograph above was taken shortly before his tragic accident.
	At the time of his death his eldest daughter was married with eight children and was living nearby. His son Walter lived just two miles away and was also married by then, with three children, and farmed the top part of Henry’s farm, while his youngest daughter Charlotte was still living at home.
	53Q1	Charlotte Ann Collett		Born on 28.03.1865 at Raincliff
	53Q2	Elizabeth Collett		Born on 14.02.1867 at Opihi Flats
	53Q3	WALTER HENRY COLLETT		Born on 17.12.1870 at Kimbell
	53Q4	Charlotte Ann Collett		Born on 21.02.1873 at Daisy Hill
	53Q5	Mary Emily Collett		Born on 09.06.1875 at Daisy Hill
53P3	Walter Collett, who was named after his grandfather, was born at Christchurch near Newport in 1838 where he was baptised on 16.09.1838, the son of Henry Collett and his wife Charlotte Bray. Tragically it was on 30^th September 1838 that his father was killed in an accident with a horse, when Walter may have been a month old. By 1851 he was living with his mother and brother Henry (above) when he was twelve years old. Ten years later he Walter had left the family home and was living at 17 Peel Street in Cardiff at the age of twenty-two, by which time he was a married man with a wife and child. This late 19^th Century photograph is of ‘Walter Collett of Newport’
	Walter married (1) Mary Ann Thomas at Newport, where she was born, during the first quarter of 1859 with whom he had two children. The couple’s first child was very likely a honeymoon baby, born towards the end of 1859 when Walter and Mary were living within the Newport area.
	After the initial few months living in Newport, Walter’s work took him into Cardiff and in April 1861 the young family was living there at Peel Street. Mary Ann was twenty-one and a dressmaker, while their only child at that time, their son Henry, was just one year old. It seems likely that Walter was employed at the Cardiff docks, since his occupation on that occasion was that of a ship’s carpenter.
	After a while living and working in Cardiff, where their daughter Charlotte was born, Walter and his family made the move to Christchurch where they were living in 1871. Walter was then thirty-two and his occupation was ship-wright. His wife Mary was thirty, and their two children were Henry who was twelve of Newport, and Charlotte who was ten years old and of Cardiff.
	The family’s address in Christchurch in 1871 was given simply as ‘near the church’. Walter gave his place of birth as Bishpool, which is an area of Christchurch, and living directly next door to him and his family was his uncle Samuel Collett the farmer and his family.
	Tragically five years later in 1876, Mary Ann Collett died and her death was registered in Newport during the second quarter of that year. She was only thirty-seven years old, having been born at Newport in 1839. It is possible that she died during childbirth.
	Following the death of his wife, Walter married (2) Mary Walters. Mary was eight years younger than Walter, she having been born at Stanley Hill in Hereford in 1844. The couple were married during the third quarter of 1877
	Almost exactly one year later Mary presented Walter with the first of the couple’s two children, the birth taking place although it was registered at Newport during the third quarter of 1878. It was very likely around this time that Walter and his family moved to a new address in Christchurch.
	Walter’s and Mary’s second child was born in December 1880, and again the birth was registered in Newport.
	According to the census of 1881, the family was living at Royal Oak Hill in the town, by which time Walter was forty-two and was working as a grocer. His wife was listed as Mary aged thirty-four from Amley (Hamley) who was described as being a former cook domestic servant.
	Living with the couple were Walter’s two sons, William who was two years old, and Edward who was just four months old. Ten years later in 1891 the family was still living at Royal Oak Hill in Christchurch, when Walter was fifty-two and a dealer in stock, Mary was forty-four, William was twelve, and Edward was ten years old.
	Just after the turn of the century Walter was once again described as a grocer and shopkeeper at the age of sixty-two when still living at Royal Oak. At the time of the census at the end of March in 1901 Walter’s wife was listed as being fifty-four and was a visitor at Caerlicken Farm in Kemeys Inferior the home of Edward Rosser, where her occupation that was of a monthly nurse.
	Both of their sons had left South Wales by this time and were living and working in London, although they both returned to the Newport area sometime during the next ten years.
	Walter and Mary remained living within the Christchurch / Newport, and this was confirmed by the census in April 1911, when Walter was 72 and Mary was 64. Living with them was their unmarried son Edward who was 30 years old. The census return confirmed that both men had been born at Christchurch.
	And it was while living within the Christchurch / Newport area that Walter Collett died in 1920, his death being registered at Newport during the first three months of the year. His age at that time was given incorrectly as being 76, when in fact he was around 81 years of age and it was his wife Mary who was 76.
	Mary survived as a widow for a further eight years before she eventually passed away during the second quarter of 1928, while she was still living in the Newport area.
	This photograph of the two Collett Cottages was taken around 1920. The sign on the top right-hand corner of the property says “M Collett – Grocer”, so it is possible that M Collett was a reference to the widow Mary Collett, who had taken on the role of running the business following the death of her husband Walter, who was known to have been a grocer as confirmed in the previous census records.
	The same photograph was sent via email to Brian Collett in July 2011 by Dale Chappell, whose mother has been the owner occupier of the property since 1984. It was the previous owner who purchased the then derelict cottages and converted them into one comfortable dwelling, which it still is today although it has been renamed ‘Marandellas’. Dale’s mother was unaware of the previous Collett connection until this was brought to her attention of the Collett Family History website. Even more of a coincidence is the fact that she used to work at the Newport Library, alongside William John Collett (Ref. 53R18).
	53Q6	Henry Collett		Born in 1859 at Newport
	53Q7	Charlotte Collett		Born in 1860 at Cardiff
	53Q8	William Collett		Born in 1878 at Christchurch
	53Q9	Edward Collett		Born in 1880 at Christchurch
53P4	Walter Collett was born in 1843, the eldest son and first child of Samuel and Catherine Collett who was named after his grandfather. He was seven years old in the census of 1851 for Christchurch, and was seventeen ten years later in the Christchurch census of 1861.
	Towards the very end of the next decade Walter married Harriet Senior and by 1871 the childless couple were still living, within the Newport & Caerleon registration district, when Walter was twenty-seven and his wife was twenty-six. Harriet Senior had been born at Bradwich in Devon.
	During the following decade Harriet presented Walter with four children and in 1881 the family of six was living at Somerton Farm in Christchurch. Walter Collett was described in that year’s census as being thirty-seven and a farmer who was born at Christchurch. Somerton Farm comprised 140 acres and Walter employed two men to help him manage it.
	His wife was confirmed as Harriet of Bradwich and staying with the family on that occasion was Harriet’s unmarried sister Mary Ann Senior of Bradwich in Devon. Walter’s and Harriet’s four children at that time were Edith who was five, Linda three, one year old Arthur, and Ethel who was just one month, all of whom had been born .
	In addition to the two men that Walter employed as farm-hands, his wife Harriet was assisted in the farmhouse by Christiana Merrett who was nineteen and from Christchurch who was employed as a general domestic servant.
	Two more children were added to the family during the next four years and, in the census of 1891, Walter was forty-seven and Harriet was forty-five. Living with the couple were all six of their children; Edith 15, Linda 13, Arthur 11, Ethel 10, Edgar 8, and Frederick who was five years old.
	During the following ten years Harriet died, and it may have been this event which resulted in the family moving south of Newport to the village of Nash, near to the south Wales coast.
