PART TWENTY-TWO

 

The Somerset & Wiltshire Line

 

Updated May 2022

 

 

 

 

This is the family line of Barry Collett (Ref. 22R1) of Reading, and Phillip Bain (Ref. 22R4) of Australia, to whom thanks must go for contributing details of this family line

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first record of this line is the marriage between Thomas Collett and Mary Skrine in 1608 at Bathford near Bath.  There was also a Thomas Collett who was the churchwarden at Bathford in 1676.

 

 

 

 

 

The earlier dates shown below are only estimates, in the absence of any better information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22F1

THOMAS COLLETT

 

 

 

22G1

THOMAS COLLETT

May have been born circa 1580-1590

 

 

 

 

22G1

THOMAS COLLETT is known to have married Mary Skrine at Bathford in 1608.  It is also believed that he was the Thomas Collett who was the churchwarden at Bathford in 1676.  Mary Skrine’s family lived in Warleigh Mansion, a manor house in Bathford.  They were the local non-conformist gentry, and remained living in that area until the last of the male line was killed in France during the Great War of 1914-1918.

 

 

 

22H1

WILLIAM COLLETT

May have been born circa 1620-1630

 

 

 

 

22H1

WILLIAM COLLETT married Mary Pearce at the Abbey of St Peter and St Paul in Bath in 1656. 

 

 

 

22I1

THOMAS COLLETT

May have been born circa 1656-1660

 

 

 

 

22I1

THOMAS COLLETT married Elizabeth and died in 1741 at Box, midway between Bath and Chippenham in Wiltshire.

 

 

 

22J1

Anthony Collett

May have been born circa 1680-1690

 

22J2

SIMON COLLETT

Born circa 1680

 

 

 

 

22J1

Anthony Collett was married to Elizabeth and the majority of their thirteen children died at an early age, perhaps due to plague or serious illness.  Anthony Collett died at Bathford on 20th April 1731 when he was middle-aged, placing his approximate year of birth around 1680, so either just before or just after the known birth of his brother Thomas (below).  Anthony’s wife Elizabeth died seven years later on 29th October 1738 and her Will was proved on 9th June 1740.  In that document she was referred to as ‘Elizabeth Collett, widow of Bathford’.  However, in an earlier Will that was proved on 14th June 1739, she was described as ‘the deceased Elizabeth Collett, widow of Bath’.

 

 

 

22K1

Anthony Collett

Born in 1705 at Bath

 

22K2

Anthony Collett

Born in 1707 at Bath

 

22K3

Walter Collett

Born in 1709 at Bath

 

22K4

Peter Collett

Born in 1712 at Bath

 

22K5

Peter Collett

Born in 1714 at Bath

 

22K6

Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1715 at Bath

 

22K7

Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1716 at Bath

 

22K8

Betty Collett

Born in 1718 at Bath

 

22K9

Mary Collett

Born in 1720 at Bath

 

22K10

Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1721 at bath

 

22K11

Catherine Collett

Born in 1722 at Bath

 

22K12

Sarah Collett

Born in 1723 at Bath

 

22K13

Ann Collett

Born in 1728 at Bath

 

 

 

 

22J2

SIMON COLLETT was born in 1680 and he was known to be a Quaker.  It was in 1704 that he married Sarah with whom he had four known children.  It is believed that it was Simon Collett who established the Southgate Wine Vaults in Bath around 1717, which was eventually managed by his son Thomas, and which became Collett & Falkner under Simon’s grandson Thomas Collett around 1783, and then his great grandson Thomas Collett in 1832.

 

 

 

The names of Simon’s and Sarah’s two sons Thomas (1705-1763) and Simon (1713-1789) appear on the Shire Voting Rolls for Bristol in 1729, where they were described as apprentice brewers and bakers.  Their names also appeared in the attendance list of the Society of Friends, and again as witnesses at Quaker marriages conducted during that time.

 

 

 

In addition, the details of their son’s marriages and their deaths were recorded in Quaker records along with the names of their immediate relatives.  Most of the Collett family, including Thomas and Simons were buried by the Society of Friends in the Quaker graveyard at Somerset.  Simon Collett, the elder, died at Box on 10th June 1745 and was buried at St Michael’s in Bath.  His wife Sarah Collett died on 8th May 1742 in the parish of Lyncombe-with-Widcombe in Bath.

 

 

 

22K14

THOMAS COLLETT

Born in 1705 at Bath

 

22K15

Anthony Collett

Born in 1707 at Bath

 

22K16

Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1709 at Bath

 

22K17

Simon Collett

Born in 1713 at Bath

 

 

 

 

22K1

Anthony Collett was born at Bath on 1st December 1705 and was the first of the thirteen children of Anthony and Elizabeth Collett.  He survived for only three months when he died on 12th February 1705.

 

 

 

 

22K2

Anthony Collett was born during in 1707 and was named after his father and his late brother who had suffered an infant death two years earlier.  Unlike many of his siblings, he did reach the age of maturity but still died relatively young when his death was recorded at bath on 19th September 1734, four years after the death of his father.

 

 

 

 

22K3

Walter Collett was born at Bath on 4th December 1709, the second surviving child of Anthony and Elizabeth Collett.  However, his life was cut short when he died on 28th July 1727 just prior to his eighteenth birthday.

 

 

 

 

22K4

Peter Collett was born at Bath on 2nd December 1712 and as with many of his siblings, he too suffered a premature death when he died six months later during the month of May in 1713.

 

 

 

 

22K5

Peter Collett was born at Bath on 22nd May 1714 and was named after his late brother whose infant death occurred one year earlier.

 

 

 

 

22K6

Elizabeth Collett was born on 20th December 1715 and she died during the following month in January 1716.

 

 

 

 

22K7

Elizabeth Collett was born at Bath on 28th December 1716 and, like her namesake (above) she too passed away one month later during January 1717.

 

 

 

 

22K8

Betty Collett was born at Bath on 17th March 1718 and was perhaps named Betty rather than Elizabeth after her too deceased sisters.  However, although she did survive to reach her first birthday, she died shortly thereafter in May 1719.

 

 

 

 

22K9

Mary Collett was born at Bath on 22nd January 1720 and unlike her three older sisters, she was nineteen months old when she died in August 1721.

 

 

 

 

22K10

Elizabeth Collett was the fifth daughter of Anthony and Elizabeth Collett and was born at Bath on 7th April 1721.  Whilst she lived the longest of the five female siblings, she was almost eighteen years old when she died on 22nd March 1739, seven years after the death of her father and five months after the death of her mother.

 

 

 

 

22K11

Catherine Collett was born at Bath on 17th June 1722, the sixth daughter of Anthony and Elizabeth Collett.

 

 

 

 

22K12

Sarah Collett was born at Bath on 15th December 1723 and was the seventh daughter and the twelfth child of Anthony and Elizabeth Collett.

 

 

 

 

22K13

Ann Collett was born at Bath on 2nd July 1728, the last of the thirteen children of Anthony and Elizabeth Collett.  Sadly, like many of her brothers and sister, she suffered an infant death which was recorded at Bath on 22nd March 1729.

 

 

 

 

22K14

THOMAS COLLETT was born at Bath in 1705, the eldest son of Simon and Sarah Collett.  Thomas served an apprenticeship as a brewer and a baker in Bristol with his brother Simon (below), and both of them were recorded in the 1729 Shire Voting Rolls, as well as being listed in the Society of Friends, and as witnesses at numerous Quaker weddings.  It was around 1730 that Thomas is understood to have married (1) Hannah Collett (Ref. 22K14a), although it is not yet established who she was.  However, she tragically died on 27th November 1740 after having given Thomas four children, three of whom died prior to Hannah’s death, with the fourth dying in the middle of the following year.  A recent discovery suggests that Thomas may have married Esther Coole rather than Hannah Collett, and that the wedding took place at the Abbey of St Peter & St Paul in Bath on 5th December 1732, where William Collett of this family married Mary Pearce in 1656.

 

 

 

Hannah Collett was buried at St James in Bath, where all four of her children were born and died.  This may indicate that some form of plague or illness had beset the family at that time.  Thirteen months later Thomas married (2) Sarah Rose at Devizes on 27th December 1741 in accordance with the rite of the Society of Friends - the Quakers.  Sarah was born on 6th October 1710 at Devizes in Wiltshire.  The couple’s eldest son Simon was born at St James in Bath, while their second son was born at Slaughterford in Wiltshire. 

 

 

 

This branch of the Collett family onwards became quite prominent as Quakers in Somerset and Wiltshire for many decades to come, where they worked as bakers, brewers, clothiers, and later as bankers and lawyers.  Upon the death of his father in 1745, Thomas inherited the wine business founded in 1717 by his father, which in turn was passed onto his son Thomas at the time of his own death at Bath on 31st January 1763.  The Will of Thomas Collett was proved on 9th May 1763.  In that document he was referred to as ‘Thomas Collett, distiller of Bath’. 

 

 

 

Following the death of her husband, it was his widow, Mrs Sarah Collett, who was recorded in the Bath City Rate Books as the payer of the rates on the business property at 11 Horse Street in Bath.  According to the records, she was the payee from 1769 until the first decade of the new century, which would mean that she must have been around one hundred years old when she died.  Their business success brought wealth to the family who lived on the family estate at Ridgeside Farm (below left) and Jaggards House (below right) at Corsham in Wiltshire, and at Bathford in the City of Bath.  Members of this family later took their businesses to Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester and London.

