PART SIXTY

The Cambridgeshire to Australia Line

December 2011

The earliest records for this family spelt Collett with a single t,

and in one case the name was written as Collit.

Today there are still members of the Collett family living in Toft near Cambridge,

one of them being Koran Collett (Ref. 60R2) and his wife Gill,

whose family line is denoted by the names in capital letters

60K1	JOSIAH COLLETT may have been born within the county of Staffordshire, since it was there at the Cathedral in Lichfield as Josiah Collet that he married Martha Blooden on 7^th September 1744. The only child so far found for the couple was baptised at Tamworth at the end of September 1753. However, the baptism record is not conclusion since the only parent listed was Josiah Collet. This may indicate that his wife had died during the birth. There is also a strong possibility that other children had been born to Josiah prior to 1753.
	60L1	JAMES COLLETT			Born in 1753 at Tamworth
60L1	JAMES COLLETT may have been born at Tamworth in 1753, and may have been the son of Josiah Collet, who was baptised there on 30^th September 1753 as James Collet. Tamworth is just over the county boundary from Leicestershire, and it was at Asfordby, near Melton Mowbray that James Collit married Elizabeth Marriott of 20^th August 1781. Elizabeth was in an advanced state of pregnancy on their wedding day, and two months later their first child, their daughter Elizabeth, was born. Sadly she only survived for around five months when she died and was buried at Asfordby.
	James and Elizabeth were still living in Asfordby three and a half years later when their son Henry was born there, but after a further six years the family was living in the adjacent village of Kirby Bellars, just one mile south of Asfordby when their daughter Elizabeth was born, and again five years after that when their son James was born. It is quite likely that other children, so far undiscovered, were born into the family during the years between their four known children.
	60M1	Elizabeth Collett			Born in 1781 at Asfordby
	60M2	HENRY COLLETT			Born in 1785 at Asfordby
	60M3	James Collett			Born in 1791 at Kirby Bellars
	60M4	Elizabeth Collett			Born in 1796 at Kirby Bellars
60M1	Elizabeth Collett was born at Asfordby in 1781, just after her parents were married there on 20^th August. It was also there that she was baptised on 16^th October 1781, the first child of James Collett and Elizabeth Marriott, and there that she died on 13^th March 1782.
60M2	HENRY COLLETT was born at Asfordby in 1785, where he was baptised on 30^th October 1785, the son of James and Elizabeth Collett. Sometime during the first decade of the new century it would appear that Henry travelled the fifty miles south-east of Melton Mowbray to settle in the village of Toft, six miles west of the city of Cambridge. It was there on 18^th October 1815 that Henry Collett married Susan Beaumont. Susan was the daughter of John and Lydia Beaumont and was baptised as Susannah Beaumont on 15^th July 1798 at Comberton, just one mile east of Toft.
	Henry and Susan are known to have had nine children at Toft, although the first national census in June 1841 did include a number of anomalies. The family was still living at Toft, where Henry had a rounded age of 50, rather than 55, while his wife was named as Lucy Collett, who was 40. By that time the couple’s eldest son had left the family home to be married, and their second daughter Ann was already in working and living separately from her family, but still in Toft.
	Therefore the children listed with Henry and Susan (Lucy) were Elizabeth Collett, age 20, John Collett, age 18, Stephen Collett, age 13, Susan Collett, age 11, Mary Collett, who was eight, Lydia (Liddia) Collett, who was five, and Gifford Collett who was two years old.
	It is established that it was during the early months of the following year that Henry Collett died, his death at Toft being recorded during the first quarter of 1842. So by the time of the next census in 1851 Susan Collet, age 55 and a widow from Comberton, was still living at Toft with just her youngest child for company. Gifford Collett was 11 years old. No record of Susan has been found in Great Britain after that time, but it is known that she died in Australia in 1883 at the age of 85, where at least four of her family had emigrated to many years earlier.
	60N1	HENRY COLLETT			Born in 1816 at Toft
	60N2	Elizabeth Collett			Born in 1818 at Toft
	60N3	John Collett			Born in 1822 at Toft
	60N4	Ann Collett			Born in 1824 at Toft
	60N5	Stephen Collett			Born in 1827 at Toft
	60N6	Susan Collett			Born in 1830 at Toft
	60N7	Mary Collett			Born in 1833 at Toft
	60N8	Lydia Collett			Born in 1836 at Toft
	60N9	Gifford Collett			Born in 1839 at Toft
60M3	James Collett was born at Kirby Bellars in 1791, and was baptised there on 30^th July 1791, the son of James and Elizabeth Collett. It is possible that James married Mary Starkey at Sheepy Magna near Atherstone in Leicestershire on 6^th June 1816.
60M4	Elizabeth Collett was born at Kirby Bellars in 1796 and was the second child of that name born to parents James Collett and Elizabeth Marriott. It was also at Kirby Bellars that she was baptised on 10^th July 1796.
60N1	HENRY COLLETT was born at Toft in 1816, the eldest child of Henry Collett and his wife Susan Beaumont. He was around 18 years old when he married Elizabeth Newman at Hardwick, two miles north of Toft, on 23^rd October 1834. Elizabeth was with-child on the day of their wedding and within five months their daughter was born and baptised at Toft. Over the following five years Elizabeth presented Henry with the two more children, both of them also being born while the family was living in Toft.
	This was confirmed by the Toft census of 1841 when Henry Collett and his wife Elizabeth were both 25, and their three children were Ann Collett, who was six, Young Collett, who was four, and Eliza Collett who was two years old. Later that same year Elizabeth gave birth to the couple’s fourth child, and during the next ten years their family was completed with the birth at Toft of a further four children.
	All eight children were still living at Toft with Henry and Elizabeth in 1851, their dwelling described as a tenement on the main road in the village. Henry Collett, age 35 and from Toft, was an agricultural labourer, his wife Elizabeth from Hardwick in Cambridgeshire was 36, and all of their children were confirmed as having been born at Toft.
	They were Ann Collett, age 16, Young Collett, age 14 and an agricultural labourer working with his father, Eliza Collett who was 12, John who was another agricultural labourer at the age of just nine years, Henry Collett, who was seven, William Collett, who was four, Elizabeth, who was three, and latest arrival Frederick who was only three months old.
	It was only two years later that Henry Collett suffered a premature death when he died in 1853 at the age of only 37. Following the death of her husband Elizabeth may have remarried, since no further record of Elizabeth Collett has been found in any later census.
	Although Elizabeth Collett was not listed in the census of 1861, her children were still living in Toft, where their surname was recorded in error as Collet. They were John Collet, age 20, Henry Collet, age 17, William Collet, age 14, Elizabeth Collet, age 12, and Frederick (as Fredrick) Collet who was 10 years old. During the following years William and Elizabeth left the family group to be married, leaving just Henry, who was 27, and Frederick who was 20 still living there in 1871.
	Even though no further record of the widow of Henry Collett has been found, it was forty-two years after his passing that his wife died in Gloucestershire during the first quarter of 1895.
	Although never listed with the family in any census, Henry is also understood to have had a son by the name of George Collett, but it is not clear if he was born prior to Henry’s marriage to Eliza. The details relating to George are that he eventually lived in Australia where he was married and had a daughter Jane, who was later married to become Jane Grimes and who had a son George grimes.
	60O1	Ann Collett			Born in 1835 at Toft
	60O2	Young Collett			Born in 1836 at Toft
	60O3	Eliza Collett			Born in 1838 at Toft
	60O4	JOHN COLLETT			Born in 1841 at Toft
	60O5	Henry Collett			Born in 1844 at Toft
	60O6	William Collett			Born in 1846 at Toft
	60O7	Elizabeth Collett			Born in 1848 at Toft
	60O8	Frederick Collett			Born in 1850 at Toft
60N2	Elizabeth Collett was born at Toft in 1818 and was the eldest daughter of Henry Collett and his wife Susan Beaumont. It was also at Toft that she was baptised on 23^rd June 1818, when her parents were confirmed as Henry and Susan. When Elizabeth was approaching her middle twenties she married Benjamin Hart at Toft on 7^th December 1841. He had been born there in 1817, and over the next two years the marriage produced two children for him and Elizabeth.
	Lydia Hart was born not long after they were married and was baptised in Cambridge on 5^th March 1842. Their son Henry Hart was born just over a year later and he was baptised at Comberton on 5^th March 1843.
	The widow Elizabeth Hart nee Collett died in 1884 at the age of 66.
60N3	John Collett was born at Toft in 1822, and was baptised there on 28^th July 1822, the son of Henry and Susan Collett. In the census of 1841 John was still living with his family in Toft when he was 18. Curiously no further record of him has been found in England after that time, although it is known that he died in 1900 at the age of 78. It is thought that he was living at Toft in 1891 when he was 69, although no actual census return for him at Toft has been found.