	According to the March census of 1901, Walter was a widower at the age of fifty-seven, and was still working as a farmer. Once again his place of birth was confirmed as Christchurch. Listed with him at Nash were five of their six children; Edith 25, Linda 23, Ethel 20, Edgar 18, and Fred who was fifteen, and all of them born .
	Only his son Arthur has not been traced in this census or the next, although he was listed living with his family in 1891 as Arthur W Collett aged eleven.
	By April 1911 Walter was aged sixty-seven and was still living within the Newport area, and living with him were his three youngest and unmarried children. Ethel Mary Collett was 30, Edgar Henry Collett was 28, and Frederick George was 25.
	53Q10	Edith A Collett		Born in 1875 at Christchurch
	53Q11	Linda Harriet Collett		Born in 1877 at Christchurch
	53Q12	Arthur Walter Collett		Born in 1879 at Christchurch
	53Q13	Ethel Mary Collett		Born in 1881 at Christchurch
	53Q14	Edgar Henry Collett		Born in 1883 at Christchurch
	53Q15	Frederick George Collett		Born in 1885 at Christchurch
53P5	Catherine Collett, who was often referred to as Kate, was born at Christchurch in 1844 and was the eldest daughter of Samuel and Catherine Collett. It was at Christchurch that she lived most of her early life, and was recorded there with her family as Catherine aged six years in 1851. Ten years later she was again living in Christchurch and was listed as Catherine sixteen who was living as a companion and housekeeper with her elderly widowed grandmother Mary Collett
	Catherine’s whereabouts in 1871 when she would have been in her mid twenties, has not yet been determined, but by the time of the Christchurch census of 1881 she was back living with her parents at Royal Oak Hill. The census return recorded that she was Kate Collett aged thirty-seven from Christchurch, and that she was an out of work domestic servant.
	During the next ten years both of Catherine’s parents died, following which, in the census of 1891, Kate Collett was forty-seven and was sharing the family home with her was her younger brother Henry (below).
	Sometime later, Catherine left Christchurch when she moved to Oystermouth in Glamorganshire. This was confirmed by the census of 1901 in which she was recorded as Catherine Collett, of Christchurch in Monmouthshire, aged fifty-seven and living on her own means.
	Living with her was her niece, apprentice dressmaker Elizabeth Collett who was sixteen and from Newport, the daughter of Catherine’s brother William Henry Collett. It seems very likely that Catherine died during the first decade of the new century, since in April 1911 Elizabeth Jane Collett was living alone at Oystermouth on the Gower Peninsula.
	It is also possible, although not yet proved, that Catherine’s younger sister Emily (below) also moved to Oystermouth, since a certain Emily Charlotte from Christchurch, the wife of David Morgan was living around this time.
53P6	William Henry Collett was born at Christchurch in 1846, the son of Samuel and Catherine Collett, and he was four years old in the Christchurch census of 1851 and was fourteen by 1861. He was still living at the family home near the church in Christchurch in 1871 when he was twenty-four and his occupation was that of a butcher.
	Shortly after the 1871 Census, William married Elizabeth at Christchurch where she had been born in 1849. By the time of the census of 1881 the marriage of William and Elizabeth had produced the couple’s first four of their ultimate eight children.
	The family at that time was made up of William who was thirty-four, his wife Elizabeth who was thirty-one, and their children Kate 8, Charles 5, Alfred 3, and baby Edmund who was just five months old. William Collett was a butcher and a cattle dealer of Christchurch, and he and his family were living at Royal Oak Farm in Christchurch.
	Living with the family was the widow Mary Ann Evans, age forty-four and of Christchurch, who was curiously described as being William’s step-sister. Supporting the Collett family were two servants, the widow Hannah Jones 57, and her son Arthur Jones who was 16.
	During the next decade the remaining four children were added to the family which was still living at Christchurch in 1891. The head of the household was recorded as William Hy Collett aged 44, Elizabeth was 30, their seven children were listed as Rose (Kate) 17, Charles 14, Alfred 12, Edward (Edmund) 10, Henry 8, Elizabeth 7, and Florrie who was two.
	It seems highly likely that William’s son Henry was in fact five years old, rather the eight, and that this was a misinterpretation of the census return. Certain it would appear that his sister Elizabeth was the older of the two children. There is also a question as to where daughter Betty was on this occasion.
	Just after the start of the new century, according to the census of 1901, William Henry Collett, a butcher and dealer from Christchurch, was 53 and was living with his family within the Newport registration area. His wife Elizabeth was 50 of Maindee in Monmouthshire and still living with them was six of the eight children.
	The census return confirmed them as Charles S Collett 21, Alfred 19, Edmund 17, Henry 15, Bettie (Betty) 13, and Florence H Collett who was eleven. From this it must be assumed that William’s third son was indeed called Edmund, and that Edward in 1891 was an error in translation.
	At this time in March 1901, William’s second eldest daughter Elizabeth was living with her maiden aunt Catherine Collett (above) at Oystermouth in Glamorgan. During the next ten years all of the couple’s children, with the exception of their youngest daughter, left the family home to be married.
	So by April 1911, the depleted Collett family had left the Newport area and instead was living within the Merthyr Tydfil registration district where William was 63, Elizabeth was 60, and the only child still living with them was twenty-one years old Florence Collett.
	53Q16	Catherine Collett		Born in 1873 at Christchurch
	53Q17	Charles S Collett		Born in 1876 at Christchurch
	53Q18	Alfred Collett		Born in 1878 at Christchurch
	53Q19	Edmund Collett		Born in 1880 at Christchurch
	53Q20	Elizabeth Jane Collett		Born in 1883 at Christchurch
	53Q21	Henry Collett		Born in 1885 at Christchurch
	53Q22	Betty Collett		Born in 1887 at Christchurch
	53Q23	Florence H Collett		Born in 1889 at Christchurch
53P7	Susan Collett was born at Christchurch in 1848, the daughter of Samuel and Catherine Collett, and she was two years old at the time of the Christchurch census of 1851 and twelve years old in 1861. By the time of the census of 1871 Susan was no longer living at her parent’s house in Christchurch, and may well have been married by then.
53P8	Emily Collett was born at Christchurch in 1850, the daughter of Samuel and Catherine Collett, and was recorded as being under one year old in the Christchurch census of 1851 and ten years old in 1861. Emily was still living with her family at Christchurch in 1871 when she was twenty.
	No record of Emily has been found in 1881 when she would have been thirty so she may have been married by then. It is known that an Emily Charlotte from Christchurch married a David J Morgan and that in 1891 and 1901 the childless couple were living at Oystermouth where it is known that Emily’s sister Catherine Collett (above) was living at this time.
	In 1911 this Emily Charlotte Morgan was a widow from Christchurch age sixty who was still living at Oystermouth. The positive linking of this Emily to Emily Collett has still to be made.
	The only other members of the Collett family from Christchurch to live at Oystermouth during this time are Catherine Collett (Ref. 53P5), who was Emily’s older unmarried sister, and their niece Elizabeth Jane Collett (Ref. 53Q20).
53P9	Charles Collett was born at Christchurch in 1852, the son of Samuel and Catherine Collett. In 1861 he was eight years old and ten years later he was seventeen, and on both occasion he was living with his family at Christchurch.
	It is unclear what happened to Charles over the following year since he has not been positively identified in any of the subsequent census returns in the United Kingdom.
53P10	Thomas Collett was born at Christchurch in 1854, the son of Samuel and Catherine Collett. In the census for Christchurch in 1861 he was six years old and it was there that he was fifteen years old in 1871.