 

 

 

Jaggards House (right) had important connections with the Parliamentary forces during the Civil War.

 

 

 

A certain Captain J Collett of Bristol, who served with the Prince of Wales Regiment in the American Wars, returned to the city in 1781 to marry Miss Dubois.  His return to England would have coincided with the British surrender to George Washington on 18th October that year.  However, to date, no link has been found connecting Captain J Collett (Ref. 22L0) to this family line.

 

 

 

22L1

Joseph Collett

Born in 1733 at Bath

 

22L2

Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1736 at Bath

 

22L3

Thomas Collett

Born in 1737 at Bath

 

22L4

Mary Collett

Born in 1739 at Bath

 

The following are the children of Thomas Collett and his second wife Sarah Rose:

 

22L5

Simon Collett

Born in 1742 at Bath

 

22L6

THOMAS COLLETT

Born in 1745 at Slaughterford

 

 

 

 

22K15

Anthony Collett was born at Bath on 20th February 1707.

 

 

 

 

22K16

Elizabeth Collett was born at Bath on 18th October 1709, the only known daughter of Simon and Sarah Collett, who had not reached the age of maturity when she died on 27th October 1728.

 

 

 

 

22K17

Simon Collett was born at Bath in 1713, the youngest known child of Simon and Sarah Collett.  In 1729 Simon, together with his older brother Thomas (above) were listed in the Shire Voting Rolls for Bristol, where the two brothers were described as apprentice brewers and bakers.  Their names also appeared in the attendance list of the Society of Friends, and again as witnesses at Quaker marriages conducted during that time.  Eight years later Simon married Jane Bristow on 7th November 1737 at Slaughterford in Wiltshire, but was married for less than ten years, when Jane Collett nee Bristow died on 18th April 1757 at St James in Bath.  It is highly likely that all of the children of Simon and Jane were born at Bath, although it is only known for sure that the couple’s first two children, and their last one, were born there, and that their second child also died there shortly after he was born.

 

 

 

Simon Collett died at Bath on 28th March 1789, was buried there on 2nd April, and his Will was proved on 17th June 1789.  In that document he was referred to as ‘Simon Collett baker of Bath’.  The death notice published in the Bath Chronicle on 2nd April 1789 said "Mr Simon Collett in St James' Street, Bath, in his 76th year on Saturday".  In addition to this, two years earlier there was an advertisement in the Bath Chronicle, dated 8th February 1787 which read "Property to let from Midsummer - baker's shop opposite Three Tuns Inn, Stall Street, Bath occupied by Mr Simon Collett for many years, now in possession of Messrs Salmon.  Enquiries Mr Masters, 21 Orchard Street, Bath".

 

 

 

The reference to Stall Street in Bath may be of interest since, it was there a few years earlier, that John Collett (Ref. 22K17a), a shoe-maker, also lived.  He was listed as one of the ten witnesses for the prosecution at Somerset Wells Assizes during the trial of John Butler who was accused of taking part in the Gordon Riot of 1870.  Lord George Gordon became the President of the Protestant Association in 1780 to force the repeal of the legislation contained within the Papists Act of 1778.  An articulate, albeit eccentric propagandist, Gordon inflamed the mob with fears of papism and a return to absolute monarchical rule. He intimated that Catholics in the military would, given a chance, join forces with their co-religionists on the Continent and attack Britain, this at the height of the American War of Independence when Britain was fighting the American rebels, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic.

 

 

 

Who shoe-maker John Collett of Stall Street in Bath was, has yet to be determined, since there is no one by that name, or with that occupation, in this family line.  However, Stall Street was also the address for Collett & Falkner (Wine & Spirit Co) in 1784 – see below.

 

 

 

22L7

Sarah Collett

Born in 1739 at Bath

 

22L8

Jane Collett

Born in 1740 at Bath

 

22L9

Ann Collett

Born in 1742 at Bath

 

22L10

Isaac Collett

Born in 1744 at Bath

 

22L11

Jane Collett

Born in 1746 at Bath

 

22L12

Hannah Collett

Born in 1746 at Bath

 

 

 

 

22L1

Joseph Collett was born at Bath on 26th December 1733 and died there on 17th August 1734.  He was the first-born child of Thomas Collett and his first wife Hannah Collett.

 

 

 

 

22L2

Elizabeth Collett was born at Bath on 16th August 1736 and it was there also that she died a few months later on 25th February 1737, the eldest daughter of Thomas and Hannah Collett.

 

 

 

 

22L3

Thomas Collett was born at Bath on 25th October 1737 and survived for just one month when he died on 23rd November 1737.

 

 

 

 

22L4

Mary Collett was born at Bath on 16th September 1739 and was still under two years of age when she died on 4th July 1741, just six months after the death of her mother Hannah Collett.

 

 

 

 

22L5

Simon Collett was born at Bath on 25th July 1742, the first of the two sons of Thomas Collett by his second wife Sarah Rose.

 

 

 

 

22L6

THOMAS COLLETT was born at Slaughterford in Wiltshire on 9th March 1745, the younger of the two sons of Thomas Collett by his second wife Sarah Rose.  He later married Mary with whom he had two known children who were born nearly ten years apart, the first of which was born at Lyncombe-with-Widcombe in Bath. 

 

Thomas Collett was a wine merchant, a banker and a brewer, and was a significant figure in Bath around 1783 when he was listed as one of the principals of the Tufnell and Falkner Bank.  It is interesting to note that Thomas’ cousin Isaac Collett (below) and four other Bath businessmen established a bank in Bath in 1775.  It is also understood that it was Thomas, rather than his cousin Isaac, in partnership with Francis Falkner, who set up the wine and spirits company of Collett & Falkner. 

 

 

 

The company initially operated from premises at St James Street in the centre of Bath, although another record gave the address as Stall Street.  By 1791 the company was operating from Horse Street in Bath and was referred to as Collett & Faulkner, Brandy, Rum and Wine Merchants.  In 1805 the wine was presented in sealed earthenware pot (bottles) which also carried the name Collett & Falkner and the address at Horse Street in Bath.  It was at 11 Horse Street that Collett & Falkner was based right up to 1809, while the records in Bath indicate that it was at 9 Horse Street that the company was based from 1819 to 1824.  Horse Street was later renamed Southgate Street and it was at 9 Southgate Street that the business was located from 1826 until 1883.  The company then ceased to be Collett & Falkner following the death of Thomas Collett and his son Thomas, who briefly managed the business after the death of his father.  In addition to this, Thomas Collett (senior) also ran a clothier business, as had his father before him. 

 

 

 

Thomas’ wife Mary Collett died at Jaggards House in Corsham on 6th September 1813 and was buried at Bathford Friends Cemetery in Bath.  Thomas Collett died almost twenty years later, when he passed away on 28th March 1832 while at Ridgeside in Corsham.  Following his death, the local newspaper, the Bath Chronicle, carried a substantial obituary to Thomas Collett (senior) that praised him for his decency, honesty and his importance to the people of Bath.  Although his son Thomas was very likely involved in the wine partnership, it was on the death of his father that Thomas Collett junior took over the sole interest for the family in the wine company.  However, Thomas’ son only managed to carry on for twenty-one months before he died at the end of the following year, at which time he too was honoured with an equally impressive obituary – see under his separate entry below.

 

 

 

22M1

THOMAS COLLETT

Born in 1779 at Lyncombe-with-Wid.

 

22M2

Mary Ann Collett

Born circa 1790 in Wiltshire

 

 

 

 

22L7

Sarah Collett was born at Bath on 12th September 1739, the eldest child of Simon Collett and his wife Jane Bristow.

 

 

 

 

22L8

Jane Collett was born at Bath on 25th November 1740 and only survived for two weeks when she died at Bath on 9th December 1740.

 

 

 

 

22L9

Ann Collett was born on 17th March 1742 and probably at Bath.  However, she died at family home at Ridgeside in Corsham on 12th March 1833.

 

 

 

 

22L10

Isaac Collett was born at Bath on 21st January 1744, the only known son of Bath baker Simon Collett and his wife Jane Bristow.  It was Isaac Collett who, with four other businessmen, established a private bank in Bath in 1775 which was a past constituent of today’s Royal Bank of Scotland.  The bank originally operated under the name of Atwood, Abrahams, Collett, Salmon & Harris.  Those gentlemen were all prominent figures in Bath at that time, and they were Dr Atwood who was a surgeon, William Abrahams who was a clothier, Isaac Collett who was a wine merchant, John Salmon who was an insurance agent, and William Harris who was an ironmonger.

 

 

 

Approximately three years after founding the bank, Isaac Collett married Mary around 1778, and very likely at Bath.  It was certainly in the St James district of Bath that the couple settled and where their known children were born.  Two years later the following article appeared in the Bath Chronicle of 9th November 1780.  Publications: "Works of late Thos. Wilson, Bishop of Sodor & Man" - new subscribers since last publication inc. Mr Isaac Collett, wine merchant; Mr Francis Falkner, wine merchant; Mr Joseph Albin, cabinet maker; & Mr John Harris, shoemaker, all of Bath.”