60N4	Ann Collett was born at Toft in 1824, where she was baptised on 8^th May 1824, the daughter of Henry and Susan Collett. At the age of 16 Ann was still living in the village of Toft, but by that time she was working and living separately from her parents. The only other fact so far known about her is that at some time in her life she emigrated to Australia, most likely with her brother Stephen (below), where she died in 1901 at the age of 76, while she was living in South Australia where Stephen had died just four years earlier.
60N5	Stephen Collett was born at Toft in 1827, and was baptised there on 4^th November 1827, the son of Henry and Susan Collett. He was 13 years old at the time of the first Toft census in 1841 when he was still living there with his family. It was just over eight years later that he married Elizabeth Baldock at Toft on 21^st July 1849, and they had nine children. The first child was born while they were still at Toft, but within a year or two the family emigrated to Australia, where they settled in South Australia, and it was there that their remaining children were born. However, the couple’s first born son did not survive the long and difficult sea journey.
	By the time of the census in 1851 the couple and their first child were recorded as living in Toft, where Stephen Collett was 22, as was his wife Elizabeth, while their son Richard was one year old. Once in Australia the family initially settled at Glen Osmond, where their second child was born before moving to the Strathalbyn and Finnis area of South Australia where their later children were born.
	It was also at Finnis, just south of Strathalbyn, not far from Adelaide that Stephen Collett died on 4^th March 1897, when he was 70 years old.
	60O9	Richard Collett	Born during 1849 at Toft
	60O10	William Collett	Born on 14.05.1854 at Glen Osmond, S A
	60O11	Thomas Collett	Born on 13.11.1856 at Strathalbyn, S A
	60O12	Sally Collett	Born on 16.03.1859 at Rankins Creek, S A
	60O13	Elizabeth Collett	Born on 20.05.1861 at Strathalbyn, S A
	60O14	Richard Henry Collett	Born on 02.09.1863 at Finnis, S A
	60O15	Mary Ann Collett	Born on 24.03.1866 at Finnis, S A
	60O16	Stephen Collett	Born on 17.12.1868 at Finnis, S A
	60O17	Susan Collett	Born on 14.11.1871 at Finnis, S A
60N6	Susan Collett was born at Toft in 1830, where she was baptised on 18^th April 1830, the daughter of Henry and Susan Collett. It was also at Toft on 4^th November 1850 that she married Thomas Baldock, who was in all probability the brother of Elizabeth Baldock who married Susan’s brother Stephen Collett (above) during the previous year. In the census of 1851 Susan Baldock was 19, while her husband Thomas was 22, when they were still living in the village of Toft.
	It is known that the couple emigrated to Australia not long after the census day in 1851, since all their children were born there. The first of them was Sally Baldock, who was baptised at the Church of St Michael in Mitcham, South Australia on 9^th April 1854, when her parents were confirmed as Thomas and Susan Baldock. The next four children were born after the family had settled in Nairne in South Australia, and they were:
	James Baldock, who was born on 20^th November 1861, but who died on 18^th September 1865; the next two were the twins Ann and John Baldock who were born on 26^th April 1864, and both of them died that same day; and Thomas Baldock, who was born on 23^rd May 1865 and died the very next day.
	Perhaps it was due to the tragedy of losing all four children at Nairne that prompted the move to a new start at Glen Osmond, as it was there that their next child was born. Thomas Frederick Baldock was born on 10^th April 1867, but three years later the family was living in Adelaide. It was there on 17^th June 1870 that another son was born, but once again he did not survive long enough even to be named, and died that same day. The couple’s last child was Henry Thomas Baldock, and he was born at Parkside in South Australia on 12^th April 1874.
	Thomas Baldock died in Australia on 4^th September 1890, and his widow Susan Baldock nee Collett survived him by eleven years when she died in 1911.
60N7	Mary Collett was born at Toft in 1833 and was baptised there on 21^st July 1833, the daughter of Henry and Susan Collett. She was eight years old in the census of 1841 when she was living at Toft with her family. Ten years later she was still living in Toft, but separately from her family on that occasion, at the age of 17.
	She married Carl August Christian Schunke who was born in 1826, and with whom she had seven children. Their first child Heinrich died very young in 1858, Hannah Augusta was born during the following year, Wilhelm was born in 1860, Charlotte was born in 1861, Elizabeth in 1862, George in 1864, who died the following year, and Bertha who was born in 1866. Mary Schunke nee Collett died in 1904.
60N8	Lydia Collett was born at Toft in 1836, the youngest daughter and penultimate child of Henry and Susan Collett. She was baptised at Toft on 31^st July 1836 and in 1851 she was 14 and living in the village of Great Shelford, just south of Cambridge. She later married John Constable at Haslingfield, not far from Great Shelford, on 24^th November 1855, John having been born in 1836. Haslingfield lies just four miles south-east of Toft and four miles west of Great Shelford. However, not long after they were married the couple emigrated to Australia, where all of their children were born in South Australia.
	The couple’s seven children were Harriet, who was born at Nairne on 31^st March 1858, but who died at Lower Finnis in 1864, William Henry who was born there on 2^nd February 1863, who died in 1937, Susan, born at Goolwa on 6^th September 1865, Ellen, who was born at Lower Finnis on 5^th November 1868, who died during 1911, Harry born in 1869, Stephen who was born at Lower Finnis in South Australia on 7^th July 1872, and Elizabeth Ann Constable who was born at Strathalbyn in South Australia on 20^th November 1875.
	It was also at Strathalbyn that Lydia Constable nee Collett died in 1924 at the age of 87.
60N9	Gifford Collett was born at Toft in 1839, the last child of Henry Collett and his wife Susan Beaumont who was baptised at Toft on 19^th May 1839. He was 18 years old when he married Charlotte Thompson at Toft on 4^th January 1857. Charlotte was baptised at Croxton, near St Neots on 2^nd September 1838, the daughter of Samuel and Betsey Thompson.
	There is very little detail available about their first child, who certainly survived to adulthood and who became a married man. Whether he was born in Australia is not known, whereas all of Gifford’s and Charlotte other three children were all born after the family settled in Finnis near Strathalbyn in South Australia. Charlotte Collett nee Thompson died in Australia in 1916, and was followed two years later by her husband, when Gifford Collett died who at Coolgardie in Western Australia during 1918, at the age of 79.
	60O18	William Henry Collett			Date and place of birth not known
	60O19	Eliza Ann Collett			Born on 01.05.1869 at Finnis, S A
	60O20	Henry Collett			Born in 1872 at Lower Finnis, S A
	60O21	Susan Mary Collett			Born on 07.08.1875 at Yarrowie, S A
60O1	Ann Collett was born at Toft in early 1835 and within five months of her parents being married there. She was baptised at Toft on 29^th March 1835, when her parents were confirmed as Henry and Elizabeth Collett. She was six years old in the Toft census of 1841, and was 16 in the Toft census of 1851 when on both occasions she was living there with her family.
	Four major events in her life took place over the next two years. Firstly, at the age of 17, she married John Saunders on 9^th August 1852 at Bourn, just two miles west of Toft. Six months later the couple sailed to a new life in Australia, arriving there on 15^th May 1853. And it was while the couple were in Sydney in 1853 that Ann Saunders nee Collett died, the same year that her father also died.
	John Saunders was the son of John and Mary Saunders, and was baptised at Bourn on 24^th May 1832. He survived his young wife by fifty-eight years, when he died in Australia in 1911.
60O2	Young Collett was born at Toft in later 1836, where he was baptised on 29^th January 1837, the eldest son of Henry Collett and his wife Elizabeth Newman. In the census of 1851 Young Collett from Toft was 14 and was employed as an agricultural labourer working with his father and his younger brother John (below), while living at the family home in a tenement on the main road in Toft.
	Around 1860 he left England and sailed to America where, on 12^th April 1862, he married Martha Marshall at Osmond, Pierce County in Nebraska. Over the next twenty years their marriage produced eleven children for Young and Martha. It is unclear where the couple’s first child was born, although it may have been in Nebraska before the couple left America for Australia. However, it is known that all of their subsequent children were born at Glen Osmond, after they had settled in South Australia.
	Young Collett died at Glen Osmond in South Australia on 11^th June 1888 when his youngest child was only three years old.
	60P1	Jack Collett			Born in 1862
	60P2	William Henry Collett			Born in 1863 at Glen Osmond, S A
	60P3	Frederick Young Collett			Born in 1864 at Glen Osmond, S A
	60P4	Ellen Elizabeth Collett			Born in 1865 at Glen Osmond, S A
	60P5	Annie Collett			Born in 1866 at Glen Osmond, S A
	60P6	Sarah Peggy Collett			Born in 1870 at Glen Osmond, S A
	60P7	Thomas Collett			Born in 1871 at Glen Osmond, S A
	60P8	Elsie Collett twin			Born in 1878 at Glen Osmond, S A
	60P9	Samuel Collett twin			Born in 1878 at Glen Osmond, S A
	60P10	Eva Collett			Born in 1879 at Glen Osmond, S A
	60P11	George Alfred Collett			Born in 1885 at Glen Osmond, S A
60O3	Eliza Collett was born at Toft in 1838, the third child and second daughter of Henry Collett and his wife Elizabeth Newman, and it was as Eliza Collett that she was baptised at Toft on 5^th May 1839. Eliza was two years old and 12 years of age in the next two census returns for the village of Toft. However, just a few months before the next census in 1861, when Eliza was 22, she married Joseph Wing at St Paul’s Church in Cambridge on 8^th January 1861. Joseph was also 22 and his father was named as William Wing, while Eliza’s father was recorded as Henry Collett, although by that time he had died and did not see his daughter married.