	By 1881 Thomas was still a bachelor at the age of twenty-seven and he was still living with his parents at Royal Oak Hill in Christchurch. His father Samuel was a cattle dealer, and this was also the profession that Charles had taken up, and at this time in his life he was working with his father and his brother Henry (below).
	Just like his brother Charles (above), it is not known exactly what happened to Thomas Collett during the years after 1881 and before the end of the century, except it is established that he married Mary sometime during this time in his life.
	According to the census in March 1901, Thomas Collett of Christchurch was forty-eight (although 46 would have been more accurate) and his occupation was that of a cattle dealer. He was still living in Christchurch and with him was his wife Mary who was forty-three and from Llandeyvth. No record of any children has so far been found.
	By April 1911 the couple were still living in Christchurch where Thomas was fifty-seven and from Christchurch, while his wife Mary was fifty-six.
53P11	Henry Collett was born at Christchurch in 1856, and was the youngest son of Samuel and Catherine Collett. In successive census records for Christchurch he was aged five in 1861, fifteen in 1871, and in 1881 he was still a bachelor living at Royal Oak Hill in Christchurch with his parents. His correct age would have been twenty-five, but the census recorded it in error as being twenty, making him seven years younger than his brother Thomas (above) rather than just two years.
	At this time in his life Henry was working with his father Samuel Collett, and his brother Thomas, who were all employed as cattle dealers. However, during the next few years both of Henry’s parents passed away, and by the time of the census of 1891, Henry was a bachelor of thirty-five and was living with his older unmarried sister Kate Collett (above) at Christchurch.
	Ten years later in 1901 Henry Collett of Christchurch was forty-five and unmarried, and was living at Pleasant View in Christchurch from where he was working as a butcher and a cattle dealer, having his own account – that is being self-employed. However, a search of the census of 1911 has not been successful in locating him, so it is possible that he died young or left the country.
	As a footnote, the graves of most of the people mentioned above can be found in the churchyard at Holy Trinity Church in Christchurch, Gwent in South Wales which is not far from the nearby Royal Oak Hill where they used to live.
53Q1	Charlotte Ann Collett was born at Raincliff Station in South Canterbury, New Zealand on 28.03.1865. She was the first of five children born to the young Welsh couple of Henry Collett and Ann Jane Davis, and was notable as the first ever white-skinned child to be born on the 50,000 acres farmstead that was Raincliff Station.
	Tragically she was not to survive very long, as she died when she was just six months old on the 09.09.1865 when her body was laid to rest in the grounds at Raincliff Station, the grave being marked by the planting of a yew tree in the arboretum.
	In more recent years her grave at Raincliff Station has been marked by a headstone and a memorial plaque, because of its significance in New Zealand’s relatively young history.
53Q2	Elizabeth Collett was born at White Rock Farm, Opihi Flats, on 14.02.1867, the eldest surviving child of Henry Collett and Ann Davis from South Wales. Her birth was dramatic to say the least. Henry and Ann had recently lost their first child and now, with Ann in labour in their small temporary home, the midwife, who was some distance away could not get to the hut because of rising flood waters from the Opihi River just 100 metres away and the Opuha River, which was already in full flood. Henry found himself in a terrible predicament and, after an hour’s ride through the sodden countryside he reached Mrs Gould, a friend and neighbour, who could ride and had a good water-horse. And so it was tith her help, that Elizabeth Collett came into the world.
	More drama occurred exactly a year later when, in the arms of her mother, Elizabeth was rescued from their table top shortly before the hut was swept away by another flood. Understandably the fair haired, blue eyed Liz, was always a special girl to Henry and Ann.
	Elizabeth was three months short of her seventeenth birthday when she married Frank Octavius Matthews from Gloucestershire in England on 07.12.1883 at Daisy Hill. It is understood that the family of Frank Matthews was known to the Collett family when they lived in Great Britain. His married to Elizabeth produced a total of twelve children for the couple, the first few being born on South Island, before the Matthews family move across the water to North Island.
	Through hard work and determination, Frank Matthews moved from Totara Valley near Opihi and Pleasant Point to Taranaki where he continued to buy and sell farms. In the end his total holding amounted to seven farms and a couple of houses. It was on North Island that he became an established farmer and, in later years, his sons followed in his footsteps. Elizabeth Matthews nee Collett died on 24.07.1933 and was buried at Waverley Cemetery, where she was joined just over four years later, following the death of her husband on 13.08.1937.
	The twelve children of Elizabeth Collett and Frank Matthews were: Bessie Ann Matthews (born at Woolston on 26.01.1884, who died in 1953); Charlotte [Lottie] Henrietta Matthews (born at Opihi in 1887, who died in South Africa on 25.04.1977); Walter [Jack] Matthews (born at Opihi on 25.07.1886, who died on 04.09.1961); Elizabeth Matthews (born at Opihi during September 1888, who died at Wanganui on 12.08.1968); Flora Matthews (born at Opihi on 25.08.1889); Ernest Frank Matthews (born at Opihi on 06.04.1892, who was killed in action near Wadi an Sir in Jordan on 01.04.1918); Frederick Collett Matthews MM (born at Opihi on 20.04.1895, who was killed in action at Marfaux in France on 23.07.1918); Leslie Matthews (born at Opihi in 1900, who died at Ngamatapouri on 25.10.1937); Henry [Harry] Robins Matthews (born at Opihi on 04.05.1902, who died on 09.05.1964); Mart Priscilla Gwendolyn Matthews (born at Pleasant Mount on 04.09.1905, who died on 23.01.1981); a still-born son in 1908; and Frank Raymond Matthews (born in 1911, who died on 27.08.1959.
53Q3	WALTER HENRY COLLETT was born at Silverstream (now Kimbell) on the Three Springs Station in South Canterbury on 17.12.1870. He was the only son of Henry Collett and Ann Davis, and shortly after he was born his family moved to Daisy Hill Farm which his father had purchase in 1866.
	It was while he was still living with his family at Daisy Hill Farm that Walter married Annie Eliza Maxwell on 09.06.1897. Annie was from a neighbouring farm, and was the daughter of Alexander Maxwell and Annie Parker, and the sister of Hamilton Maxwell who married Walter’s younger sister Charlotte (below). The first of Walter’s and Annie’s ten children was born later that same year at Upper Waitohi, in Kakahu.
	He first farmed near Annie’s parents’ home, from a small timber cottage where today Alan Cones’ cattle yards are based. He later farmed on the banks of the Opihi River on the Pleasant Point side of Daisy Hill at Exwick Farm, where he was mixed farmer. That second family home is still there today, albeit uninhabited and in a dilapidated stated.
	Annie Collett nee Maxwell died in 1932, and was followed nine years later by her husband, when Walter Henry Collett died on 23.11.1941.
	Annie Eliza Maxwell was born on 11.11.1877 at her parents' Sunnyside Farm near Cannington Sheep Station and had the distinction of being the first European child born at Cannington. Around about 1881 her family crossed to Kakahu, and she later attended primary school there. She lived at home with her parents, providing help on the farm until, at the age of 19, on Wednesday 9^th June 1897 at Daisy Hill Farm, she married Walter Henry Collett, who was 26.
	They lived first at Kakahu about half a kilometre down the road from her parents' house. There she gave birth to eight of her ten children, with the last two children being born at Daisy Hill. Walter and Annie leased, then bought nearby Exwick Farm. The following twelve years saw her family grow into adulthood. In 1932 she became ill and died in Timaru Public Hospital on 16^th July 1932 from breast carcinoma. She was only 54 years old.