 

 

 

It is curious that it was Isaac Collett the wine merchant, rather than Thomas Collett the wine merchant, who paid rates on 11 Horse Street in Bath, according to the Bath City Rate Books.  The records indicate that this was the case from 1769 to 1811, when also listed as rate payers for the same address was Mrs Sarah Collett (the widow of Thomas Collett Ref. 22K14), Francis Falkner, together with the company of Collett & Falkner.  This raises the question, as to whether Isaac was involved in the wine and spirit company with his cousin Thomas Collett, the son of Mrs Sarah Collett and the partner of Francis Falkner.

 

 

 

In 1783 an alternative bank was set up in Bath, that being the Tufnell & Falkner Bank, for which Isaac’s cousin Thomas Collett (above) was named as a principal.  Whether by merger or as a separate organisation, in 1810 the bank originally set up by Isaac Collett and his partners became the Tufnell, Stroud, Collett, Payne & Hope Bank, while two years later it was the Tufnell, Falkner & Falkner Bank.  A little while after that it was re-named again when it became the Tufnell, Collett, Payne & Hope Bank, when it was also known as the ‘Bladud Bank’, a reference to the building in Bath from which it operated.  Isaac Collett was also mentioned in Bath records for 1787 when he was one of ten men listed on 11th October that year as holding an agricultural game certificate.

 

 

 

In 1825 the firm of Tufnell, Collett, Payne & Hope was dissolved and was re-styled as Tufnell, Collett & Co, separating it from the Payne & Hope Wells Bank (est. 1800, failed 1831) and previously run by the same partners.  The bank of Tufnell, Collett & Co opened a branch in Chippenham during 1830 and was subsequently known as Tufnell, Falkner & Co, probably following the death of Isaac Collett.  The partners of that company were Richard Falkner and Francis Henry Falkner.

 

 

 

Isaac’s wife Mary, who was born in 1743, died on 3rd March 1830 and was buried at Bathford in Bath.  Her Will was proved on 6th September 1830 in which she was referred to as ‘Mary Collett, a widow of Corsham’, indicating that her husband had died sometime after 1825 and before 1830.

 

 

 

22M3

Simon Collett

Born in 1781 at Bath

 

22M4

Sarah Collett

Born in 1782 at Bath

 

22M5

Mary Collett

Born in 1789 at Bath

 

 

 

 

22L11

Jane Collett was born on 12th January 1746, possibly at Bath, where she died on 18th October 1749.

 

 

 

 

22L12

Hannah Collett was born on 24th September 1746, possibly at Bath, where she too died on 10th June 1748.

 

 

 

 

22M1

THOMAS COLLETT was born in the parish of Lyncombe-with-Widcombe at Bath in 1779, the only son of Thomas Collett and Mary Jones. 

 

He married (1) Ann Fisher on 19th August 1806 at Bathwick Church in Bath.  Ann was born at Wedmore, south of Cheddar in Somerset, in 1789 and her well-to-do Bathford family had connections with the Skrine family.  Ann Collett nee Fisher died at Corsham on 28th January 1825.  For the next six years Thomas lived the life of a widower and then at Corsham, on 14th June 1831, he married (2) Ann Pheunecia Stump who was born during 1786 in Tasmania.  However, the marriage was short lived, when Thomas died sixteen months later on 10th December 1833 at Worcester.

 

Three years after the death of her husband, Ann Pheunecia sailed to Tasmania with stepson Arthur Thomas Collett and his new wife.

 

 

 

It is interesting to note that Joseph and Ann Stump were the witnesses at the marriage of Martha Collett (Ref. 62L4) and John Stump at Kington St Michael on 23rd September 1811.  They were possibly the parents of John Stump, and it may have also been this Ann Stump who later became the second wife of Thomas Collett.  Kington St Michael is less than five miles north of Corsham.

 

 

 

The group arrived at Van Diemen’s Land in early 1837 following which Pheunecia continued to live with Arthur and his family.  She eventually returned to England with Arthur and his wife and their children in 1855/56.  They initially settled in London, then Buckinghamshire, before moving to Ilfracombe in North Devon, where they were living at the time of the census in 1861.  However, two years later, in April 1863, the widow of Arthur Collett returned to Tasmania with her eight surviving children, to be reunited with the other members of the Collett family who had remained there in 1855/56.

 

 

 

The earlier census for Ilfracombe conducted in 1861 described 76-year-old Ann (Pheunecia) Collett as a fund holder and the stepmother of head of the household Arthur Collett, while her place of birth was recorded as Tasmania, Australia.  Following the death of her stepson and the departure of his family back to Tasmania, it was only a few weeks after their leaving that Ann Pheunecia Collett died on 1st May 1863 at East Budleigh, just north of Budleigh Salterton in Devon.

 

 

 

Both of the children of Thomas Collett and his first wife Ann Fisher were born while the couple was living at Lyncombe-with-Widcombe.  Upon the death of his father in March 1832, it is understood from newspaper advertisements in the Bath & Cheltenham Gazette and the Bath Journal at that time that Thomas took over his father’s interest in the wine merchants set up by his father in the company of Collett & Falkner of Bath.  This assumption has been made because both articles were published during the first week in January 1834, and referred to the recent passing of Thomas Collett, which had happened just three weeks earlier, whereas Thomas’ father had died around twenty-two months prior to publication.

 

 

 

Thomas’ obituary in 19th December 1833 edition of the Bath Chronicle read as follows: “Dec 10 at Worcester, after a protracted illness, aged 54, Thomas Collett Esq, of this city, banker, and of Ridgeside in Wiltshire.  As few individuals were more highly respected or deservedly beloved, so there are few whose death will be more deeply regretted or sincerely lamented; amenity of temper, kindness of heart, and steadfastness in friendship, richly embalm his memory with those who knew and appreciated his worth”

 

 

 

The very similar advertisements in the local Bath papers on 6th and 7th January 1834 read as follows:

Southgate Wine Vaults Bath

Established A.D. 1717

The Nobility, Gentry, and Public, are respectfully informed that, in consequence of the death of Mr Collett, one of the proprietors of the above Concern, is deprived of a name that has been associated with it for nearly One Hundred and Twenty Years, and that the Business will in future be conducted under the firm of Falkner and Son, who being possessed of the whole of the very choice and valuable stock of wines and spirits hope, by their united exertions, to secure a continuance of that liberal support hitherto experienced, and for which the surviving Partner, Mr Falkner begs to return his most grateful thanks.

 

 

 

22N1

Mary Ann Collett

Born in 1807 at Lyncombe-with-Wid.

 

22N2

ARTHUR THOMAS COLLETT

Born in 1809 at Lyncombe-with-Wid.

 

 

 

 

22M2

Mary Ann Collett was born in Wiltshire around 1790.  She married (1) Doctor Onesiphorus Windle Bartley on 20th December 1809 at Corsham.  He was born on 7th July 1778 at Bristol and he died on 18th August 1818 at Bathford and was buried there at the Quaker Burial Ground.  The short marriage produced two children for Mary Ann, the first born at Nailsworth south of Gloucester where she died the following year, the second also at Nailsworth and the third at Bristol.  Mary Ann then married (2) Jean Baptiste Lequeyer on 16th January 1822.  It seems more than likely that she met and married Jean while on the island of Jersey since it was there that she died on 13th January 1880.

 

 

 

22N3

Mary Bartley

Born 17.08.1811; died 1812 Nailsworth

 

22N4

Mary Bartley

Born in 1813 at Nailsworth

 

22N5

Onesiphorus Bartley

Born in 1815 at Bristol

 

 

 

 

22M3

Simon Collett was born at Bath on 16th February 1781, the only known son of Isaac and Mary Collett.

 

 

 

 

22M4

Sarah Collett was born at Bath in 1782 at Bath who, it would appear, never married, her death recorded at Bath (Ref. 5c 431) during the last three months of 1867 when she was 85.

 

 

 

 

22M5

Mary Collett was born at St James in Bath on 17th July 1789 and, like her cousin Mary Ann Collett (above), she too married into the Bartley family.

 

 

 

 

22N1

Mary Ann Collett was born at Lyncombe-with Widcombe on 15th November 1807 but sadly she died at Nailsworth on 27th March 1811 at the age of three and one quarter years.

 

 

 

 

22N2

ARTHUR THOMAS COLLETT was born at Lyncombe-with-Widcombe on 25th June 1809.  He attended Wadham College in Oxford where he matriculated on 14th January 1826 aged 16.  In an Oxford report, Arthur’s father was referred to as ‘Thomas Collett of Widcombe in Somerset, bart’ - which indicated that he was entitled to use a heraldic coat of arms.  A little while later he left Oxford and is believed to have attended Edinburgh University to complete a Law Degree.  It is interesting to note that Oxford was an Anglican stronghold and that Edinburgh was a refuge for non-Anglican students, and this may have been the reason for his move to Scotland.

 

 

 

Arthur Thomas Collett married (1) Sarah Lowe on 6th September 1836 at John Wesley’s Church of St Bartolphs Without at Aldergate, which lies behind St Paul’s Cathedral in London.  Arthur appears to be the first in the family line to switch to the Wesleyan Church from being a Quaker.  Arthur’s first wife Sarah was born at Winslow in Cheshire on 13th March 1808 and shortly after they were marriage the couple sailed to Tasmania on the ship ‘The Royal George’, and it was there that Arthur took up the position as magistrate and coroner.  It was virtually on his arrival Tasmania in 1837 that he was made a Justice of the Peace, and that same year saw the birth of the first child for Arthur and Sarah.