	Their marriage produced a total of five children for the couple over the next seventeen years, and all of them born in the parish of St Andrew-the-Less in Cambridge. By 1871 both Eliza and Joseph were 32, and on that occasion they had three children, Florence who was seven, Arthur who was six, and Sarah who was three. At the time of the next census in 1881 the family had increased in size with the addition of two children, but had sadly seen the death of their father, Eliza’s husband Joseph.
	The Cambridge census return listed the family as living at 5 New Court in the Holy Trinity district of the city, where Eliza Wing from Toft was a widow at 43. To make ends meet for her young family Eliza was working as a servant in one of the colleges of the university. Her children living with her were Florence A Wing, age 17, who was employed at home (while her mother worked), Sarah Ann Wing, age 13, Kate Mabel Wing, who was seven, Henry W Wing, who was five, and Harriet E Wing who was three years old.
	By that time in his life, Eliza’s eldest son Arthur J Wing, age 16, was a boarder at 34 Bridge Street in Cambridge St Clements, from where he was working as a chemist’s apprentice. After a further ten years, the census in 1891 placed Eliza living within the parish of St Andrew-the-Great in Cambridge. She was 52, and still living with her were her four youngest children. Sarah was 23, Kate was 17, Henry was 15, and Harriet was 13.
	Elisa (sic) Wing from Toft was still employed by one of the colleges in March 1901, when she was 62. Still living with their mother in Cambridge were three of her daughters. Sarah Anne Wing who was 33 had no occupation, so was probably at home as the housekeeper, Kate Mabel Wing, age 27, was a school mistress, and Harriet Elisa (sic) Wing was 23 and working as a draper’s assistant. Six years later Eliza’s youngest daughter married Philip Edward Morse during 1907.
	Eliza’s two missing son were both married before March 1901 and were living in the Woolwich district of London where they were both working alongside one another. Arthur J Wing, age 36, was a chemist and a druggist, while his brother Henry W Wing, age 25, was a chemist’s assistant.
	According to the census in 1911 Eliza Wing, age 72 and from Toft, was still living in Cambridge, with just two of her unmarried daughters for company. Sarah Anne Wing was 43, and Kate Mabel Wing was 37. Her married daughter Harriet Morse, age 33, was living in the Edmonton area of London with her husband who was also 33.
	Also by 1911 Eliza was a grandmother to the seven children of her two sons. Both families were still residing in Woolwich, where Arthur Joseph Wing, age 46, was living there with his wife Elizabeth Jane, who was 49, and their four daughters Doris Kate, 18, Muriel Florence, 16, Evelyn Maud, 15, and Olive May Wing who was 11. The family of Henry William Wing, age 36, comprised his wife Elizabeth Mary, age 33, son William Henry, who was nine, daughter Ethel Maud, who was seven, and Bernard Arthur Wing who was six.
60O4	JOHN COLLETT was born at Toft in 1841 and it was there that he was baptised on 7^th November 1841, the son of Henry and Elizabeth Collett. He was nine years old in 1851, by which time he was already working with his father and older brother Young Collett as an agricultural labourer. Two years later his father passed away when he was only 37. At the time of the next census in 1861 John Collet (sic) was 20 and was the oldest of the five siblings still living together in Toft. Also living nearby in Toft with her family was Ellen Rogers, age 21, who had been born at Toft and would be the future wife of John Collett.
	One year later John left his family to marry Ellen Rogers the daughter of William and Mary A Rogers, and over the remaining part of the decade their marriage produced five children, all of them born at Toft. So by the time of the next census in 1871 the family were recorded in error under the surname of Collitt. And they were parents John and Ellen Collitt, both 30, Gifford Collitt, who was eight, William Collitt, who was six, Elizabeth Collitt, who was four, Sarah Collitt, who was two, and Selina Collitt who was not yet one year old.
	Two more children were added to the family during the next four years, although the extra children were offset by the departure of the couple’s eldest son who was no longer living in the family home by 1881. The census that year recorded the family still living at Brook Lane in Toft, which comprised John Collett, an agricultural labourer of 40 years, his wife Ellen, age 41, and their six remaining children. The eldest was William, age 16, who was working as an agricultural labourer with his father, while his five younger siblings were all attending the village school, and they were Elizabeth, age 14, Sarah, age 12, Selina, age 10, Eliza, who was seven, and Alfred who was five years old. Every member of the household was confirmed as having been born at Toft, and living just five dwelling away in Brook Lane was John’s younger brother Frederick (below) with his wife.
	John Collett died in March 1891 at the age of 49, just a few weeks before the census that year, which recorded his widow Ellen Collett, age 50, as still living at Toft, but with just her two sons William and Alfred for company. Ellen Collett nee Rogers died nine years later during 1900.
	60P12	Gifford Collett			Born in 1862 at Toft
	60P13	WILLIAM HENRY COLLETT			Born in 1864 at Toft
	60P14	Elizabeth Ann Collett			Born in 1866 at Toft
	60P15	Sarah Collett			Born in 1868 at Toft
	60P16	Selina Collett			Born in 1871 at Toft
	60P17	Eliza Collett			Born in 1873 at Toft
	60P18	Alfred Collett			Born in 1875 at Toft
60O5	Henry Collett was born at Toft in 1844, and was baptised there on 24^th March 1844, the son of Henry and Elizabeth Collett. He was seven years old in the census for Toft in 1851, and would have been only nine years old when his father died at Toft in 1853. By 1861 was recorded as Henry Collet, age 17, when he was still living at with four of his Collett siblings, although by then his mother may have been remarried and it may have been with her and her new husband that her children were living.
	Henry was still in the Caxton registration district, which included Toft, in 1871, when he was 27. The only other member of his family still recorded in the same census with him was his younger brother Fred Collett who was 20. However, more importantly, also living there at that time was Elizabeth Rogers who was two years old, the base-born daughter of Henry Collett and Elizabeth Rogers, who was living with her grandmother Mary Rogers.
	It was at Toft during the following year, on 7^th July 1872, that Henry Collett married Elizabeth Rogers, the daughter of Joseph and Mary Rogers of Cambridge, who may well have been related to Ellen Rogers of Toft who married Henry’s brother John Collett (above). Once married their daughter became Elizabeth Collett. Early in the following year Henry and his wife and their daughter emigrated to Australia. The family of three sailed into Brisbane on board the ship ‘Glamorganshire’ on 3^rd May 1874, the ship’s passenger list confirming that Henry Collett was 30, his wife Elizabeth was 29, and their daughter Elizabeth Collett was five years old.
	The family settled in the Maryborough area of Queensland, just inland from Brisbane, where Henry was employed by George Walker at Brookfield Farm. The farm lay on the banks of the Mary River, and it was in the river that Henry Collett drowned on 3^rd November 1874, after just six months in the country. Brief details of his suspicious death were reported in the Maryborough Chronicle on Thursday 5^th November 1874, as follows:
	‘Henry Colliard (sic), a labourer, was drowned in the river at Walker’s Point on Tuesday last. He had undressed and entered the river for the purpose of bathing. The body was recovered by the police yesterday and the inquiry will be held by the Police Magistrate this morning.’ Two day later the newspaper recorded the result of the police inquiry, as follows:
	‘The Police Magistrate held an inquiry on the cause of death of Henry Collitt (sic), whose body was found in the Mary River. The wife of the deceased said “I and my husband were employed by J G Walker at Brookfield on the Mary River. On Tuesday last I saw my husband leave the kitchen with a fork to go to this work in the garden. About 7 o’clock that evening, my husband not coming home, I went in search of him on the river bank. When I saw his clothes laying there I called for help and some men came. The bank of the river at this place is very steep. A messenger was sent to the police and, assisted by some men, I searched for my husband until 11 o’clock. Yesterday the police found his body in the river. He was 31 years of age, a native of Toft in Cambridgeshire, England and came out to this colony in the ship Glamorganshire. He could not swim and I never knew him go into the river before, more than to wash his feet.
	George Walker identified the body as that of his later employee Henry Collitt. The bank near where the clothes were found is very steep and the water deepens suddenly and is very deep. Believed the deceased must have been affected by sunstroke, or a shark, or some large fish, attacked and dragged him in. Constable Pickering proved the finding of the body about 300 yards from the bank. The body was much eaten by fish. Both hands and feet were missing, it presented a mere skeleton, with the exception of the head and face which could enable a person to identify the body. Doctor Power had examined the body at the morgue. The flesh is completely eaten off the bones. Also the internal viscera gone, a portion of the face only having flesh on it. The body showed marks of fish, evidently a large kind, probably sharks. The hands and feet were also entirely gone, as if eaten off my some voracious fish. The body being a mere skeleton, it is impossible for me to say the cause of death or whether the supposed mutilation by fish occurred before or after death.”