	At that time her oldest child ‘Hap Collett’ was 35, while the youngest, Esther, was only 16. Annie eventually had 22 grandchildren and 57 great grandchildren. She was a bright, well-spoken, and gentle Christian woman, who was burdened by the Great Depression and the demands of a large, growing family having to cope in a dwelling lacking size and everyday comforts.
	53R1	Henry Alexander Parker Collett		Born in 1897 at Kakahu
	53R2	Estelle May Collett		Born in 1898 at Kakahu
	53R3	Charlotte Elizabeth Mary Collett		Born in 1901 at Kakahu
	53R4	Walter Hamilton Davis Collett		Born in 1903 at Kakahu
	53R5	LLEWELLYN MAXWELL COLLETT		Born in 1905 at Kakahu
	53R6	Ann Collett		Born in 1907 at Kakahu
	53R7	Mary Victoria Gwendoline Collett		Born in 1909 at Kakahu
	53R8	Francis David Collett		Born in 1911 at Kakahu
	53R9	Andrew James Howell Collett		Born in 1914 at Pleasant Point
	53R10	Esther Ruth Collett		Born in 1916 at Pleasant Point
53Q4	Charlotte Ann Collett was born at Daisy Hill Farm on 21.02.1873, the youngest surviving child of Henry Collett and Anne Davis. She was among the first pupils enrolled at the Opihi School although, at that time, there were no secondary schools for her to attend. She fully absorbed the rhythm of farm life and understood it well. It was on 12.04.1909 at Daisy Hill that Charlotte married neighbouring farmer Hamilton Maxwell, the brother of Annie Maxwell her sister-in-law, and the son of Alexander Maxwell and Annie Parker.
	The marriage of Charlotte and Hamilton produced three children, the eldest of which, Nancy Maxwell, compiled the family history in a book entitled The Collett Saga around 1961, to coincide with the centenary of the arrival of her grandfather Henry Collett in New Zealand. This fascinating work was composed using stories handed down by Henry and his wife Anne Collett to their daughter Charlotte, who then passed it onto Nancy.
	Charlotte’s two other children were Alexander Maxwell, who was known as Sandy, and Hamilton Maxwell, who was known as Young Hammy, his father being called Hammy Maxwell. Nancy Maxwell, who was baptised Annie Parker Henrietta Maxwell was born on 13.02.1910 and died on 15.10.1986, Sandy was born on 14.02.1912 and was baptised Alexander Collett Davies Maxwell, and he died on 23.04.1986 aged 74, while Hamilton Walter Ernest Maxwell was born on 03.01.1913 and lived most of his later life in Christchurch, where he died in 2008.
	Hamilton Maxwell was born at Cannington on 2^nd February 1881. He was raised at Kakahu and attended the Kakahu School. He was fortunate in having Miss Jenny McKay, one of New Zealand's leading poets and feminists, as his teacher. He was also taught by the Meredith sisters who later were among the first New Zealand women to gain medical degrees. He worked on his father's farm, Greenhills, and married Charlotte Ann Collett on 12^th April 1909. Six months before his marriage, he bought 80 acres lying between Collett's Road and the Opihi River, quite close to the Hanging Rock bridge.
	On the death of his father in February 1912, the Greenhills title was transferred to him. Hammy, as he was known, was by then an experienced farmer. Energetic and determined to make a success of the start given him, Hammy put a lot of effort into his rather hilly 328 acres. In July 1923 he bought a further 124 acres running along his northern boundary. With increasing assistance from sons Alex and young Hammy, and nephew Andy Collett, Hammy farmed the 452 acres for the next twenty years.
	With guaranteed sales of whatever they produced, at long last living standards rose and as sales soared. The family began to enjoy the fruits of their success: electricity, phones, automobiles, steam engines, motor lorries, threshing machines, drills, motorcycles, radio, hot running water, and a vastly increased choice in clothing and furniture. More years like that would have really established the family, when suddenly everything was soured by The Great Economic Depression.
	The family business was just kept afloat, but only by the hard labourers of the family members, and by the late 1930 Charlotte and Hammy had survived the ordeal. But then they were faced with the Second World War to upset everything again. Their sons Alex and Hammy were away from the farm, Alex on Active Service, while Hammy was deemed not fit for war, and was assigned other work. With no country having more of its man-power called up for service than New Zealand, the country's rural labour force evaporated.
	Their daughter Nancy waded in and very effectively assumed an increasing amount of the farm duties. Understandably Hammy Maxwell, then in his early sixties, was profoundly stressed by the unremitting overwork and isolation. He died in 1944 and, following the death of her husband, Charlotte assumed the matriarch role and lived another seventeen years before she passed away on 10.05.1961 aged 87.
53Q5	Mary Emily Collett was born at Daisy Hill Farm on 09.06.1875, the youngest of the five children born to Henry Collett and Ann Davis. Unfortunately she survived for only three months, when she passed away during in September 1875, although there is still a mystery surrounding where she was laid to rest.
53Q6	Henry Collett was born during the first three months of 1859 and this is likely to have taken place within the parish of St Woolos in Newport, with the birth registered in Newport. He was the son of Walter Collett and Mary Ann Thomas and was recorded as living with his parents at 17 Peel Street in Cardiff in 1861 aged one year, and again in 1871 at the age of twelve years.
	At the time of the later census the family was recorded as living ‘near the church’ in Christchurch and, right next door in the adjacent property, was the family of the farmer Samuel Collett who had been born in the St Woolos area of Newport. He was the uncle of Henry’s father Walter Collett. At twelve years old Henry Collett was still attending the local school at that time.
	With the death of his mother in 1876, his father remarried and it was possibly around this time that Henry moved out of the family home in Christchurch. So far no record of him has been found in the census of 1881, so at the age of around twenty-two, he may have been out of the country.
	Around the mid 1880s Henry married the widow Elizabeth Hall of Bedminster near Bristol, who already had two sons and a daughter from her previous marriage. By early 1891 the marriage between Henry and Elizabeth had produced three children for the couple and in the census that year the family was living at 42 Stow Hill.
	Stow Hill in Newport lies in the parish of St Woolos, so Henry had returned to settle with the same area that he had been born. The census return for 1891 listed him and his family as Henry Collett 32, his wife Elizabeth 36, her sons George Hall 19 and Ernest Hall 16, and Henry’s three children as Edith Collett 4, Henry Collett aged one year, and Gladys Collett who was just three months old.
	By that time in his life Henry Collett was an established groom and cab driver who was managing his own cab business, for which he employed the services of his two stepsons as cab drivers. Whilst the place of birth of his own three children was given correctly as Newport, Henry curiously stated for some reason that he had been born in London.
	In addition to the two Hall boys, two other cab drivers were boarding with the family, and perhaps were also employed by Henry. These were Edward Powell 28 of Newport, and Worthy Gilson 21 from Bath.
	In 1881 the two Hall sons of widow Elizabeth were living with their grandparents George and Jane Hall at their Somerset home at 3 Richmond Terrace in Bedminster. George Hall (of Bristol) was nine and Ernest Hall (of Bath) was five, and also with them was their younger sister Mary Ann Hall who was two years old.
	In fact in the same census (1881) Elizabeth was a widow at the age of twenty-six, and at that time she was employed as a night nurse at the Bristol General Hospital in Commercial Road in Bedminster, not far from where her parents lived with her three children.