 

 

 

The couple initially made their home at Launceston where their first three children were born, but later settled in nearby Evandale.  And it was at Evandale that Arthur offered a home to his stepmother Ann Pheunecia Collett nee Stump, who stayed with the family until her death.  Ann came from a wool producing (broking and weaving) family in Corsham, Wiltshire, and must have held a special place in Arthur’s life, as his first daughter was named in her honour.  However, tragedy struck the family just eleven days, after the birth of the couple’s fourth child at Evandale, when Sarah died at Launceston on 29th June 1842.

 

 

 

A few years later Arthur married (2) Sophia Sarah Jones Huxtable on 27th June 1845 at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Evandale.  Sophia was the daughter of Hackney surgeon Doctor William Huxtable and was born at Redcliffe Hill in Bristol on 6th July 1818.  Around 1850 Dr Huxtable worked closely with Dr Joseph Lister who was credited with the introduction of antiseptic in surgical procedures to reduce infection.  That second marriage for Arthur produced a total of eleven children, seven of whom were born in Tasmania.  It was while the couple was stilling living at Evandale that their first two children were born.  There seems to have been a move to Morven soon after, since it was there that the couple’s next three children were born.  It would also appear that the family later returned to Evandale, where their last two Tasmanian offspring were born.  Around the start of the First World War, Arthur’s great grandson George Edward Collett (Ref. Ref. 22Q10) married Helen Maud Huxtable, thus providing a second like between the two families in 1936.

 

 

 

Arthur Thomas Collett became a significant landowner and political figure in the young colony and was even an advocate for changing the name from Van Diemen’s Land to Tasmania.  He purchased an 880-acre sheep farm in central Tasmania that he christened ‘Ridgeside’ after the Collett family home at Corsham in England and leased a further 6,000 acres for rearing sheep.  In 1840 he sought election to the Legislative Assembly, an advisory body made up of the Colony’s leading citizens that was a precursor to a fully elected legislature.  He ran on a platform of promoting Tasmanian meat and other foodstuffs in preference to imported products.  By 1846 Arthur had opened a butcher’s shop in Charles Street in Launceston with his nephew Theodore Bartley, under the name ‘Van Diemen’s Land Meat Company’ which traded for more than eleven years.

 

 

 

It was around ten years later that the Arthur and Sophia, accompanied by stepmother Ann Pheunecia Collett, sailed to England leaving Theodore Bartley to manage the butcher’s shop.  Once back in England the family lived for a while at Islington in London, where Sophia gave birth to their son Robert.  Shortly after the birth, the family took up residence at Parmoor House in Frieth, within the Buckinghamshire parish of Hambleden, near High Wycombe, where the couple’s last two children were born.  It is believed that the decision to return to England was prompted by a fall-out with the Anglican Bishop of Launceston and other figures of the Colonial establishment in Tasmania.  Prior to his return to England, Arthur sold the bulk of his land holding to his other nephew William Bartley.

 

 

 

The 12th Century Parmoor House is noted in history as originally belonging to the Knights Templar, as the birth place of Sir Stafford Cripps the post-war Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the place of safety for King Zog of Albania during World War Two.

 

 

 

During the months following the birth of their last child at Parmoor House, Arthur, Sophia and Ann Pheunecia Collett left Buckinghamshire and in 1861 the family group was recorded in the census that year living at Adelaide Terrace in Ilfracombe, North Devon.  On that occasion the family was recorded as Arthur Collett, aged 51, a retired magistrate who was born at Bath, his wife Sophia, aged 42 and from Bristol, and their two daughters Emily Collett who was seven, and Mary Ann Collett who was five, both from Tasmania, and their three sons Robert Collett who was four and from Islington, and George Collett who was three and his place of birth was confirmed as Parmoor House, Bucks.  It is unclear where Arthur’s youngest son, Alfred, was at that time. 

 

 

 

Still living with the family was Arthur’s stepmother, the widow Ann Collett, aged 76, who was listed as being a fund holder, while her place of birth was given as Tasmania.  If that was true, then it was perhaps through her influence that the Collett family had emigrated to that island in 1837.  Also, at that same time in March 1861 Arthur’s and Sophia’s three eldest surviving children were attending a boarding school in Wiltshire.  The census that month listed the three brothers as Paul Collett aged 14, Thomas Collett aged 13 and Theodore B Collett who was 11, when they were at the boarding school on Pickwick Road in Corsham.  All three boys were recorded as having been born at Evandale in Tasmania, even though it is understood that Theodore had been born at Morven.

 

 

 

Sometime later that same year Arthur and his family moved to Somerset where on 10th October 1861 Arthur Thomas Collett was tragically killed when he fell from his horse.  The incident, which was reported in an obituary in The Times, happened at Hele Hill in Wellington, Somerset, when it was thought that he had a stroke which caused him to fall from his horse onto the Bath Road.  He never recovered from the injuries that he sustained and was buried at Widcombe, to the south of the Kennet & Avon Canal in his home town of Bath.  At the time of his death Arthur was working at law in Taunton and during his life he was sometimes referred to as Arthur Collett of Corsham.

 

 

 

Upon settlement of his estate in early 1863, the bulk of which amounted to £6,000 and was inherited by his eldest son William Pountney Collett, his wife Sophia returned to the southern hemisphere to rejoin her own Huxtable family with the ultimate intention of living on the remnants of her husband’s land holding.  For the return journey to Australia on board the ship ‘The Anglesey’ sailing out of Plymouth on 13th January 1863, Sophia J Collett, aged 44, was accompanied by her eight children; Paul Collett who was 16, Thomas Collett who was 15, Theodore B Collett who was 12, Emily Collett who was eight, Margaret A Collett who was six, Robert Collett who was five, George E Collett who was three, and Alfred Collett who was two years old.  Accompanying the family on their long sea voyage was John A Huxtable who was 45 and most likely Sophia’s older brother.  Rather curiously, all of the children’s age were not accurately recorded on the passenger list, so maybe it was their uncle who provided the information.

 

 

 

‘The Anglesey’ with only twenty-seven on board (passengers and crew), arrived at Port Fairy, Melbourne in Victoria on 8th April 1863 and Sophia first lived near Warnambool in Victoria and then followed her son Thomas to where he had taken up land at Healesville and Lilydale.  A few years later she and the younger children settled just across the water at Evandale, near Launceston in Tasmania, before finally taking over Arthur’s remaining land holdings at Oatlands on the north side of Lake Dulverton, just north of Hobart.

 

 

 

During the 1840s Sophia had been a school teacher and had taught at the Ellenthorpe School for Girls in Launceston.  And it was her dire financial situation that forced her back into teaching later in her life, after the death of her husband and her return to Tasmania.  Sadly, Sophia was almost penniless at the time of her death on 6th May 1877 and during the preceding couple of years she had worked at a store in Oatlands.  She was eventually laid to rest at the Methodist and Presbyterian Cemetery in Oatlands.

 

 

 

22O1

Arthur Thomas Collett

Born in 1837 at Launceston, Tasmania

 

22O2

Ann Pheunicia Collett

Born in 1838 at Launceston, Tasmania

 

22O3

William Pountney Collett

Born in 1840 at Launceston, Tasmania

 

22O4

Frederick Collett

Born in 1842 at Evandale, Tasmania

 

The following are the children of Arthur Thomas Collett and his second wife Sophia Sarah Jones Huxtable:

 

22O5

Paul Collett

Born in 1845 at Evandale, Tasmania

 

22O6

Thomas Collett

Born in 1846 at Evandale, Tasmania

 

22O7

Ann Collett

Born in 1848 at Morven, Tasmania

 

22O8

Theodore Bartley Collett

Born in 1849 at Morven, Tasmania

 

22O9

Ann Collett

Born in 1850 at Morven, Tasmania

 

22O10

Edward Collett

Born in 1852 at Morven, Tasmania

 

22O11

Emily Collett

Born in 1854 at Evandale, Tasmania

 

22O12

Margaret Ann Collett

Born in 1855 at Evandale, Tasmania

 

22O13

ROBERT COLLETT

Born in 1856 at Islington, London

 

22O14

George Edward Collett

Born in 1858 at Frieth, Buckinghamshire

 

22O15

Alfred Collett

Born in 1860 at Frieth, Buckinghamshire

 

 

 

 

22N5

Onesiphorus Bartley was born at Bristol on 4th April 1815.  At some time during the following thirty years, he sailed to Canada where he married Sarah Carroll at St Paul’s Woodstock in Ontario on 1st September 1844.  After only eight years of being married Sarah died in 1852 at Paris in Ontario but not before presenting her husband with two children.  They were Edwin Carroll Bartley who was born in 1849 and Eugenia Bartley who later married Thomas Sparks.

 

 

 

 

22O1

Arthur Thomas Collett was born at Launceston in Tasmania on 29th October 1837, the eldest child of Arthur Thomas Collett and his first wife Sarah Lowe.

 

 

 

 

22O2

Ann Pheunicia Collett was born at Launceston on 31st October 1838 and died there less than a year later on 28th July 1839.  She was the eldest daughter of Arthur and Sarah Collett, and was named after her grandmother, her father’s stepmother.

 

 

 

 

22O3

William Pountney Collett was born Launceston on 7th July 1840, the son of Arthur and Sarah Collett.