	Following his tragic death, his widow married for a second time, to become Elizabeth Rasmussen. From this second marriage she had further children, including another daughter, three sons, plus an adopted son. It was 48 years after the death of Henry Collett that Elizabeth Rasmussen, formerly Collett, nee Rogers died at Brookfield Farm, Walker’s Point, Granville on 9^th March 1922, and the death notice was published in the Maryborough Chronicle the following day. This said “Elizabeth Rasmussen, beloved wife of Christian Rasmussen, age 77 years and 9 months died at Brookfield Farm on 9^th March 1922.”
	Her obituary read as follows: An old identity of Maryborough, in the person of Mrs Elizabeth Rasmussen, who had been an invalid for several years, passed away peacefully yesterday morning at her residence at Brookfield Farm, Walker’s point. The deceased, who was in her 78^th year, was a native of Toft in Cambridgeshire, England and came to Maryborough in 1874 with her first husband the late Mr Henry Collett in the ship ‘Glamorganshire’, and settled at Walker’s Point for some years. She afterwards removed to the Island plantation where she resided for a period of 28 years, but returned to Walker’s Point, where she had since resided. She is survived by her husband and a family of two daughters and three sons, in addition to one adopted son, 23 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren.
	60P19	Elizabeth Collett			Born in 1869
60O6	William Collett was born at Toft in 1846, where he was also baptised on 30^th August 1846, the son of Henry and Elizabeth Collett. He was four years old in the Toft census of 1851, and was still living there with his family in 1861, when he was 14. Seven years later William married Jane Eliza Townsend at St Ives during the last quarter of 1868 and they had eight children, although their first born son, born at St Ives, did not survive beyond a few months. It may have been that sad event, or a job opportunity, that prompted the couple to move into the city of Cambridge where all of their remaining children were born.
	But it was at Toft that the childless couple were living at the time of the census in 1871, although the baby was due any time after that and was baptised at Toft in July 1871, but died shortly thereafter. On the census day William Collett was 24 and his wife Jane was 23. Jane was the daughter of Joseph and Susan Townsend and was in 1848, and she died in Ely in the June quarter of 1921 at the age of 73.
	According to the next census in 1881 William and his young family were living at 4 Cavendish Terrace in Cambridge, within the parish of St Andrew-the-Less. William, age 34 and from Toft, was employed on the railway, his wife Jane was 33 and from Pidley near St Ives in Huntingdonshire, and their four surviving Cambridge born children at that time were William H Collett, who was eight years old and attending the local school, Florence A Collett, aged five years, Albert H Collett who was three, and Sidney H Collett who was one year old.
	Three years later, at the time of the birth of their next child, William and Jane had left Cambridge and had travelled thirty miles north to Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, where their final three children were all born.
	The census in 1891 recorded the family living within the Walsoken district of Wisbech, where William was 44 and Jane was 43. Still living with them were five of their seven children, their eldest son William having left home by then, who was living and working in Leicester at that time. Florence Collett was 15, Sidney Collett was 11, Eliza Collett was seven, Lily Collett was four years old, and Daisy Collett was still only a few months old. Living not far away from his family within the same Walsoken area was the couple’s other absent son Albert, who was incorrectly recorded by his employer as Alfred K Collett from Cambridge who was 14.
	By March 1901 William Collett, age 54 and from Toft, was a tram conductor living with his family in the village of Emneth, just south-east of Wisbech. Listed in the census return with him was his wife Jane, age 53, who on that occasion said she had been born in Fenton, the village right next to Pidley, her previously stated place of birth. The children still living with them were Florence, age 26 a dressmaker from Cambridge, Eliza 17 and a milliner from Wisbech, and Daisy who was ten and also from Wisbech.
	After a further ten years it was just Eliza and Daisy who were the only children still living with William and Jane at Emneth. William Collett was 64 while his wife Jane Collett, from Fenton, was 63. The couple’s two daughters were described as Eliza Jane Collett from Wisbech who was 27, and Daisy Evline (sic) Collett, who was 20 and also from Wisbech.
	William Collett died during the second quarter of 1926 at the age of 79 when he was living in Chesterton area of Cambridge.
	60P20	William Henry Collett			Born in 1871 at St Ives/Toft
	60P21	William Henry Collett			Born in 1872 at Cambridge
	60P22	Florence Ann Collett			Born in 1876 at Cambridge
	60P23	Albert Henry Collett			Born in 1878 at Cambridge
	60P24	Sidney Herbert Collett			Born in 1880 at Cambridge
	60P25	Eliza Jane Collett			Born in 1884 at Wisbech
	60P26	Lily Collett			Born in 1886 at Wisbech
	60P27	Daisy Evaline Collett			Born in 1891 at Wisbech
60O7	Elizabeth Collett was born at Toft in 1848, where she was baptised on 11^th March 1849, the daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Collett. She was three years old in the census in 1851 and following the death of her father two years later, it would appear that her mother remarried. In the Toft census of 1861 Elizabeth was 12 years old when she was living there were her other siblings, most likely living at the home of their mother and stepfather, although this has yet to be verified.
60O8	Frederick Collett was born at Toft during December 1850 and was just three months old at the time of the Toft census on 30^th March 1851 when he and his family were living in a tenement on the main road through the village. He was baptised there on 31^st August 1851, the youngest child of Henry Collett and his wife Elizabeth Newman.
	He was two years old when his father was tragically taken from the family in 1853, after which it may be that his mother remarried, since no trace of Elizabeth Collett has been found thereafter. In 1861 Frederick was one of five siblings still living in Toft, when he was listed as Fredrick Collet, age 10, living with his older siblings John, Henry, William and Elizabeth (above).
	By 1871 it was just Fred Collett, age 20, and his brother Henry (above) who were still living there together, the other members of the family being married by then. Frederick eventually married Elizabeth from Ramsey in Huntingdonshire, and this was confirmed in the Toft census of 1881 when the childless couple were recorded as Frederick Collett, age 30, a farmer of 20 acres from Toft, and his wife Elizabeth E Collett from Ramsey who was 35. At that time they were living in the first dwelling on Brook Lane in the village, the same lane where Frederick’s older brother John Collett (above) and his wife Ellen and their family were also living in on that occasion, just five doors away.
	Ten years later in 1891 Frederick Collett was 40, and his wife Elizabeth was 45, and they were still living at Toft. However, over the following year they left the village when they moved to Wimblington, midway between Chatteris in the south and March in the north. And it was there that they were living in 1901, when Frederick from Toft, was an ordinary farm labourer at 46, while his wife Elizabeth from Ramsey was 48. Why they gave reduced ages is a mystery, when in fact they were 50 and 55 respectively.
	By April 1911 Frederick Collett, age 60 and from Toft was living at North Witchford near Ely, with his wife Elizabeth, who was 63 and from Ramsey. Frederick Collett died during 1936 when he was 85.
	At some time in his life Fred Collett is reputed to have had a liaison with a Mrs Lindsay, which resulted in the birth of a daughter, who may have been named Elizabeth Collett. It is possible although not proved that Mrs Lindsay may well have been the wife of Peter Lindsay of Toft, whose wife was the former Sarah Collett of Toft (Ref. 60P15). If so, she was the daughter of Fred’s older brother John (above) and was born in 1868, Sarah therefore being his niece and eighteen younger than Fred.
60O9	Richard Collett was born at Toft during the second half of 1849, and within four months of his parents wedding. He was baptised around a year later on 11^th November 1850, the eldest child of Stephen Collett and his wife Elizabeth Baldock. It was two years later when he and his parents were sailing to Australia that Richard died on board the ship in 1852 at the age of three years.
60O10	William Collett was born at Glen Osmond in South Australia on 14^th May 1854 two years after his parents Stephen and Elizabeth arrived there from England. Nothing more is known about him at this time.
60O11	Thomas Collett may have been born at Glen Osmond like his brother William (above), although the birth was registered at Strathalbyn in South Australia on 13^th November 1856, when his parents were confirmed as Stephen and Elizabeth Collett. It was on 2^nd March 1887, when he was 31 that Thomas married Jessie Williamson in South Australia, their union providing them with two children who were both born at Strathalbyn.
	Jessie was born on 26^th May 1858 at New Hambourg in South Australia, the daughter of Alexander Russell Williamson and his wife Margaret Belfour Reid.
	Thomas Collett was 75 years of age when he died at Strathalbyn on 7^th January1931.
	60P28	Margaret Elizabeth Collett			Born in 1889 at Strathalbyn, S A
	60P29	John Williamson Collett			Born in 1890 at Strathalbyn, S A
60O12	Sally Collett was born at Rankins Creek in South Australia on 16^th March 1859, the eldest daughter of Stephen Collett and his wife Elizabeth Baldock. She later married George Werrey/Werry.