	Over the next five years the family of Henry and Elizabeth increased in size, and it may have been this that prompted a move to another house on Stow Hill in Newport. Just after the start of the new century the family were recorded in the census of 1901 as living at 78 Stow Hill in the parish of St Woolos.
	Henry Collett, at the age of forty-one years, was a cab proprietor and an employer, and on this occasion he did acknowledge that he had been born at Newport. With him was his wife Elizabeth who was forty-six, but gone by that time were her two sons.
	Eldest daughter Edith had completed her education and had since left the family home for work purposes at only fourteen years of age (see separate details later). All of the couple’s remaining children were listed as Henry 12, Gladys 10, Mary Ann 8, and Gwendoline who was five.
	Ten years later the same family was listed in the 1911 Census of Newport as Henry 56 (sic), Elizabeth 56, Henry Arnold Collett 21, Amy Gladys 20, Mary Ann 18, and Gwendoline 15.
	53R11	Edith Florence Collett		Born in 1886 at Newport
	53R12	Henry Arnold Collett		Born in 1889 at Newport
	53R13	Amy Gladys Collett		Born in 1891 at Newport
	53R14	Mary Ann Collett		Born in 1893 at Newport
	53R15	Gwendoline Collett		Born in 1895 at Newport
53Q7	Charlotte Collett was born in 1860 at Cardiff when her parents Walter Collett and Mary Ann Thomas were living at 17 Peel Street. Sometime after she was born her father, who was a ship’s carpenter, may have lost his job in Cardiff, because the family was living at Christchurch in a house near the church in April 1871, when Charlotte Collett of Cardiff was ten years old.
	Although not proved, it seems very likely that Charlotte married William Saunders when she was barely the legal age to do so. If this is confirmed, in 1881 Charlotte Saunders was the mother of three children by then.
	The census return that year placed the Saunders family as living at 8 Upper Lewis Street in the parish of St Woolos in Newport where it is known Charlotte’s father was born. Her husband William was 21 of Newport with no stated occupation, Charlotte of Newport was 20, and the couple’s three children were Maud 3, Margaret 1, and Annie who was just six weeks old.
53Q8	William Collett was born at Christchurch in 1878, the birth being registered during the third quarter of the year to parents Walter Collett and his second wife Mary Walters. In April 1881 he was living with his parents at Royal Oak Hill in Christchurch when he was two years old. He was still there ten years later at the age of twelve.
	On leaving school William began working with wood which prompted a moved to London for him and his brother Edward (below). By the end of March in 1901 the brothers were both living at 5 Sonardale Road in Wandsworth, where William was described as a timber merchant’s manager aged twenty-two.
	Within the next year or so, William returned to Newport where he married (1) Beatrice Harriet Perrett during the final quarter of 1903. Beatrice was born at Llangattock near Crickhowell in 1875, the daughter of John and Elizabeth Perrett. In 1881 Beatrice was five years old and was living with her gamekeeper father and the rest of her family at Llangrwyney near Crickhowell.
	Just prior to her marriage to William Collett, Beatrice was unmarried and was living with her family at Abersychan near Pontypool, where she was recorded as being twenty-six in the census of 1901. The family home at that time was a hotel in the town, which was being managed by her father John.
	Once married the couple settled within the Pontypridd area and it was there that the marriage produced two children for William and Beatrice. However, it would appear that the marriage only lasted for around eighteen months when Beatrice died at, or shortly after, the birth of their daughter.
	The death was registered at Pontypridd during the second quarter of 1905, when Beatrice’s age was given in error as being twenty-six which was William’s age, when in fact she was nearly thirty. The birth of her daughter Hetty was also registered at Pontypridd during this same period of 1905.
	Three years later, and following the death of his first wife, William married (2) Florence Price from Maindee in Newport, with whom he had another son. However, the Newport census return for 1911 only listed William Collett, his wife Florence Collett, and their son William John Collett.
	At that time the family of three was living at 30 Somerton Road in Newport. William was thirty-two and a coal merchant, his wife of three years Florence was thirty, and their son William John was two years old and had been born at Maindee in Newport, where his mother had also been born.
	53R16	Roscoe Elrick Collett		Born in 1904 at Pontypridd
	53R17	Hetty Beatrice Collett		Born in 1905 at Pontypridd
	53R18	William John Collett		Born in 1908 at Maindee, Newport
53Q9	Edward Collett was born at Christchurch in December 1880 when his parents, Walter Collett and Mary Thomas, were living at Royal Oak Hill where Edward was recorded as being four months old in the census of 1881. Ten years later he was listed as being ten years old when still living at Royal Oak with his family.
	Edward would appear to have followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming a carpenter and a joiner, and during the latter half 1890s he accompanied his older brother William when they moved to London to seek work. In March 1901 the two brothers were living at 5 Sonardale Road in Wandsworth where Edward was confirmed as being twenty years old.
	When Edward’s brother returned to South Wales, Edward also returned to Newport and at the age of thirty he was back living at the home of his elderly parents in April 1911. It has not been established whether or not he later in his life he became a married man.
53Q10	Edith A Collett was born at Christchurch in 1875 the first child of Walter Collett and Harriet Senior. In 1881, at the age of five years, Edith A Collett was living at Somerton Farm in Christchurch with her parents. Ten years later she was still living with her parents at Christchurch.
	However, sometime during the last ten years of the century Edith’s mother died and it may have been this sad event that prompted her father to leave Christchurch and move to the village of Nash near the south coast. And it was at Nash that she was living with her father in March 1901 at the age of twenty-five.
	It is very likely that she was married during the next decade, since no record of Edith Collett of Christchurch has been found in the census of 1911.
53Q11	Linda Harriet Collett was born at Christchurch in 1877, and it was as Linda H Collett that she was recorded in the Christchurch census of 1881 as being three years old when living at Somerton Farm with her parents. Ten years later she was thirteen and still at Christchurch, but after a further ten years she was living in the village of Nash south of Newport with her widowed father at the age of twenty-three.
	No record of Linda Collett has been found in 1911 so it is presumed that she was marred by then.
53Q12	Arthur Walter Collett was born at Christchurch in 1879 and this probably took place at Somerton Farm where his family was living in 1881, when Arthur W Collett was one year old. He was still living there ten years later in 1891 when he was eleven.
	What happened to Arthur after this time has not been discovered since no record of him has been found in either of the census returns for 1901 and 1911.
53Q13	Ethel Mary Collett was born at Somerton Farm in Christchurch in February 1881 and was one month old in the census that year. She was still living at Christchurch with her family in 1891 when she was ten, but, following the death of her mother, she was living with her father at Nash in 1901 when she was twenty. Sometime during the next few years the family returned to Newport.
	The 1911 Census for the Newport registration district included Ethel Mary Collett of Christchurch as a spinster of thirty years, who was acting as housekeeper to her widowed father and her two younger brothers. It is not known at this time whether she was ever married.
53Q14	Edgar Henry Collett was born at Somerton Farm in Christchurch in 1883 and was still living there with his family in 1891 when he was eight years old. Not long after this his mother died and his family then moved to Nash, south of Newport. By March 1901 Edgar was eighteen and still living at Nash with his family, from where he was working as an ironmonger’s assistant.
	In 1911 Edgar was a bachelor at twenty-eight years of age when he was still living with his father Walter, his sister Ethel (above), and his brother Frederick (below), the three of them having left Nash and by then were living in the Newport area.