 

 

 

 

22O4

Frederick Collett was born at Evandale, near Launceston on 18th June 1842 and tragically, just eleven days after he was born, his mother Sarah Collett nee Lowe died.

 

 

 

 

22O5

Paul Collett was born at Evandale in Tasmania around 1845, the first child of Arthur Thomas Collett by his second wife Sophia Sarah Jones Huxtable.  Not much is known about Paul except that he and his parents sailed to England around 1856 and, upon arrival, he and his two younger brothers Thomas and Theodore (below) were educated at Pickwick Road Boarding School in Corsham, where he was recorded as a pupil at the age of 14 in the census of 1861.  Between the years 1856 and 1861 the remainder of his family lived in London initially, before residing at Parmoor House near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, and by March 1861 his parents were living in Ilfracombe, North Devon.

 

 

 

Paul was still living in England when his father died later that same year, following which he and the rest of the family accompanied their widowed mother for the return voyage back to Australia in 1863.  Paul was listed as being 16 years of age on the passenger list of the ship ‘The Anglesey’, but what happened to him after that time is not yet known.

 

 

22O6

Thomas Collett was born at Evandale in 1846, the second son of Arthur Thomas Collett and his second wife Sophia.  Like his brothers Paul (above) and Theodore (below), Thomas also attended Pickwick Road Boarding School in Corsham, where he was recorded at the age of 13 in the census in 1861 when his place of birth was confirmed as Evandale.  With the death of his father in the second half of 1861, Thomas returned to Australia with his mother and the rest of the family in 1863, when he was included on the passenger list of ‘The Anglesey’ as being 15 years of age.

 

Thomas Collett later married (1) Gertrude Baulich, and after that he then married (2) Adeline Bonner at Ulverstone in Tasmania on 3rd October 1888.  His daughter Lily came from the first marriage.  Thomas Collett was living at Longford in Tasmania when he died.

 

 

 

22P1

Lily Collett

Date and place of birth unknown

 

 

 

 

22O7

Ann Collett may have been born at Morven in 1848, the daughter of Arthur and Sophia Collett.  Sadly, it was there also that she died on 22nd October 1848, shortly after she was born.

 

 

 

 

22O8

Theodore Bartley Collett was born at Morven on 4th June 1849, the son of Arthur and Sophia Collett.  He was only around seven years old when he and his parents travelled to England on business.  While they were in England, Theodore and his two older brothers were sent to Pickwick Road Boarding School in Corsham where, in 1861, he was recorded as being 11 years of age and born at Evandale.  However, shortly thereafter, and following the death of his father later that same year, Theodore and the rest of the family made the return journey back to Australia.  Theodore’s age on the passenger list of ‘The Anglesey’ was 12.

 

 

 

Theodore later married eighteen years old Annie Saltmarsh on 10th April 1878 at Longford in Tasmania, when his age was recorded as being 28.  Annie was born at Longford in 1860 and the marriage produced four daughters and a son.  Both of the older girls were born at Port Sorell in Tasmania, while the other three children were born at Hobart.  Theodore Bartley Collett died at Mersey in Tasmania on 7th July 1899.

 

 

 

22P2

Mary Collett

Born in 1881 at Port Sorell, Tas.

 

22P3

Maude Mersey Collett

Born in 1883 at Port Sorell, Tas.

 

22P4

Arthur Collett

Born in 1885 at Hobart, Tasmania

 

22P5

Mabel Collett

Born in 1887 at Hobart, Tasmania

 

22P6

Florence Collett

Date of birth unknown at Hobart

 

 

 

 

22O9

Ann Collett was born at Morven on 2nd July 1850 where she died the following year on 24th March 1851.

 

 

 

 

22O10

Edward Collett was born at Morven on 2nd May 1852 and died just over two years later at Evandale on 9th March 1854.  It was two years after his death that his parents Arthur and Sophia Collett returned to England in the early half of 1856.

 

 

 

 

22O11

Emily Collett was born at Evandale on 24th May 1854.  She may have been less than two years old when she made the long sea journey from Tasmania to England with her parents in late 1855 or early 1856.  Once in England the family spent a short time initially at Islington in London before living for a few years at Parmoor House in Frieth near High Wycombe.  According to the census in 1861 Emily Collett, aged seven years and from Tasmania, was living with her parents at Adelaide Terrace in Ilfracombe.  Later that same year her father was killed in a riding accident and, once his estate was settled, Emily and her mother and the rest of the family sailed back to Australia on board the ship ‘The Anglesey’.

 

 

 

Emily Collett was 23 at the time of her marriage to Charles Smith at Morven on 30th January 1878, while he was exactly twice her age, he being 46 years old.  The married produced a daughter and two sons.  Their daughter Una Smith later married to became Mrs Una Thorpe, while Emily’s two sons were Thomas and Charles - who was born at Horton on 13th December 1881.

 

 

 

 

22O12

Margaret Ann Collett was born at Evandale in 1855, the second daughter of Arthur and Sophia Collett.  Not long after she was born her parents sailed back to England where the family settled in Islington first, then Frieth in Buckinghamshire, followed by Ilfracombe in North Devon.  It was at the latter that ‘Mary Ann Collett’ aged five years and from Tasmania was living with her parents at the time of the census in 1861.  Also living with the family at Adelaide Terrace in Ilfracombe was Margaret’s elderly grandmother Ann Collett, also from Tasmania.  Tragically six months later her father died while in Somerset, following which her mother Sophia returned to Tasmania on board ‘The Anglesey’ in April 1863 to be reunited with the other members of her wider family.

 

 

 

It is perhaps curious that in the 1861 Census and the first ship’s passenger list that Margaret Ann Collett was referred to as Mary Ann Collett, whilst on the outbound passenger list for ‘The Anglesey’ in 1863 she was correctly named as Margaret Ann Collett.  It may have been on completing her education that Margaret left Tasmania to secure work in Victoria, since it was there at Caulfield that she married the much older (1) Charles Maguire on 24th June 1876.  She was just 21 years old, while Charles was 41.  The announcement of their marriage was printed in the Launceston Examiner newspaper in Tasmania on 8th July, which read as follows: “MAGUIRE-COLLETT - on 24th June, at Caulfield, Victoria, Charles Maguire, evangelist, to Margaret Anne, daughter of the late Arthur Thomas Collett, Esq., of Ridgeside, Evandale, Tasmania.”  Sadly it was the day before the couple’s twelfth wedding anniversary that Charles Maguire, born in 1835, died at Toorak in Victoria on 23rd June 1888.  Following the death of her husband Margaret Ann Maguire subsequently married for a second time, when she became Margaret Ann Conolace.

 

 

 

 

22O13

ROBERT COLLETT was born on 21st January 1857, another son of retired magistrate Arthur Collett and his second wife Sophia Huxtable, but the first to be born in England after the couple, and their large family, had arrived from Tasmania.  The birth of Robert Collett was recorded at Islington (Ref. 1b 232) during the first quarter of 1856 while, previously, it was thought that he had been born at Parmoor House in Frieth, Buckinghamshire, where his two younger brothers were born.  Just four days after he was born Robert Collett, son of Arthur Thomas Collett and his wife Sophia, was baptised at St Mary’s Church in Reading on 25th January 1857.  However, confirmation of his birth at Islington was provided within the census of 1861, when he and his parents were living at Adelaide Terrace in Ilfracombe, when four-year-old Robert Collett was recorded as having been born at Islington in London.

 

 

 

Just six months after the spring census in 1861, Robert’s family was living in Somerset when his father died as a result of falling, or being thrown, from his horse.  It took over a year to settle his estate, at which time Robert’s widowed mother travelled back to Australia on the ship ‘The Anglesey’ with her children, which arrived there in April 1863.  Robert received a good education from his mother and remained a staunch Methodist all his life.  It was at Lilydale in Victoria that Robert Collett married Margaret Ann White on 7th March 1881.  Margaret Ann was born during 1857 at Healesville in Victoria, the eldest child of local farmer John Bishop White and Mary Bruce of Healesville.

 

 

 

Robert initially worked with his older brother Thomas, before becoming a dairy farmer near Warragul in Gippsland.  He and Margaret had a total of twelve children, eleven of them listed below, although only nine of the twelve survived and most of them settled around the Gippsland region.  Later in his life Robert became a Sunday school teacher at Ecklin South near Camperdown.  The couple’s two eldest children were born while the family was living at Lilydale, while daughter Emily Harriet was born and died at Calton, son Frederick at Mitcham, with Charles Robert and Alick both born at Mepunga East, all in Victoria.  Margaret Ann Collett nee White died at Warragul in Victoria on 2nd May 1930 and was followed nine and a half years later by Robert Collett who died at Prahran in Victoria on 2nd December 1939.

 

 

 

22P7

Mary Sophia Collett

Born in 1883 at Lilydale, Victoria

 

22P8

Arthur Clarence Collett

Born in 1884 at Lilydale, Victoria

 

22P9

George Collett

Born in 1885 at Calton, Victoria

 

22P10

Emily Harriet Collett

Born in 1886 at Calton, Victoria

 

22P11

George Edward Collett

Born in 1887, place unknown

 

22P12

FREDERICK ALEXANDER COLLETT

Born in 1888 at Mitcham, Victoria

 

22P13

Charles Robert Collett

Born in 1890 at Mepunga East, Vic.