60O13	Elizabeth Collett was born at Strathalbyn in South Australia on 20^th May 1861, the daughter of Stephen and Elizabeth Collett, and she later married John Dawson.
60O14	Richard Henry Collett was born at Finnis near Strathalbyn on 2^nd September 1863, the son of Stephen and Elizabeth Collett. He married Emily Lenard Fidock who was born in 1861 and who died in 1937. Richard Henry Collett had died some thirty-four years earlier, when he passed away during 1903 at the age of 40. There is no record of any children born to the couple, which might indicate that they were married shortly before Richard’s death.
60O15	Mary Ann Collett was born at Finnis on 24^th March 1866, the daughter of Stephen and Elizabeth Collett. She married Albert Edward Henley on 26^th March 1891 at Finnis when she was 25, and they had six children. Albert was born in 1865 and died in 1957, sixteen years after his wife. Mary Ann Henley nee Collett died at Wyalong in New South Wales on 24^th May 1941, at the age of 75.
	Their six children were Ethel May Henley (1891-1966), Albert Lewis Henley (1893-1972), Iva Maud Henley (1896-1988), Percival Collett Henley (1898-2002), Herbert Edward Henley (1900-1969), and Jean Elizabeth Henley (1908-1989).
60O16	Stephen Collett was born at Finnis on 17^th December 1868, the youngest son of Stephen and Elizabeth Collett. He was nineteen when he married Ethel May Jackson at Milang in South Australia on 2^nd March 1898, with whom he had a daughter. Stephen Collett died seven months before his eightieth birthday, when he passed away on 27^th May 1948. Ethel May Collett nee Jackson, who was born in 1874, survived him by eighteen years, when she died in 1966.
	60P30	Gwendoline Victoria Pearl Collett			Born in 1898 at Finnis, S A
60O17	Susan Collett was born at Finnis in South Australia on 14^th November 1871, the last child born to Stephen Collett and his wife Elizabeth Baldock. It is unclear at this time what happened to her after this.
60O18	William Henry Collett was the son of Gifford Collet and his wife Charlotte Thompson, although no place or date of birth is currently known. What is known is that he married Adelaide Eliza Woodroffe, but it is not established whether they had any children.
60O19	Eliza Ann Collett was born at Finnis in South Australia on 1^st May 1869, the daughter of Gifford and Charlotte Collett. She married James Collett before 1893, but it is not apparent at this time who he was or from which branch of the Collett he came. Eliza and James had three children, the last of whom only survived for a short while and died within a year. Eliza Ann Collett died at St Peters in South Australia on 27^th October 1939 aged 70.
	60P31	Ethel May Collett			Born in 1893 at Adelaide, S A
	60P32	Christopher Collett			Born in 1897 at Port Pirie, S A
	60P33	Henry Percival Collett			Born in 1904 at Adelaide, S A
60O20	Henry Collett was born at Lower Finnis in 1872, and was the son of Gifford and Charlotte Collett, although nothing further is known about him at this time.
60O21	Susan Mary Collett was born at Yarrowie in South Australia on 7^th August 1875, the last child of Gifford Collett and his wife Charlotte Thompson. She was nearly 21 when she married William Morgan on 15^th April 1896 at Melrose in South Australia, and over the following years they had seven children. They were Daisy Ellen Morgan (1897-1976), Frederick Gifford Morgan (1898-1899), Dorothy Pretoria Morgan (1900-1900), Olive Una Morgan (1902-), John H Morgan (1906-1971), Clarice Mabel Morgan (1910-), and William J G Morgan (1912-1912).
	William Morgan was born in 1869 and died in 1935, after which his wife Susan Mary Morgan nee Collett was a widow for eighteen years until her death at Mount Margaret in Western Australia in 1953 at the age of 78.
60P1	Jack Collett was born in 1862, the eldest child of Young Collett and Martha Marshall who were married in Nebraska in the April of that year. At sometime after his parents were married they left America and sailed to Australia, where they set up home at Glen Osmond in South Australia. It is not known at this time, whether Jack was born in America or Australia, or somewhere in between.
60P2	William Henry Collett was born at Glen Osmond in 1863, the son of Young and Martha Collett. He married Sarah Jane Anderson and they had six children before the end of the century. William Henry Collett died in 1945 at the age of 82.
	60Q1	William Daray Collett			Born in 1886
	60Q2	David Arnold Young Collett			Born in 1889
	60Q3	Kenneth Collett			Born in 1891
	60Q4	Malcolm Ross Collett			Born in 1893
	60Q5	Edwin Lancelot Collett			Born in 1896
	60Q6	Bernard Young Collett			Born in 1898
60P3	Frederick Young Collett was born at Glen Osmond in 1864, the third son of Young and Martha Collett. He later married Elizabeth Ann Smith and was only 37 when he died in 1901.
60P4	Ellen Elizabeth Collett was born at Glen Osmond in 1865, the fourth child and eldest daughter of Young and Martha Collett. She married Alfred Badcock and died at Kalgoorie in Western Australia on 12^th July 1932 aged 67.
60P5	Annie Collett was born at Glen Osmond in 1866 and she later married George Phillips, with whom she had a daughter Florence Violet Phillips.
60P6	Sarah Peggy Collett was born at Glen Osmond in 1870 and she later married William Hart with whom she had a son John William Hart who was born in 1893. Sarah Peggy Hart nee Collett was 74 when she died in 1944.
60P7	Thomas Collett was born at Glen Osmond in 1871, one of the sons of Young and Martha Collett, and all that is known about him is that he died during 1908 at the age of 37.
60P8	Elsie Collett was born at Glen Osmond in 1878 and was the twin sister of Samuel (below). She was married to Fraser, although it is not clear if that was her husband’s surname or his christian name. Presumably she died as Elsie Fraser nee Collett in 1919 when she was only 41.
60P9	Samuel Collett was born at Glen Osmond in 1878 and was the twin brother of Elsie (above). Nothing more is known about him, except that he too died during 1919, like his twin sister.
60P10	Eva Collett was born at Glen Osmond in 1879, the youngest daughter of Young and Martha Collett. She married Frank Adolph Grimes and it was as Eva Grimes nee Collett that she died in 1952 at the age of 73.
60P11	George Alfred Collett was born at Glen Osmond in 1885, the last child of Young Collett and his wife Martha Marshall. He later married Mary Emma Evelyn Gore and the marriage produced three daughters for the couple. George Alfred Collett died on 21^st March 1967.
	60Q7	Ella Martha Collett		Born in 1906 at Magill, S A
	60Q8	Annie Evelyn Collett		Born on 02.10.1907
	60Q9	Nancy May Collett		Born in 1912 at Summertown, S A
60P12	Gifford Collett was born at Toft in 1862, the eldest child of Henry Collett and Ellen Rogers. He was eight years old when he was living with his family at Toft in 1871, but by 1881 he had left the family home at Brook Lane in the village. At that time in his life Gifford Collett from Toft was 17 and a lodger at the St Marys Street, Ely home of widow Sarah Watson and her two sons. His occupation was recorded as being that of a (c miller) Militia Recruiting, similar to another lodger at the house, Tom Thorpe who was 20 and a (farm labourer) Militia Recruiting. Presumably the two young men were awaiting a call to join the army or the police force.
	By 1891 Gifford (Giffard) Collett was 27 and was living and working in the Fulham & Hammersmith district of London, where interestingly other Colletts were living at that time, although none of them appear to have been related to Gifford or his family. Where he was ten years later has not been determined, and it may be that he was out of the country at the time of the census in 1901.
	A year or two later he was back in London and became a married man. Not long after that his wife presented him with two sons and a daughter, and by 1911 he and his family were living in the St Pancras registration district of London. Gifford from Toft was 47, his wife Annie Collett was 43, and their three children were Alfred Collett, who was six, William Collett, who was four, and Evelyn Collett who was just five months old. Gifford Collett died in 1927.
	60Q10	Alfred Collett			Born in 1904 in London
	60Q11	William Collett			Born in 1906 in London
	60Q12	Evelyn Collett			Born in October 1910 in London
60P13	WILLIAM HENRY COLLETT was born at Toft in 1864 where he was baptised on 20^th November 1864, the second child of John and Ellen Collett. He was six years old in the Toft census of 1871, and by 1881 he and his family were living at Brook Lane in Toft, where he was working with his father as an agricultural labourer at the age of 16. In both of the census returns he was simply listed as William Collett.
	William’s father died during the 1880s, so by 1891 William, age 26 and an agricultural labourer from Toft, and his youngest brother Alfred, and their sister Sarah (below) were the only siblings still living at Brook Lane in Toft with their widowed mother. Also living with them was Alice Maud Collett, who was six months old and the base-born daughter of William’s unmarried sister Sarah, together with visitor and agricultural labourer George Brown age 36 from Comberton. Shortly after the census that year William married (1) Eliza Adams, who was 25, and with whom he had five children. Tragically one of the children died before reaching his first birthday.