53Q15	Frederick George Collett was born at Somerton Farm in Christchurch in 1885 and was five years old in the census of 1891 while still living there with his family. Frederick was still very young when his mother died during the next few years, at which time, it is assumed, the family left Christchurch and moved south to the village of Nash near the south coast of Wales.
	Frederick was still attending school in 1901 and was fifteen years old while living at Nash with his family. A little while later Fred, as he was referred to in 1901, and his father and two youngest siblings left Nash and moved back to Newport.
	According to the next census in April 1911, Frederick George Collett from Christchurch was a bachelor of twenty-five living in Newport with his father Walter Collett, and his sister Ethel and brother Edgar (above).
53Q16	Catherine Anne Collett, who was sometimes referred to as Kate, was born at Christchurch in 1873, the eldest child of butcher and cattle dealer William Henry Collett of Royal Oak Farm. It was as Kate that she was recorded in the census of 1881 when she was eight years old.
	Ten years later in the Christchurch census of 1891 she was incorrectly recorded as Rose Collett aged seventeen while still living with her family, but this may have been a simple misinterpretation of the name Kate.
	By March 1901 Catherine was married to Alfred White of Newport and the childless couple were living in Christchurch. Catherine was listed as Catherine Anna White, twenty-eight of Christchurch, and Alfred was thirty-three, who was working as a jobbing gardener.
	During the next few years Catherine presented her husband with two daughters, both of whom were born at Christchurch, where the family of four was still living in April 1911. Alfred White was 43, Catherine Anne White was 38, and their two children were Doris Irene Kate White who was nine, and Ida Lilian Lucy White who was six years old.
53Q17	Charles S Collett was born at Christchurch in 1876, the eldest son of William and Elizabeth Collett of Royal Oak Farm, where he was most likely born. In 1881 Charles was five and ten years later he was fourteen, on both occasions he was living with his family on the farm in Christchurch.
	During the 1890s the Collett family left Christchurch and moved into the town of Newport where Charles S Collett was living with his parents in 1901. Rather curiously his age was stated as being twenty-one rather than twenty-four, although his occupation was similar to that of his father, being that of a pork butcher.
	Over the next couple of years Charles married Mary Ann with whom he had a daughter and by 1911 the family of three was living in Penarth near Cardiff. Charles Collett and his wife Mary Ann were both listed in the census return as being thirty-two, and their daughter Doris Jane Collett was five years old.
	53R19	Doris Jane Collett		Born in 1905
53Q18	Alfred Collett was born at Royal Oak Farm in Christchurch in 1878 and was three years old in the census of 1881. He was twelve years old ten years later and was still living at Christchurch with his parents.
	In 1901 he gave an incorrect age, just as his brother Charles (above) had on that same occasion when they were both living and working together with their father, the butcher and cattle dealer William Collett. And just like his brother, Alfred also reduced his age by three years, saying he was nineteen instead of twenty-two.
	Alfred’s place of birth was confirmed as Christchurch, and his occupation was stated as being that of a butcher and cattle dealer, the same as his father. During the next decade Alfred married Letitia who was around five years older than Alfred.
	So by the time of the census of 1911 Alfred gave a more accurate account of his age, by saying he was thirty-three. His wife Letitia was thirty eight and the childless couple were living in the Merthyr Tydfil area at that time.
53Q19	Edmund Collett was born at Royal Oak Farm in Christchurch in October 1880 and was five months in the census of 1881. He and his family were still living in Christchurch in 1891 when he was incorrectly listed as Edward Collett aged ten years, but following that his family moved to Newport.
	On leaving school Edmund took up the same profession as his father and his brothers (above) by becoming a butcher. The Newport census of 1901 confirmed this, and that he was born at Christchurch.
	However, as with his two brothers Charles and Alfred who were also living at the family home, Edmund’s age was given incorrectly as being seventeen rather than twenty, and a third occurrence of the age being reduced by three years.
	No record of Edmund Collet has been located in the census of 1911.
53Q20	Elizabeth Jane Collett was born at Royal Oak Farm in Christchurch in 1883 and was seven years old in the Christchurch census of 1891. On leaving school she became a dressmaker’s apprentice, and by 1901 she had left the family home which by then was in Newport.
	Elizabeth had given up life in Newport to live as a companion with her maiden aunt Catherine Collett (Ref. 53P5) at her home in Oystermouth in Gower. And it was there that she was recorded with her aunt in 1901 at the age of sixteen when she was described as an apprentice dressmaker.
	Sometime during the early years of the new century Catherine Collett passed away leaving Elizabeth living alone in Oystermouth. This was confirmed in the census in April 1911 when Elizabeth Jane Collett of Newport was twenty-seven and was the only Collett living at Oystermouth in Gower.
	There is a possibility however, that Emily Charlotte Morgan from Christchurch, who was also living at Oystermouth in 1911, was formerly Emily Collett (Ref. 53P8) the sister of Catherine Collett, and therefore another of Elizabeth’s aunts.
53Q21	Henry Collett was born at Christchurch in 1885 and possibly at Royal Oak Farm. Rather oddly he was five years old in 1891 while still at Christchurch with his family, but was aged fifteen ten years later when he and his family had moved to Newport.
	On leaving school Henry became a merchant’s clerk, as recorded in 1901, but to date no record of him has been found in 1911.
53Q22	Betty Collett was born at Christchurch in 1887, although no record of her has been found in the census of 1891. In the 1890s her family left Christchurch and moved to nearby Newport when she was living with them in 1901 at the age of thirteen under the name of Bettie Collett of Newport.
	What became of her after this is not clear, since no suitable record has been found in the census of 1911
53Q23	Florence H Collett was born at Christchurch in 1889 and was referred to as Florrie Collett aged two years in the Christchurch census of 1891. Ten years after this her family had left Christchurch and were living in Newport, where Florence H Collett was eleven in March 1901.
	Florence was twenty-one and the only member of her family still living with her parents in April 1911. By that time they had moved from Newport and were living in Merthyr Tydfil, where her older brother Alfred Collett (above) and his wife were also living on that occasion.
53R1	Henry Alexander Parker Collett was born at home in that part of Kakahu known as the Upper Waitohi, South Canterbury on 27.10.1897, the eldest child of Walter Henry Collett, who was 27, and Annie Eliza Maxwell, who was 19. His named derived from his paternal grandfather Henry, his maternal grandfather Alexander Maxwell, and his maternal grandmother Annie Parker.
	He was destined to be a bachelor, when he dedicated his life to working on the family farm, where he was a sheep shearer. He also worked on chaff cutters and became the ‘Water-Joey’. He was a fine shot with a gun and later took up the position of ‘rabbitor’ for the Rabbit Board. Tragically it was this activity that cut short his life.
	While galloping on his horse in 1945, some loose equipment caused the horse to stumble, throwing Henry to the ground, with the horse then rolling on top of him. The serious injuries he sustained resulted in his death, when he died in Timaru Hospital one week later, at the age of 47. Coincidentally, both his grandfather and great grandfather were also killed in horse accidents, all three of them being the first born male child in their respective families.
	With the acronym of HAP, and a constant grin on his face, he was known at home and throughout the district as Happy Collett, and was one of those rare individuals who was universally well-liked by everyone with whom he came into contact.