 

22P14

Annie Olivia Collett

Born in 1892, place unknown

 

22P15

Stanley James George Collett

Born in 1893, place unknown

 

22P16

Alick Harold David Collett

Born in 1896, place unknown

 

22P17

Alice Collett

Born in 1898, place unknown

 

 

 

 

22O14

George Edward Collett was born at Parmoor House in the Buckinghamshire village of Frieth during the summer of 1858, around eighteen months after his parents had arrived in England from Tasmania.  His birth however, was recorded at nearby Henley (Ref. 3a 438) during the third quarter of 1858.  When he was baptised at Hambleden on 24th August 1858, the church record stated that he and his parents Arthur Thomas Collett and Sophia Jones (Sophia Sarah Jones Huxtable) were residing in the village of Hambleden, midway between Henley and Marlow, and just three miles south of Frieth.  It was at Parmoor House that the family lived for a couple of years before they moved to Ilfracombe, where they were living in 1861 at Adelaide Terrace.  The census that year simply recorded him as George Collett aged three years from Parmoor House, Bucks.  Later that same year, George and his family were living in Somerset when his father died from injuries her sustained in a riding accident.  Upon settlement of his father’s estate, George accompanied his mother and the rest of his family back to Australia on board the vessel ‘The Anglesey’, which set sail out of Plymouth on 13th January 1863 and disembarked at Port Fairy, Melbourne in Victoria on 8th April 1863, when George was said to be three years of age, when he was nearer five.

 

 

 

George would appear to have been nearly thirty years old when he married Helen Maud Halligan at Petersham, near Marrickville, Sydney, New South Wales, on 24th January 1888, where the event was recorded (Ref. 2275/1881).  All of their sons were born when the family was living at Marrickville whereas, towards the turn of the century, when their daughter was born, the family was living at Richmond - north-west of Marrickville, in the Hawkesbury River region north-west of Sydney.  According to Australian golf historian Barry Leithhead, who made contact in the spring of 2018, Mrs Helen Collett and her second son Edgar took part in the inaugural golf tournament at the Windsor Golf Club in 1905.  The Womens’ Division of the competition was won by Mrs Collett, while her 14-year-old son Edgar, won the men’s event.  Both were scratch golfers but, rather surprisingly, Helen’s husband George Edward was apparently not a player at that time, but took it up shortly thereafter.

 

 

 

An article published in the Windsor & Richmond Gazette on Saturday 27th May 1905 read as follows:

“Windsor Golf Club’s links in Mr James Gosper’s paddock, were officially opened on Saturday afternoon (20th May 1905) in the presence of a party of about seventy-five ladies and gentlemen, many of whom were invited guests.  Golf is becoming popular in the district and the game has many devotees.  For some years a good club has flourished in Richmond, and last season it was spasmodically played, in Windsor, but this winter golf is likely to catch on, for those who have taken it up are very enthusiastic.  Mr J J Paine declared the links open, and the first ball was struck by Mrs. Paine.  Then some games were played, and a dainty afternoon tea, provided by the ladies, was partaken of.  A club was given for the best round of nine holes by a lady, and was won by Mrs Collett of Richmond, with the excellent score of 45, beating bogey by seven strokes.  The gentlemen played 18 holes, with Master E Collett securing first by playing in fine form, and beating bogey by two, with a score of 76.”

 

 

 

George Edward Collett was the postmaster in Richmond for fourteen years, and it was in 1907 that he and his family left that area.  On the 2nd June in the previous year, G E Collett spent the Saturday at the Richmond Golf Club with his sons Edgar and Bernard, as reported in the Windsor & Richmond Gazette on the following Saturday 9th June 1906.  Edgar was classified as a scratch player (one of only two taking part), while his father had a handicap of 18 for the morning round of nine holes.  The newspaper reported that “During the morning a 9-hole stroke handicap competition was played and after lunch an 18-hole men's foursome stroke handicap was played, in which 14 competed, the winning pair being Messrs J Giles and Walter Benson. Full particulars cannot be given of the scores, as owing to the darkness overtaking some players, all the cards were not handed in.”  All of the names of 14 competitors were printed at the foot of the article, which included G E Collett and his two sons Edgar Collett and Bernard Collett, members of the Richmond Golf Club.

 

 

 

George’s wife Helen Maud Halligan had been born at Kingston in New South Wales on 5th July 1863, the daughter of Gerald and Mary Ann Halligan.  George was 85 when he died at Chatswood, New South Wales, on 5th November 1943.  However, by that time, he had been a widower for the last seven years of his life, following the death of Helen Maud Collett on 21st May 1936, also at Chatswood, as reported by the Catholic Press.  Following her funeral, her obituary was printed in the Catholic Freeman’s Journal on 28th May:

The death occurred recently of Mrs Helen Maud Collett at her residence, 2 Ralston-street, Lane Cove, at the age of 71 years.  Born in Marrickville, Mrs Collett, whose maiden name was Halligan, was married at St Brigid's Church, Marrickville, to Mr George Edward Collett on 24th January 1888.  It is interesting to note that this was the first marriage performed by the Passionist Fathers in Australia, Father Marcellus being the celebrant.  Mrs Collett had resided in Lane Cove for the past sixteen years.  During her married life she had resided in the districts of Richmond, Woollahra, Katoomba, Moree and Hamilton.  In each of these parishes she took a great interest in the work of the Church, and belonged to most of the parochial societies.  As a child of Mary, Mrs. Collett was consecrated by the late Archbishop Vaughan.  Mrs Collett is survived by Mr George Edward Collett and two sons, Edgar and Bernard, and one daughter, Lucy.  The Last Sacraments were administered by Reverend Father P Aylward.  The funeral left St Michael's Church, Lane Cove, for Northern Suburbs Cemetery, where Father Aylward officiated at the graveside.  The chief mourners were Mr G E Collett, Messrs E G and B C Collett and Miss Lucy H Collett and Mr G H Halligan.

 

 

 

 

An article published in The Windsor & Richmond Gazette on Saturday 19th January 1907, was a sad farewell to a man who had served his community well, who was moving on to another challenge.  It read as follows:

Farewell to Mr George Edward Collett

On Wednesday night last, the Richmond School of Arts was well filled with an enthusiastic gathering of townspeople, when occasion was taken to bid farewell to Mr G E Collett, who has been postmaster at Richmond for the past fourteen years.  Mr C S Guest, Mayor of Richmond, presided, and there were also on the platform Dr Helsham and Messrs H. W. Potts, J J Illingworth, E. Campbell, B. D. Stewart, and the guest of the evening, Mr Collett.  The chairman said he appreciated the honour of presiding at such a function; the occasion being, as they knew, to bid Mr Collett farewell, and to ask that gentleman to accept on behalf of the subscribers an illuminated address, the words of which expressed the feeling of those who were giving it.  He had also to ask Mr Collett to accept something a little more tangible than the address - which they hoped he would preserve for many years to come — in the form of a purse of gold sovereigns which he hoped Mr Collett would never need and which he would accept in the same feeling as it was given.  There was no one better able than himself to appreciate, during the many years Mr Collett had been in Richmond, his many excellent qualities.  His (the speaker's) business had brought him in contact with their guest perhaps more than anyone present.  They both had cross words at times — they were both fiery fellows, and it was a case of mutual respect.  Mr Collett richly deserved the thanks of the public for what he had done while in Richmond, and they felt deeply the loss the town would sustain by his departure.  He wished Mr Collett, his wife and family, every happiness at Woollahra.

 

 

 

22P18

Gerald Arthur Collett

Born in 1888 at Marrickville, NSW

 

22P19

Edgar George Collett

Born in 1891 at Marrickville, NSW

 

22P20

Bernard Clifford Collett

Born in 1892 at Marrickville, NSW

 

22P21

Albert John Collett

Born in 1893 at Marrickville, NSW

 

22P22

Lucy Huxtable Collett

Born in 1898 at Richmond, NSW

 

 

 

 

22O15

Alfred Collett was born at Parmoor House in Frieth near High Wycombe in 1860, the last child of magistrate Arthur Thomas Collett and his second wife Sophia Sarah Jones Huxtable.  He was only a few months old when his family left Parmoor House and moved down to North Devon, where they were recorded as living in 1861.  The census that year placed the family living at Adelaide Terrace in Ilfracombe although Alfred, who would have been one year old, was curiously not with them, nor has his whereabouts at that time been discovered. 

 

 

 

However, he was around eighteen months old where his father died later in 1861, following which he sailed with his widowed mother and the rest of her young family back to Australia on the ship The Anglesey, which arrived at Port Fairy in Victoria during April 1863.  The ship’s passenger list included the name of Alfred Collett who was three years old.  Over the following years, as the youngest child of the family, he accompanied his mother as she moved from one place to another, finally ending up in Tasmania, where he died at Longford on 21st September 1873 at the age of just 13 years.

 

 

 

 

22P2

Mary Collett was born at Port Sorell in Tasmania in 1881 and she later married Charles Marshall Foster and died in 1955.

 

 

 

 

22P3

Maude Mersey Collett was born at Port Sorell on 3rd September 1883 and she later married to become Maude Mersey Hughes.

 

 

 

 

22P4

Arthur Collett was born at Hobart in Tasmania on 6th November 1885 and he saw active service during the First World War.  At the time he enlisted he was not married and his entry in the Service Records of the National Archives of Australia (www.naa.gov.au) confirms that he was born at Railton in Tasmania (rather than Hobart), that he enlisted at Claremont in Tasmania, that his service number was 1678, and that it was his mother Annie Collett who was his next-of-kin, his father having died in 1899.