	According to the next census in 1901 William and Eliza had their four surviving children living with them at Brook Lane in Toft. Every member of the household had been born at Toft, with the exception being William’s wife. William Collett was 35 and an ordinary farm labourer, while his Eliza Collett was also 35 but from Chesterton in Cambridge. Their four children were recorded as Albert Collett, who was eight, Nellie Collett, who was six, Wilfred Collett, who was three, and Alfred Collett who was one year old. Living in the house next door was William’s married sister Sarah Lindsay nee Collett, with her husband Peter, and their two daughters, plus Sarah’s older base-born daughter Maud Collett.
	Tragedy struck the family after 1901 when William’s wife Eliza passed away. With four children to look after it was two years later that William married (2) Margaret Ellen York, who was born on 6^th November 1873 at Raunds in Northamptonshire, and that marriage resulted in the birth of a further three children during the remainder of first decade of the new century. The new Collett family was still living in Toft by the time of the next census in 1911, and still living with them were the three sons from William’s first marriage.
	The household was listed as William Collett, age 45, Margaret Collett, age 37, Albert Collett, age 18, Wilfred Collett, age 13, Alfred Collett, age 11, Gladys Collett who was six, Oliver Collett who was two years old, and Ralph Collett who was only six months old. Everyone in the household had been born at Toft, with the exception of Margaret.
	William Henry Collett died in 1941.
	60Q13	Albert Collett			Born in 1892 at Toft
	60Q14	Nellie Collett			Born in 1894 at Toft
	60Q15	Wilfred Henry Collett			Born in 1896 at Toft
	60Q16	Wilfred Collett			Born in 1898 at Toft
	60Q17	Alfred Collett			Born in 1900 at Toft
	The following are the children of William Henry Collett and his second wife Margaret.
	60Q18	Gladys Collett			Born in 1904 at Toft
	60Q19	Oliver Raymond Collett			Born in 1908 at Toft
	60Q20	Ralph Collett			Born in 1910 at Toft
	60Q21	CHRISTOPHER ERNOLD COLLETT			Born in 1912 at Toft
	60Q22	Kenneth H Collett			Born in 1914 at Toft
	60Q23	Royston Collett			Born in 1915 at Toft
	60Q24	Sybil N Collett			Born in 1916 at Toft
60P14	Elizabeth Ann Collett was born at Toft in 1866, and it was there that she was baptised as Elizabeth Annie Collett on 7^th October 1866, the eldest daughter of John and Ellen Collett. It was as four years old Elizabeth Collett that she was recorded in the Toft census of 1871 when she was living there with her parents, as she was ten years later in 1881. On that occasion the family was living in a cottage in Brook Lane, in the village, from where Elizabeth was attending the local school at the age of 14.
	Elizabeth Annie Collett died in 1888 when she was only 22.
60P15	Sarah Collett was born at Toft in 1868, the youngest child of John Collett and his wife Ellen Rogers. She was two years old and 12 years of age in the two census returns following her birth when, on each occasion she was living with her family at Brook Lane in Toft. Around nine years later she gave birth to a base-born child, and in the Toft census of 1891 Sarah was still living with her widowed mother and her two brothers William (above) and Alfred (below) at Brook Lane. Unmarried Sarah Collett, age 22 and from Toft, had living with her, her daughter Alice Maud Collett, aged six months, who was described as the granddaughter of head of the household Ellen Collett.
	Not long after the census day in 1891 Sarah Collett married Peter Lindsay of Toft with whom she had two further children while the couple was still living at Brook Lane in Toft. Peter Lindsay was clearly not the father of Sarah’s base-born daughter, since the next census of 1901 recorded her still under her Collett name. According to the Toft census in March that year, Peter Lindsay was 30 and an ordinary agricultural labourer, his wife Sarah Lindsay was also 30, and their three children were described as Maud Collett, age 10, who was a boarder, Constance Lindsay who was nine, and Dora Lindsay who was seven.
	All five occupants of the dwelling in Brook Lane had been born in Toft, while in the adjacent dwelling was Sarah’s brother William Collett and his family. By the time of the census in 1911 only Peter and Sarah Lindsay were still living in Toft, when they were both 40, and by which time their daughter Constance Lindsay, from Toft, was living and working in Cambridge at the age of 18.
	Sometime later Constance Lindsay, who was known within the family as Connie, emigrated to Canada where she married Jack Saunders at Windsor in Ontario.
	60Q25	Alice Maud Collett			Born in 1890 at Toft
60P18	Alfred Collett was born at Toft in 1875, the last child born to John Collett and his wife Ellen Rogers. It would appear that he spent most of his early life in Toft, where he was five years old in 1881, when he was living with his family at Brook Lane. With the death of his father during the next decade Alfred Collett, age 15, was living with his widowed mother in 1891, and his two unmarried siblings William and Sarah (above), plus Sarah’s six month old illegitimate baby.
	Just before the next census in 1901 Alfred became a married man, when he married the much older Louisa. So by the time of that `census Alfred Collett, age 25 and an ordinary farm labourer from Toft, was still living in the village, but with his wife Louisa Collett who was 42 and from Bourn. Within the year following the census Louisa presented Alfred with a son, but because of her advancing years they were no further additions to the family after that.
	The family of three was still residing in Toft at the time of the April census in 1911. Alfred Collett from Toft was 35, his wife Louisa Collett from Bourn was 52, and their son Arthur Collett was eight years old and had been born at Toft. What happened to them after 1911 is not known at this time.
	60Q26	Arthur Collett			Born in 1902 at Toft
60P19	Elizabeth Collett was born at Toft in 1869, the base-born daughter and only child of Henry Collett and Elizabeth Rogers who were later married at Toft in July 1872. It was as Elizabeth Rogers that she was recorded in the census of 1871, when she was living with her grandmother Mary Rogers. When she was just five years old her parents emigrated to Australia and arrived in Brisbane on 3^rd May 1874 on board the ship ‘Glamorganshire’. The early years of her life were spent at Brookfield Farm, Walker’s Point, a farmstead on the banks of the Mary River. Tragically, after living there for less than six months, her father drowned in the river, and his body was badly eaten by sharks.
	Sometime later her mother married Christian Rasmussen, so Elizabeth then had a half sister and three half brothers. Elizabeth Collett was around eighteen years old when married Christian Peter Jensen on 7^th June 1887 at Maryborough. Over the next twenty-three years the marriage produced twelve children for Elizabeth and Christian, and all of them survived to old age. However, their last child was born in 1910, the year that Christian Peter Jensen died. His widow survived him by another 38 years, when Elizabeth Jensen, nee Collett, formerly Rogers died at Maryborough in 1948.
60P20	William Henry Collett was born at St Ives, just after the census day in 1871, but it was at Toft that he was baptised on 16^th July 1871, the first child born to William Collett and his wife Jane Eliza Townsend. Sadly he did not survive and died shortly after, since the next son born into the family was given the same name.
60P21	William Henry Collett was born at Cambridge in the last quarter of 1872, the eldest surviving child of William and Jane Collett. Before he was born his parents had spent their first years together at Toft and may have moved to Cambridge for work purposes. And it was at Cambridge that William Henry Collet was baptised at St Paul’s Church on 6^th December 1873, the child of William and Jane.
	By the time of the census in 1881 William H Collett was a scholar who was eight years old, living with his family at 4 Cavendish Terrace in Cambridge. The next census in 1891 recorded William H Collett from Cambridge living and working within the Leicester East registration district, although his age was recorded in error as being 20 instead of 18.
	Around the middle of the following decade William Henry Collett married Maud who was born in Leicester in 1874, and not long after she presented him with a son. The census return in March 1901 placed the family if three living within the area of Leicester that was formerly known as St Margarets. William H Collett, age 28 and from Cambridge, was a letterpress printer, his wife Maud S Collett was 26, and their son Cecil W B Collett was two years old, having been born in Leicester. Staying with the family at that time was William’s sister Lily Collett (below) from Wisbech, who was only 14.
	During the following year Maud gave birth to the second of William’s sons, after which the family of four left Leicester and settled in Barrow-Upon-Soar, where they were living in 1911. William Henry Collett from Cambridge was 38, his wife was Maude Tryphena Collett, who was 36, and their two sons were recorded as Cecil William Bunting Collett, age 11, and Douglas Willis Collett, who was eight years old.
	60Q27	Cecil William Bunting Collett			Born in 1899 at Leicester
	60Q28	Douglas Willis Collett			Born in 1902 at Leicester
60P22	Florence Ann Collett was born at Cambridge in 1876 and was baptised at the Primitive Methodist Chapel there on 20^th February 1876, the daughter of William and Jane Collett.
60P23	Albert Henry Collett was born at Cambridge during the third quarter of 1878, and was three years old in the Cambridge census of 1881 when he was living at 4 Cavendish Terrace with his family. He later emigrated to Canada and arrived in Niagara Falls in June 1919 when he was 41. Where he was from 1891 to 1911 has not yet been determined.
60P24	Sidney Herbert Collett was born at Cambridge during the June quarter in 1880, the son of William and Jane Collett, and was one year old at the time of the census in 1881 when he was living with his family at 4 Cavendish Terrace in Cambridge.. During the next few years his father’s work took the family to Walsoken in Wisbech where they were living in 1891 when Sidney Collett from Cambridge was 11.