53R2	Estelle May Collett was born at Kakahu in New Zealand during 1898, the eldest daughter of Walter Henry Collett and Annie Eliza Maxwell. She attended to the Kakahu Bush School, with her sister Charlotte, and her brothers Walter and Llewellyn (all below), following which she later trained as a nurse. She married chemist Les Sarney, but tragically died during childbirth at Wanganui on 13.10.1933, when she was just 34 years old. Whether or not the baby lived, still remains a mystery.
53R3	Charlotte Elizabeth Mary Collett was born at Kakahu in 1901, the third of the ten children of Walter and Annie Collett. She received her primary education at Kakahu Bush School up to 1913, and therafter went to school in Opihi. She married Johann Martin Hullen who came from a well known family in the district. Their marriage produced three children for the couple. Martin, as her husband was better known, died on 05.09.1976 at the age of 82, while Charlotte Hullen nee Collett died fifteen years later on 01.07.1991 when she was 90.
	The couple’s three children were: Walter Henry Hullun (born at Geraldine on 06.06.1928, who married Flora Agnes Pearce in 1953); Alexander Martin Hullen (born at Geraldine on 05.02.1933, who married Elizabeth Cullen in 1956); and Annie June Mary Hullen (born at Leeston on 23.02.1937, who married John William Woolfe, and who died on 15.01.1995.
53R4	Walter Hamilton Davis Collett was born at Kakahu in 1903, and was the second son of Walter Henry Collett and Annie Eliza Maxwell. Kakahu lies approximately two miles to the east of Raincliff where his grandparents first met and settled, and about five miles north of Pleasant Point where his grandfather initially settled on his arrival from South Wales in 1861.
	He attended the Kakahu Primary School up to 1913, and the Opihi School after that date. He became a gun shearer and, on one occasion, he sheared 300 sheep in a day at Bluecliff Station, creating a New Zealand record which stood for almost a decade. Perhaps more remarkable was the shearing of 500 sheep by Walter and his older brother ‘Hap Collett’ (above), after driving them up from Opihi in the early dawn to their uncle's shed at Greenhills in Kakahu, and returning the flock at the end of the day.
	Walter was more commonly known as Wattie Collett and he was born to be a farmer like his father. In fact he worked with his father and his brothers on the family’s land at Exwick Farm, which he and his brother Francis David Collett (below) aka Jack Collett, eventually took over in 1935.
	It was five years later, and just after the end of the Second World War that Walter Collett married Edith Shirley Pitt on 13.04.1946. By that time Wattie was 42 years old and was exactly twice the age of his young bride, who was known as Shirley.
	Over the following five years Shirley presented Walter with four children while they were still living at Exwick Farm. However, by 1952 Wattie had relinquished the family’s interest in the farm, when he sold his share to his brother Jack and, with the money he purchased a freehold farm on his own. That was some one hundred miles away at Hedgedale in mid Canterbury near Rakaia, approximately twenty miles south-west of Christchurch.
	And it was there at Hedgedale where two more children were born to Wattie and Shirley to make their family complete by 1955. Walter Hamilton Davis Collett died in 1976 at the age of 72, while Shirley survived for a further seventeen years, when she passed away in 1993 aged 68. Both of them are interned at the Ashburton Cemetery, where their eldest daughter is also buried.
	It was around twenty-three years after Walter and his brother Jack had broken up their farming partnership, that they were reunited towards the end of 1975. Not long after that Walter Hamilton Davis Collett died on 20.01.1976, and just over one month later his brother Jack, who was eight years younger, also passed away.
	Edith Shirley Collett nee Pitt survived her husband by seventeen years, when she died on 04.05.1993.
	53S1	Marilyn Ann Collett		Born in 1947 at Exwick Farm
	53S2	Jeanette Mary Collett		Born in 1948 at Exwick Farm
	53S3	Henry Walter Collett		Born in 1949 at Exwick Farm
	53S4	David John Collett		Born in 1951 at Hedgedale, nr Rakaia
	53S5	Charles Richard Collett		Born in 1954 at Ashburton
	53S6	Heather Margaret Collett		Born in 1955 at Ashburton
53R5	LLEWELLYN MAXWELL COLLETT, who was known as Lew, was born at Kakahu on 08.07.1905, the fifth child of Walter and Annie Collett. He attended the Kakahu Bush School with his sisters, Estella and Charlotte, and his brother Walter (all above). Around 1913 his father and mother moved the family to live at Daisy Hill, after which he attended the Opihi School.
	He later gained his Steam Traction Engine Certificate and began driving for mill owners Miller Patrick, Burt Kelburgh and Jack Towzer, ranging over most of the country between Timaru and the Southern Alps. In 1930 he married Rubena Mabel Creighton at the Timaru Registry Office, and their marriage produced three children for the couple. Times were tough for Lew and Ruby during the Great Depression, but Lew’s previous experience with driving steam traction engines, secured him a job.
	It was during 1937 that Lew commenced work with the Public Works Department on the Rangitata Diversion Race Scheme, an extensive irrigation project. Later, he was involved in land clearance, and he did further work with earth moving machinery for the PWD throughout Southland.
	On 04.01.1970, when he was 64, Llewellyn Maxwell Collett died very suddenly while visiting his sister Mary (below), and her husband Frank Collins, and their son Peter Collins at Paeora, just south of Timaru. Following his death, he was buried in the Pleasant Point Cemetery.
	53S7	RAYMOND LLEWELLYN COLLETT		Born on 07.04.1931 at Dunedin
	53S8	Robert Maxwell Collett		Born on 02.01.1936 at Tuatapere
	53S9	Elaine Margaret Collett		Born on 14.05.1937 at Timaru
53R6	Ann Collett, who was known as Annie, was born at Kakahu in 1907, and was another daughter of Walter and Annie Collett. She never married and died at Timaru on 23.04.1986 at the age of 79, following which she was buried at Pleasant Point in New Zealand. When she was still very young, sometime around 1911, Annie suffered a terrible horse accident, but despite that incident she remained a cheery and likeable person who carried out farm worker duties and domestic work at the family farm, and later on, at the farms of her two sisters.
53R7	Mary Victoria Gwendoline Collett was born at Kakahu on 21.06.1909, and was the seventh child of Walter Collett and Annie Maxwell. It was at Timaru on 06.05.1931 that she married Daniel Francis Collins who was born at Geraldine on 16.12.1906. Over the following years Mary presented Frank with three children while they were living at Timaru.
	Mary and Frank spend the rest of their lives working as a couple on various farm properties. During the years from 1933 to 1945 they worked the Raincliff and Rockwood Stations, and both of them were well known in the South Canterbury district dance scene.
	Their three children were: Donald Francis Collins who was born on 09.11.1936, and who married Carol Elizabeth Lyne; Rosemary Ann Collins who was born on 16.01.1941, and who married Trevor Prentice on 01.09.1962; and Peter John Collins who was born on 01.03.1948, and who married Yvonne [Bonnie] Titterton on 09.01.1971.
	Mary Gwendoline Collins nee Collett passed away at Timaru on 08.05.1970, following which it was there also that she was interned. It was nearly ten years later that her husband Frank died on 04.01.1980.
53R8	Francis David Collett was born at Kakahu on 04.07.1911 and was known as Jack. He was the fourth son of Walter and Annie Collett. He attended the primary schools at Opihi and Pleasant Point and, once his education was completed, he continued to work on the family’s Exwick Farm. However, during the difficult time of the Great Depression, the farm business was nearly lost, and in 1932 Jack’s mother also died. And so it was, that in 1937 Jack and his older brother Wattie (Walter Collett, above) entered into a partnership to take over the farm from their father, who died four years later in 1941.