 

 

 

 

22P5

Mabel Collett was born at Hobart on 30th July 1887 and she later married W Edwards to become Mabel Edwards.

 

 

 

 

22P6

Florence Collett, who was born at Hobart, but whose date of birth is not known, is known to have married Alf Guillard.

 

 

 

 

22P7

Mary Sophia Collett was born at Lilydale in 1883 and she later married Fred Digney.

 

 

 

 

22P8

Arthur Clarence Collett, who was referred to as Artie, was born in 1884.  He married Margaret (Maggie) Emily Gardner in 1909.  Margaret was born at Woolsthorpe in Victoria on 16th June 1886 and she died in 1979.  She was the daughter of Andrew Gardner and the sister of Mary-Ann Gardner who married Arthur’s brother Frederick Alexander Collett (below).  Like her sister, she too was in service at the Quamby and Union Stations immediately prior to being married.  Arthur, who was a trader in horses and livestock, died eleven years before his wife in 1968 at Longwarry in Victoria.  Their daughter was born at Warnambool in Victoria.

 

 

 

22Q1

Emily Isabel Collett

Born in 1911 at Warnambool, Vic.

 

 

 

 

22P9

George Collett was born in 1885, possibly at Calton and died that same year.

 

 

 

 

22P10

Emily Harriet Collett was born at Calton in Victoria during 1886 and it was there also that she died that same year.

 

 

 

 

22P11

George Edward Collett was born during 1887, the same year that he died.

 

 

 

 

22P12

FREDERICK ALEXANDER COLLETT was born at Mitcham in Victoria in 1888 and he married Mary-Ann Gardner on 6th October 1909 at St Andrew’s Manse in Colac, Victoria.  Mary-Ann, who was referred to as Mollie, was born at Woolsthorpe near Warnambool on 28th January 1887 and was the daughter of Andrew Gardner a station (farm) manager originally from Glasgow.  Mary-Ann died on 24th July 1966 at Cobram in Victoria where she was buried.  It was also at Cobram that Frederick Alexander Collett was living ten years later when he died on 26th September 1976.

 

 

 

Frederick was employed in a variety of jobs throughout his working life.  He ran a dairy in north-west Melbourne, managed orchards, and raised pigs.  On one occasion he worked for the tramways company in Melbourne and on another occasion, he delivered milk around Moonee Ponds and Ascot Vale.  He often told stories about how he knew members of Ned Kelly’s family while working at Benalla.  Prior to marrying Frederick, Mary-Ann was in service at Quamby and Union Stations and that work may have been the reason for her excellent skills with farmhouse cooking and preserving fruits.

 

 

 

At the time of the birth of their first child Frederick and Mary-Ann were living at Warnambool, followed by Cobden where their second child was born, and then at Kyneton for the birth of their third child.  By the time of the birth of the fourth child the family was living at Elmhurst.  Sometime during the next eight years the family moved again so, at the time of the arrival of the fifth child Eunice, the family was living at Whittlesea.  By 1927 they were living in a large two-storey house near the corner of Swanston Street and three doors from the City Baths, where their children learned to swim.  They also lived close to Frederick’s second cousin Florrie White who had married into the Crocksford family, a major draper in Melbourne.  A decade later, and during the Second World War, Frederick was farming in Gippsland at Toora. 

 

 

 

22Q2

Hazel Marjorie Collett

Born in 1910 at Warnambool, Vic.

 

22Q3

LEONARD ALEXANDER COLLETT

Born in 1911 at Cobden, Victoria

 

22Q4

Dorothy Margaret Collett

Born in 1914 at Kyneton, Victoria

 

22Q5

Cecil Eric Collett

Born in 1915 at Elmhurst, Victoria

 

22Q6

Eunice Isobel Collett

Born in 1923 at Whittlesea, Victoria

 

22Q7

Joyce Coral Collett

Born in 1930 at Warragul, Victoria

 

 

 

 

22P13

Charles Robert Collett was born at Mepunga East in Victoria in 1890.  He saw active service during the First World War and on his return from Europe he married Myrtle.  At one time in their life together they lived at Newtown in Victoria.  His entry in the Service Records of the National Archives of Australia (www.naa.gov.au) confirms that: he was born at Melbourne (rather than Mepunga); he enlisted at Broadmeadows in Victoria; his service number was 82; and his father and next-of-kin was Robert Collett.  Sadly, their son Robert followed his father’s example and was involved in the armed forces, but tragically lost his life in 1941 as a result of injuries sustained while a driver with the Australian Army Service Corp.  At the time of his death Charles and Myrtle were living at Alice Springs where their son was buried.

 

 

 

22Q8

Robert Hope Bruce Collett

Born in 1920 at Geelong, Victoria

 

 

 

 

22P14

Annie Olivia Collett was born in 1892 and she married Dudley Palmer and died in 1982.  There is another school of thought that she never married, but lived in a grand apartment in Cromwell Road in South Yarra.  It is known that she spent some of her time looking after the daughter of her sister Alice Knights nee Collett (below) at their Gippsland dairy farm.

 

 

 

 

22P15

Stanley James George Collett was born on 31st October 1893, the son of Robert Collett and Margaret Ann White.  He later married Elsie Victoria Wilson on 24th September 1919.  Elsie was born on 24th May 1894 and she died in 1954.  When she married Stanley, she already had a son, Alvon from a previous relationship.  Stanley James George Collett died on 29th April 1969, at the age of 75. 

 

 

 

 

22P16

Alick Harold David Collett was born at Mepunga in 1896.  He was brought up on his father’s farm but, when the opportunity came, he enlisted with the Australia Infantry Force and saw active service in France during the First World War where he was involved with looking after the horses.  His entry in the Service Records of the National Archives of Australia (www.naa.gov.au) confirms that: he was born at Melbourne (rather than Mepunga); he enlisted at Warnambool in Victoria; his service number was 1519; and his wife and next-of-kin was Edith Catharine Collett.

 

 

 

At the end of the war in 1918, the AIF troops were offered an immediate return to Australia or a period of leave in England.  Alick opted for the latter and during this period of leave he visited Bath and felt some attraction to the city and decided to settle there.  It was not for many years thereafter that he learned that the city was the place from whence his ancestors had emigrated to the southern hemisphere.

 

 

 

It was during the second quarter of 1919 that the marriage of Alick H D Collett and (1) Edith Catharine Dukes, from Bath, was recorded at Keynsham register office (Ref. 5c 1545).  In 1901 Edith C Duke was two years of age when living with her parents, Thomas Duke from Woodstock in Oxfordshire, and Sarah Duke from Bath in Somerset, at Reading Road in Cholsey, Berkshire – today Oxfordshire.  Unfortunately, Edith fell ill shortly after she married Alick, so he took her to live in Australia, hoping that the warmer weather might cure her ills.  It seems more than likely that she died in Australia since, by the mid-1930s, Alick had returned to England and was a widower working in Bath.  He then married (2) Alice Sarah Jane Stockwell and the marriage produced one daughter, Ruth Anne Collett, whose birth was recorded at Bath register office (Ref. 5c 1518) during the first three months of 1941, when her mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Stockwell.

 

 

 

During the Second World War, Alick, Alice and Ruth were living at 6 Stambridge Place in Batheaston when Alice Sarah Jane Collett nee Stockwell died on 13th October 1942 as the result of an air raid on the City of Bath.  Administration of her personal effects worth £721 15 Shillings and 7 Pence was granted at Bristol on 30th November that same year to her husband, Alick Harold David Collett, whose occupation was that of a furnace man.  It was nearly thirty-seven years later that Alick Harold David Collett died at Bath during 1979, with his daughter raised by Alick and his late wife’s sister Violet (Vi) Stockwell.

 

 

 

22Q9

Ruth Anne Collett

Born in 1941 at Bath

 

 

 

 

22P17

Alice Collett was born in 1898 and she married Walter Knights with whom she had a daughter Lindsay.  Alice and her husband joined forces with her parents Robert and Mary-Ann Collett in establishing a large dairy farm between Birchip and Warragul.  On the death of her parents the property was inherited by the Knights family which was still being operated by them at the start of the 21st Century.

 

 

 

 

22P18

Gerald Arthur Collett was born at Marrickville in New South Wales on 5th June 1888, where his birth was recorded (Ref. 7097/1888), the son of George Edward Collett and Helen Maud Halligan.  He married Emily Esther of Balcarres in the Royalist Road at Mosman in New South Wales just before entering the First World War.  He was Corporal 2363 in the Imperial Camel Corps and was tragically killed in action on 5th June 1917 in Palestine.  His name is listed amongst those on Panel 59 of the Jerusalem Memorial.  His entry in the Service Records of the National Archives of Australia (www.naa.gov.au) confirms that: he was born at Sydney (rather than Marrickville); he enlisted at Sydney; his service number was 2363; and his wife and next-of-kin was Mrs Emily Esther Collett.  However, prior to Gerald marrying Emily, he had been engaged to Phyllis H Langwill, who married Gerald’s younger brother Bernard after the end of the war.