	By March 1901 Sidney Herbert Collett from Cambridge was 21, when he was a leather salesman living and working in the Bromley area of Kent in London. During the following few years he married Louisa and they had a daughter around 1907, perhaps the first of a number of children. According to the April census in 1911 the family of three was living in Leicester where Sidney Herbert Collett from Cambridge was 31, his wife was Louisa Maud Collett, age 30, and their daughter was Phyllis Mary Collett who was three years old.
	60Q29	Phyllis Mary Collett			Born in 1907
60P25	Eliza Jane Collett was born at Wisbech during the second quarter of 1884, the daughter of William and Jane Collett. As Eliza Collett, aged seven years, she was living with her family at Walsoken within the St Peter parish of Wisbech. Not long after that her family moved the short distant to Emneth where they settled prior to the census in 1901, when Eliza was 17 and working as a milliner. It was as Eliza Jane Collett, age 27, that she was recorded living with her parents in 1911.
	Sometime after 1911 she married Arthur Haywood at Wisbech, although it is not known if they had any children.
60P26	Lily Collett was born at Wisbech during the June quarter of 1886, the daughter of William Collett and his wife Jane Eliza Townsend. She was four years old in the Wisbech census of 1891 when she was living with her family in the Walsoken district of the town. Ten years later she was staying with her eldest brother William, at his home in Leicester, when she was recorded as Lily Collett, age 14, from Cambridge.
	It was towards the end of the first decade of the new century that she married Walter William Ward and, by the time of the census in 1911 their marriage had produced the first of their three children while they were living at Wisbech. Walter Ward was 28, his wife Lily Ward was 24, and their daughter was Eileen Lilian, who was seven months old and born at Wisbech. It was also at Wisbech that the couple’s next child was born later that same year, before the family moved to Chesterton in Cambridgeshire where their last child was born.
	Walter William Ward died in Suffolk during 1956. Lily Ward nee Collett died whilst in Wembley Hospital on 23^rd march 1965.
	60Q30	Eileen Lilian Ward			Born in September 1910 at Wisbech
	60Q31	Jack Ward			Born in 1911 at Wisbech
	60Q32	Stanley Ward			Born in 1913 at Chesterton, Cambs.
60P27	Daisy Evaline Collett was born at Walsoken in Wisbech, the birth being registered in Wisbech during the second quarter of 1891, the last child born to William Collett and his wife Jane Eliza Townsend. The fact that she was listed as Daisy Collett in the census of 1891 means that she was born before the fifth of April that year, so was very likely only a few days old on the day of the Walsoken census. During the next few years her parents took the family from Walsoken to live in the village of Emneth, just south-east of Wisbech, and it was there that she was living with her family in 1901 when she was again recorded as Daisy Collett, aged 10 years.
	Curiously in the next census for Emneth in 1911 she was listed as Daisy Evline Collett, age 20, when she was still living there with her parents. After that time she was more commonly known within the family as Eva, and it was as Eva Collett that she married (1) Philip Campbell, with whom she had a son Alan Campbell. She later married (2) Norton Tustin and they had a son Frank.
60P28	Margaret Elizabeth Collett was born at Strathalbyn in South Australia on 2^nd March 1889, the eldest child and only daughter of Thomas Collett and his wife Jessie Williamson. On 18^th September 1912 she married Joseph Rupert Verner at Strathalbyn and they had four children. Joseph was born on 15^th February 1890 at Wirrabara in South Australia, the son of Robert Verner and Janet Adair.
	Doris Irene Verner was born in 1913 and died in 2000, Rupert Lindsay Verner was born in 1916 and died in 1974, Jessie Madge Verner who was born in 1918 and she died in 2001, and Robert Thomas Verner who was born in 1925 and died that same year.
	Joseph Rupert Verner died on 10^th June 1964 at Mount Barker in South Australia, while his wife survived him by just over eleven years when Margaret Elizabeth Verner nee Collett died on 21^st October 1975.
60P29	John Williamson Collett was born on 29^th May 1890 at Strathalbyn, the only son of and second child of Thomas Collett and Jessie Williamson. John married Myrtle Dodd in South Australia during 1913, and their marriage produced six children for John and Myrtle, although apart from one of them, their dates of birth are not known at this time. Therefore the order of the names listed below may not be correct.
	Myrtle Dodd was born at Lake Plains in South Australia on 12^th May 1891, the daughter of Frederick Robert Dodd and Emily Sarah Putland.
	The only other known fact about John Collett is that he died in South Australia during 1957, and was followed seven years after by his wife who died in 1964.
	60Q33	Thomas Gifford Collett			Born circa 1914 at Strathalbyn
	60Q34	Stephen Collett			Born circa 1916 at Strathalbyn
	60Q35	Clarence James Collett			Born during 1919 at Strathalbyn
	60Q36	Margaret Collett			Born circa 1921 at Strathalbyn
	60Q37	Lawrence Roy Collett			Born circa 1923 at Strathalbyn
	60Q38	Jim Collett			Born circa 1925 at Strathalbyn
60P30	Gwendoline Victoria Pearl Collett was born at Finnis in South Australia during 1898, the only child of Stephen Collett and his wife Ethel May Jackson. On 14^th August 1920 she married Frank Turner Sellick at Adelaide and they had two children. Fay Olive Sellick was born in 1922, and Bruce Collett Sellick was born in 1924 and died in 2005. Gwendoline Victoria Pearl Sellick nee Collett died at Adelaide in 1991.
60P31	Ethel May Collett was born at Adelaide on 1^st October 1893, the eldest child of Eliza Ann Collett and her husband James Collett from another branch of the Collett, so far undetermined. She married Edward Stanley Burgess at Norwood in South Australia on 30^th October 1913. Within a very short while, Ethel gave birth to a daughter, Gwendoline Phyllis Burgess, before the end of that year. Edward Stanley Burgess was born at Cygnet River in South Australia on 22^nd July 1890.
60P32	Christopher Collett was born at Port Pirie on 16^th August 1897, the eldest son of Eliza Ann and James Collett. Just after the start of the First World War Christopher enlisted with the 12^th Infantry Battalion. He was given the rank of Private and the service number 3702 and he sailed out of Adelaide Harbour on board the RMS Malwa on 2^nd December 1915.
	While still in Europe, and following his safe return from the fighting there, he married (1) Nellie Patterson McVake at Glasgow in Scotland during 1919. What happened after that is not clear, because Christopher must have married (2) Dorothy Louisa Jackson in the first half of the 1920s, since she presented him with a son in 1925. Eleven years later the family was living at Marrickville in the Dalley area of New South Wales in 1936, and it was there that they were still living in 1943.
	Dorothy Louisa Jackson had been born at Carlton in Victoria in 1902, and she died at Auburn in New South Wales during 1962. Eight years after that Christopher Collett died at Cabramatta in New South Wales on 17^th March 1970.
	60Q39	Gordon William Collett			Born in 1926
60P33	Henry Percival Collett was born at Adelaide on 1^st August 1904, the youngest child of Eliza Ann Collett and her husband James Collett. Nothing more is known about him at this time, except that Henry Percival Collett died at Burnside in South Australia on 6^th May 1905.
60Q2	David Arnold Young Collett was born in South Australia during 1889, the son of William Henry Collett and his wife Sarah Jane Anderson. David Arnold Young Collett died in 1976. It is possible that he was married to Amy Findon.
60Q4	Malcolm Ross Collett was born in South Australia in 1893, the son of William Henry and Sarah Jane Collett. He was relatively young when Malcolm Ross Collett died in 1932.
60Q5	Edwin Lancelot Collett was born in South Australia in 1896, the son of William Henry and Sarah Jane Collett, and he died in 1959. Nothing further is known about him at this time.
60Q6	Bernard Young Collett was born in Australia during 1898, the last child born to William Henry Collett and his wife Sarah Jane Anderson, and he died during 1952.
60Q7	Ella Martha Collett was born at Magill in South Australia during 1906, the eldest of the three daughters of George Alfred Collett and his wife Mary Emma Evelyn Gore. Ella later married Sidney Albert Curtis.
60Q9	Nancy May Collett was born at Summertown in South Australia on 29.01.1912, the youngest of the three children of George Alfred and Mary Emma Evelyn Collett. All that is known about Nancy at this time is that she died at Kelmscott in Western Australia on 21^st June 1990.
60Q13	Albert Collett was born at Toft in 1892, the eldest of the four children of William Henry Collett and his wife Eliza Adams. Albert was eight years old in 1901 when he was living with his family at Toft, and was 18 by the time of the census in 1911 when he was living with his father who had remarried following the death of Albert’s mother not long after 1901. All that is currently known about Albert is that he died during 1975.