	It was also in 1937 that Jack married Hazel Turner, who was born at Kingston on 25.07.1917. Seven years later, and towards the end of the Second World War, Hazel presented Jack with the couple’s only child. In 1952 the farming partnership between the brothers, Jack and Wattie, came to an end, when Wattie sold his share of the farm to his brother so that he could purchase his own farm around twenty miles from Christchurch.
	The break-up of the family partnership, and the resulting one hundred miles that then separated the two brothers, meant that they remained distant to each other for many years, without any communication at all. It was only just prior to their passing that they were eventually reunited, after almost twenty-four years of being apart.
	Francis David Collett worked the land at Exwick Farm right up until his death on 25.02.1976, and just one month after his older brother Wattie had passed away. His widow Hazel Collett nee Turner survived for another twelve years, when she died during 1988.
	53S10	Claire Irene Charlotte Collett		Born on 24.05.1944
53R9	Andrew James Howell Collett, who was known as Andy, was born at Daisy Hill, Pleasant Point on 02.05.1914, the fifth and youngest son of Walter and Annie Collett. He lived at Daisy Hill until he was five years old, when his family moved to Ettrick Farm. He attended Opihi and Pleasant Point Primary Schools, after which he supported himself with seasonal work off the farm. This involved ploughing with big teams of horses, the tough life of a mill-hand, and chaff-cutting to fuel the horses which, at that particular time, were considered still to be superior to the new-fangled kerosene tractors.
	He later worked at the Smithfield Freezing Works and was a Great Opihi River fisherman. One of his talents was that he played bagpipes. In 1941 he married Dorothy Isabel Harvey, who was born on 10.05.1921, with whom he had five children. The family lived at Timaru, where all of the children were born, and where Andrew James Collett died on 10.09.1997 at the age of 83. His widow, known as Dot, was still living at Bouverie Street in Timaru in 2010.
	53S11	Brian Collett		Born on 06.10.1942 at Timaru
	53S12	John Robert Collett		Born on 22.02.1944 at Timaru
	53S13	Allan James Collett		Born on 13.11.1945 at Timaru
	53S14	Beverley Ann Collett		Born on 24.01.1947 at Timaru
	53S15	Shirley Collett		Born on 03.03.1950 at Timaru
53R10	Esther Ruth Collett was born at Daisy Hill, Pleasant Point in 1916, the youngest child of Walter Collett and Annie Maxwell. The first three years of her life were spent at Daisy Hill, before her family settled at Ettrick Farm. Esther was twenty years old in June 1936 when she married James Robert Cartwright, who was known as Bob, and with whom she had a daughter Roberta [Robbie] Ann Cartwright.
	Bob Cartwright, who was born during 1909 into a well-known South Canterbury pioneering family, was a widower and already had a son, James Robert Cartwright (born 1933), by his first wife Amy Stocker. Once they were married, Bob and Esther initially leased ‘Rockwood’, but later purchased ‘Highlands’ at Cannington. Many of the extended Collett family recall happy memories of some great holidays there.
	Bob, who was a Highland Games competitor, and a judge, died in 1963 when he was only 54. Esther tragically followed two years later. Their daughter Robbie, who was born in 1943, today is Robbie Preston who was the lead co-ordinator, with her cousins Heather Holloway nee Collett, and Raymond Collett, for the 150^th Collett Anniversary Celebration at Timaru in January 2011.
53R11	Edith Florence Collett was born at Newport in 1886 and was the eldest child of Henry Collett and Mrs Elizabeth Hall. In 1891 Edith was four years old and was living with her family at 42 Stow Hill in Newport.
	Upon leaving school, Edith had the opportunity of entering the teaching profession but this required a move north to Longton near Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. And it was there that she was recorded as Edith F Collett, an elementary school teacher in 1901 at the very young age of fourteen.
	Whether she secured this position with the help of a distant family relative living in the village of Longton at that time has not been confirmed. This was Josiah George Collett 31 and from Wednesbury in Staffordshire, and his wife Alice Maud Mary Collett 29 of Hanley, Staffordshire. Their family at that time comprised sons George Ernest Collett 6, and William Edward Collett 4, both born at Longton.
	Edith was still a single lady ten years later in April 1911, when she was still living and working in Longton. In the census return she was recorded as Edith Florence Collett aged twenty-four from Newport.
53R12	Henry Arnold Collett was born at Newport in 1889 and was the eldest son of Henry and Elizabeth Collett. He was one year old in 1891 when he was living with his family at 42 Stow Hill in Newport, and ten years after in 1901 he was twelve years of age and was living at 78 Stow Hill with his family.
	It was as Henry Arnold Collett that he was recorded in the census of 1911 when he was twenty-one and still living with his family in Newport.
53R13	Amy Gladys Collett was born at Newport in January 1891 and, as Gladys Collett, she was three months old at the time of the census in April that same year when she was living at 42 Stow Hill with her family.
	It was again as Gladys Collett that she was listed in the next census in March 1901 when she was ten years old and living with her family at 78 Stow Hill in Newport, from where he father Henry operated a cab company.
	It was in April 1911 that she was recorded as Amy Gladys Collett who was twenty, unmarried, and still living with her parents in Newport.
53R14	Mary Ann Collett was born at Newport in 1893 and this may have taken place whilst her parents were living at 42 Stow Hill in Newport. However, sometime after she was born her family moved to another house on Stow Hill, this being number 78, where they were living in 1901 when Mary Ann was eight.
	Ten years later Mary Ann Collett was eighteen and was still living with her parents in Newport.
53R15	Gwendoline Collett was born at Newport in 1895, and this may have happened while her family were living at 42 or 78 Stow Hill in Newport. It was at the latter that Gwendoline was living with his parents in 1901 when she was five, and she was still living with them at Newport in 1911 at the age of fifteen.
53R16	Roscoe Elrick Collett was born in 1904, the birth being registered at Pontypridd during the second quarter of that year. He was the son of William Collett and his first wife Beatrice Welshman.
	Three years after the death of his mother in 1905, around the time of the birth of Roscoe’s sister Hetty (below), his father remarried, following which he settled in Newport and was living at 30 Somerton Road in 1911. However, by this time it is known that his sister Hetty had been adopted by the Collins family (see details below), although what became of Roscoe following the death of his mother has not yet been determined. Nor has any record of him been found in the census of 1911.
	What is known is that Roscoe E Collett married Doris Mason at Gloucester during the first quarter of 1935, Doris having been born in 1907. The only other known fact about this couple is that they lived at Middleyard in Kings Stanley near Stonehouse in Gloucestershire. Doris survived for many years as a widow until 2002, which might indicated that Roscoe was somehow involved in the Second World War during which he may have been killed.
	The Pontypridd census of 1911 included a Doris Mason who was born in 1907, the youngest daughter at that time of Joseph and Lucy Mason. The other children of that family were Frederick who was 8, Ivor who was 7, and Phyllis who was five. It is only because of the possible Pontypridd connection with Roscoe Collett that this information has been included here.
	Roscoe was known as Ross, while Doris Collett nee Mason was referred to by the family as Dolly. She was the great aunt of Keith Brown of Australia, whose wife Judy kindly provided much of the information for the compilation of this family line, as well as some for her own line in Part 35 – The Melksham Line.