60Q14	Nellie Collett was born at Toft in 1894, the daughter of William Henry Collett and his wife Eliza Adams. She was living with her family at Toft in 1901, when she was six years old, but shortly after that her mother died and her father married for a second time. Upon leaving school Nellie entered into domestic service and by 1911 she was living and working at Chesterton in Cambridge, where her mother had been born. On that occasion she was recorded in the census as Nelly Collett from Toft who was 16.
60Q15	Wilfred Henry Collett was born at Toft in 1896, the son of William and Eliza Collett, and sadly it was also there that he died during the following year.
60Q16	Wilfred Collett was born at Toft in 1898, and was named after his brother who had died during the previous year. By 1901 Wilfred was three years old when he was still living at Toft with his mother and father and his three surviving siblings. Following the death of his mother during the next few months, and his father marrying again, Wilfred Collett, age 13, was living at Toft in 1911 with his father and his stepmother and their young family. It was in 1928 that Wilfred became a married man, although no details are available at this time. It is only known that he died in 1981.
60Q17	Alfred Collett was born at Toft in 1900, the last child of William Henry Collett by his first wife Eliza Adams. The family was altogether for the Toft census in March 1901, when Alfred was one year old, but sadly just after his mother passed away. Alfred was 11 in 1911 when he was still living at Toft with his father and his stepmother. The only other fact known about Alfred is that he died in 1978.
60Q18	Gladys Collett was born at Toft during 1904, the first child of William Henry Collett by his second wife Margaret Ellen York. All that we know about her is that she was six years old in the Toft census of 1911, when she was living there with her parents and two younger siblings, and that she died in 1989.
60Q19	Oliver Raymond Collett was born at Toft in 1908 and was two years old in 1911 when he was living with his family at Toft. He died in 1995.
60Q20	Ralph Collett was born at Toft in September 1910 and was just six months old on the second of April 1911, the day of the national census. He died during 1995.
60Q21	CHRISTOPHER ERNOLD COLLETT was born at Toft in 1912, the son of William and Margaret Collett. The spelling of his second forename may simply be a genuine error, in so far as his name may have been Arnold rather than the otherwise unheard of Ernold. It was in 1936 that Christopher married Violet May Burgoyne, with whom he had four children. The only other detail so far known about him is that he died in 2001.
	60R1	Christopher Keith Collett			Born in 1938 at Cambridge
	60R2	KORAN COLLETT			Born in 1940 at Cambridge
	60R3	Margaret Ann Collett			Born in 1942 at Cambridge
	60R4	Gerald Paul Collett			Born in 1947 at Toft
	60R5	Marilyn Collett			Date of birth not known at Toft
	60R6	Linda Collett			Date of birth not known at Toft
60Q22	Kenneth H Collett was born at Toft in 1914, another son of William and Margaret Collett, although tragically he died that same year.
60Q23	Royston Collett was born at Toft in 1915, and like his brother Kenneth (above), he too died during the same year that he was born.
60Q24	Sybil N Collett was born at Toft in 1916, the final child of William Henry Collett and his second wife Margaret Ellen York. Sadly Sybil did not survive beyond infancy and died at Toft in 1917.
60Q27	Cecil William Bunting Collett was born at Leicester in 1899, the eldest of the two sons of William Henry and Maud Collett. It was as Cecil W B Collett aged two years that he was living in Leicester with his parents in 1901. Sometime after the birth of his brother Douglas (below) the family of four moved to Barrow-Upon-Sour where they were living in 1911 when Cecil was recorded under his full name of Cecil William Bunting Collett, age 11.
	Cecil later married Muriel Sparling in Canada, and they adopted a son William Collett who later married May Mesita.
	60R7	William Collett [adopted]			Date of birth unknown
60Q28	Douglas Willis Collett was born at Leicester in 1902, the younger of the two sons of William Henry Collett from Cambridge and his wife Maud Tryphena Collett from Leicester. Shortly after he was born his family left Leicester when they moved to Barrow-Upon-Sour. And it was there they were living in 1911 when Douglas Willis Collett from Leicester was eight years old. All that is known about Douglas after that time is that he later married Rene, and lived for sometime in Singapore.
60Q31	Jack Ward was born at Wisbech 24^th September 1911. He was the second child and eldest of the two sons of Walter William Ward and his wife Lily Collett. He married Gladys Olive Jessie Harris, who was known as Olive, around the time of the start of World War Two, and the marriage produced three children, the first born during the war years and the other two a few years after it was all over.
	Carole Brenda Ward was born at Southend-on-Sea in 1942, whereas Gillian Ward was born there in 1950, and David Ward was born in Harrow during 1956. David was only twenty years old when his father died at South Harrow in Middlesex during 1976. Jack’s eldest daughter Carole, who was born at Southend-on-Sea, first married Colin Thompson, and later she married Russell Accorsini. It was with Colin that she had two daughters Jacqueline and Catherine.
	Catherine, who was born in 1964 at Bushey in Hertfordshire, married Nicholas Young with whom she had five children. Today, in 2011, Cathy Young lives in Spalding in Lincolnshire, and it has been with her help and support that this family line has been constructed.
	Jack Ward, merchant seaman during the Second World War, and he died at home at 7 Brooks Avenue in South Harrow on 10^th April 1976.
60Q35	Clarence James Collett was born at Strathalbyn in South Australia during 1919 and was one of the six children of John Williamson Collett and his wife Myrtle Dodd. His second name came from his grandmother’s maiden name. During the Second World War Clarence was a member of the Australian Infantry in which he was Private Clarence James Collett, service number SX11962. Tragically he was captured by the Japanese forces and very likely died in captivity on 27^th October 1943 at the age of 24, and was buried at the Kanchanaburi Cemetery in Thailand (then Siam). His next of kin were named as John Williamson Collett and Myrtle Collett of Strathalbyn.
	During the previous year in 1942, Kanchanaburi came under Japanese control. It was there that Asian forced labourers and Allied prisoners of war built the infamous Burma Railway, and constructed a bridge, as immortalised in the film Bridge on the River Kwai. Almost half of the prisoners working on the project died from disease, maltreatment and accidents. At Kanchanaburi, there is a memorial and two museums to commemorate the dead. In March 2003, the Thailand-Burma Railway Museum opened and the JEATH War Museum is dedicated to the bridge and the Death Railway, the construction of which is modelled on the huts used to house the prisoners. JEATH stands for Japanese, English, Australian, Thai, and Holland, the nationalities involved in the tragedy.
60Q39	Gordon William Collett was born at Sydney in New South Wales on 8^th March 1926, the only child of Christopher Collett and his wife Dorothy Louisa Jackson. Apparently it must have been just after the Second World War that he married Sybilla Eileen Croll at Queensland, when he would have been around twenty or twenty-one. There is a question-mark over this, since it is alleged that she had married Lionel Kent in 1940 (see below), so why was she not Sybilla Kent. By 1949 Gordon and Sybilla were living at Glenmore in East Sydney, when he was 23 and she was 34. There is no record of any children, and Gordon William Collett died while in Sydney on 1^st August 1983.
	His wife Sybilla, who was born at Sydney on 25^th November 1915, the daughter of Allan Watson Croll and his wife Sybilla Margaret Bluett, survived him by twenty-three years when she died during 2006 at Murwillumbah in New South Wales. A record on the Ancestry website states that Sybilla married Lionel Ernest Kent in 1940, and that the wedding took place at Rockdale in New South Wales, the same record indicating that Lionel Kent died in 1979. Therefore Sybilla must have been divorced from him after the war, to enable her to marry Gordon William Collett prior to 1949.
60R1	Christopher Keith Collett, who is known as Keith, was born in Cambridge on 15^th January 1938, the eldest of the six children of Christopher Ernold Collett and his wife Violet Mae Burgoyne. Keith is still living in the High Street in the village of Toft in 2011.
60R2	Koran Collett was born at Toft around 1940, one of the six children of Christopher Ernold Collett and his wife Violet Mae Burgoyne. It is also at Toft that Koran was living with his wife Gill in 2011.
60R3	Margaret Ann Collett was born in Cambridge in 1942, the only daughter of Christopher and Violet Collett. Later in her life she married an American serviceman, Richard Parrish, and had a large family in America. Tragically the family did not enjoy the best of health, and lost two sons to cancer while still in their childhood. Margaret Ann Parrish nee Collett also died with cancer when she was living at Warner Robins in Georgia in 1985, and was followed shortly after by one of her adult sons with the same illness.
60R4	Gerald Paul Collett, who was known as Paul, was born at Toft on 26^th June 1947, the son of Christopher and Violet Collett. In 1967 Paul emigrated to Australia.
60R7	William Collett was the adopted son of Cecil William Bunting Collett and his wife Muriel Sparling of Canada. No date of birth is known, but it is established that William married May Mesita, with whom he had three children.
	60S1	Roseanne Collett			Born in 1969 possibly in Canada
	60S2	Debra Lynn Collett			Born in 1973 possibly in Canada
	60S3	Jeffrey Collett			Born in 1978 possibly in Canada
60S2	Debra Lynn Collett was possibly born in Canada during 1973, the daughter of William Collett and May Mesita, and she later married Paul Sadowsky at Niagara Falls.