 

 

 

 

22P19

Edgar George Collett was born at Marrickville in 1891 where his birth was recorded (Ref. 21201/1891), another son of George and Helen Collett.  He was a very successful athlete while he was still at school.  He later married Marguerite Barns at Ashfield Church in New South Wales during 1917.  Tragically, they were only married for twenty years, when Edgar George Collett died at Chatswood in 1937, at forty-six-years of age.

 

 

 

 

22P20

Bernard Clifford Collett was born at Marrickville in 1892, where his birth was recorded (Ref. 21915/1892), the third son of George and Helen Collett.  Like his brother he joined up for service in the First World War but it looks as though he may not have seen active service being ‘depot’ based, according to the record below.  His entry in the Service Records of the National Archives of Australia (www.naa.gov.au) confirms that: he was born at Marrickville; he enlisted at Newcastle in New South Wales; he was assigned to the ‘depot’; and his mother and next-of-kin was Helen Maud Collett.  It was at Sydney where Bernard C Collett married (2) Phyllis H Langwill in 1919 (Ref. 3985 1919).  He was Phyllis’ second choice of the Collett brothers, with her previously having been engaged to Gerald Arthur (above) 1888-1917.  She was born around 1886/87 and was 101 when she died.  It was during 1983 that she contracted a gall-bladder disease and was too elderly and frail to survive the operation.  What is interesting, is that Bernard was comfortably off to be able to have a chauffeur, and is believed to have been twice married, the first time around the beginning or during the First World War, his children from that time having been born at Rose Park in South Australia.  Like all of the members of his immediate, when Bernard died in 1958, his death was recorded at Chatswood in New South Wales, when he was 66 years old.

 

 

 

Bernard Clifford Collett was the grandfather of Charelle Collett, and it was she who provided some new details for her family at the end of 2018.  At that time, Bernard was only credited with having just two children (George Edward and James Vincent Collett born at Rose Park), whereas Charelle knew there were more than two, including her father Gerald who was named after Bernard’s older brother, who was killed during the Great War in 1917.  The other missing brothers were subsequently confirmed as older brother Peter, and two younger brothers Brian and David.  It is therefore speculated that the aforementioned George and James were indeed the sons of Bernard from an earlier marriage, for which no details are currently known.

 

 

 

At the time his son Gerald married Barbara, Bernard was the Grand Master of the Millions Lodge in Sydney, and previously had been working in the city in a very senior job with Lloyds Insurance Company.  Barbara says of her father-in-law, in a letter to her granddaughter Emily, the daughter Gerald Langwill Collett’s eldest child Deborah (Debby) – “My memory of Bernard Clifford Collett, during our time living in a small flat at the back of their large house on Raglan Street in Mosman, is not a fond one.  He tended towards the tyrannical and pompous, one of those rather short, stout, red-faced men.  I don't mean to be unkind, but I just didn't know him very well.  He may have had many other very praiseworthy traits, of which I have no knowledge.  Anyway, your mother (Deborah) was born while we were living with them, so I have many other happy memories as well, and Mama Collett (Phyllis) always tried to be kind in her own reserved and stiff way, I don’t think she knew how to be warm”. 

 

 

 

22Q10

George Edward Collett

Born in 1914 at Rose Park, South Australia

 

22Q11

James Vincent Collett

Born in 1916 at Rose Park, South Australia

 

The following are the four known children of Bernard Clifford Collett by his second wife Phyllis H Langwill:

 

22Q12

Peter Collett

Born in 1921 at New South Wales

 

22Q13

Gerald Langwill Collett

Born in 1925 at New South Wales

 

22Q14

Brian or Bryan Collett

Born in 1928 at New South Wales

 

22Q15

David Collett

Born in 1931 at New South Wales

 

 

 

 

22P21

Albert John Collett was born at Marrickville New South Wales during 1893, although unlike his siblings, no record of his birth has so far been found.  Also, nothing is known about his later life, in addition to which no record of his death has been discovered.

 

 

 

 

22P22

Lucy Huxtable Collett was born at Richmond, north-west of Marrickville, in 1898 with her birth recorded at Richmond (Ref. 24672/1898), the youngest child and only known daughter of George Edward Collett and Helen Maud Halligan.  She married much later in her life, when she was around forty-six, her wedding to George Nyman was recorded at Chatswood in 1944.  They were only married for sixteen years, when Lucy Huxtable Nyman died in 1960.

 

 

 

 

22Q1

Emily Isabel Collett was born at Warnambool on 31st January 1911.  She married Alfred Robert Gardner.  Alfred was very likely the nephew of either or both Mary-Ann Gardner who married Emily’s uncle Frederick Collett and Margaret Emily Gardner who was her mother.  The married produced one daughter Elsie Gardner who married a Mr Smith.  Emily Isabel Gardner nee Collett died on 29th November 1996 at Drouin in Victoria.

 

 

 

 

22Q2

Hazel Marjorie Collett was born at Warnambool on 9th August 1910.  She married (1) Agustina (Gus) Alessandro Ricci in 1927 at Richmond in Victoria.  Gus had arrived in Australia in 1921 and the couple met when they were both studying to be hairdressers.  The marriage produced two sons, Alexander Ricci who was born in 1928 and known as Alec, and Francis Edwin Ricci who was born in 1930 and known as Eddie.  During the war years Hazel ran a hair salon and she later married (2) Carmello Mustica with whom she had a further son, Neville Mustica who was born in 1942.  Carmello and Hazel met when they both worked in shops at Footscray.  Hazel Marjorie Mustica nee Collett died in 1967. 

 

 

 

Her eldest son, Alexander Ricci, changed his surname to Ritchie, by deed poll in 1956, which was the name they always used because, since WW2, it was not good to be Italian.  It was also that same year, when Alexander Ritchie married Catherine Margaret Chandler.  Their marriage produced four children, and subsequently ten grandchildren and two great grandchildren.  Alec’s daughter Glenda, born in 1959, married Grant Farmer and they had two children and one great grandchild, Logan Alan Fisher who was born in 2017.  This new information was kindly supplied by Glenda Farmer in November 2017.

 

 

 

 

22Q3

LEONARD ALEXANDER COLLETT was born at Cobden in Victoria on 31st December 1911 and he later married Ruth Binns.  He worked on the railway for over 49 years, the majority of the time as station master at Wonthaggi and Korumburra.

 

 

 

22R1

BARRY COLLETT

Date and place of birth unknown

 

22R2

Graeme Collett

Date and place of birth unknown

 

22R3

Barbara Collett

Date and place of birth unknown

 

 

 

 

22Q4

Dorothy Margaret Collett, referred to as Dorrie, was born at Kyneton in Victoria on 12th March 1914.  She married (1) Bernard Jordan with whom she had two children who were born at Essendon.  They were Beverley Jordan who was born on 2nd June 1936 and who married Alan Pope, and Donald Jordan who was born on 11th November 1937.  Dorothy ran a successful mattress manufacturing business until a fire destroyed it and she discovered she was not covered by insurance as her husband had not paid the premium.  As a result of this she accepted the loss, retired from business, and separated from her husband.  She later married (2) Frank Anstey.

 

 

 

 

22Q5

Cecil Eric Collett was born at Elmhurst in Victoria on 7th September 1915 and he later married Thelma Pearce.  The couple set up home on a small farm at Cobram on the Murray living next door to Cecil’s father Frederick Alexander Collett.  From there, they ran a successful milk processing and distribution business that eventually covered a large part of northern Victoria and southern New South Wales.

 

 

 

22R4

Marion Collett

Born in 1941 at Cobram, Victoria

 

 

 

 

22Q6

Eunice Isobel Collett was born at Whittlesea on 19th January 1923 and suffered with a disability from birth.  She never married and died at Wodonga in Victoria in 1996.

 

 

 

 

22Q7

Joyce Coral Collett was born at Warragul in Victoria on 31st March 1930.  She attended school at Drouin and Toora in Gippsland before moving to Melbourne in the early post war years where she was employed at the head office of the Myer Emporium.  She married Henry James Bain on 5th August 1950 at Moonee Ponds in Victoria.  Henry was born at Rochester in Victoria on 8th August 1918 and at the time of the birth of their first son the couple was living at Coburg in Victoria, while two and a half years later the family was living at Ivanhoe in Victoria when their second child was born.  Henry James Bain died at Ivanhoe on 30th November 1975 and was followed by Joyce Coral Bain nee Collett who passed away while at Heidelberg in Victoria on 13th February 1993.

 

 

 

22R5

Phillip Russell Bain

Born in 1954 at Coburg, Victoria

 

22R6

Rodney James Bain

Born in 1956 at Ivanhoe, Victoria

 

 

 

 

22Q8

Robert Hope Bruce Collett was born at Geelong in Victoria on 23rd July 1920.  He enlisted to take part in the Second World War but died at Alice Springs on 27th December 1941 as a result of injuries sustained during active service.  His entry in the Service Records of the National Archives of Australia (www.naa.gov.au) confirms that: he was born at Geelong; he enlisted at Geelong; his service number was V/76789; and his father and next-of-kin was Charles Collett.  The Commonwealth War Graves Commission also recorded the event with the following details.  Robert Hope Collett, aged 21, died on 27th December 1917 and was buried in the Alice Springs Cemetery, Grave 9, Row B, Plot M.  He was a driver with the Australian Army Service Corp and was the son of Charles and Myrtle Collett of Newtown in Victoria.

 

 

 

 

22Q9

Ruth Anne Collett was born early in 1941 at 6 Stambridge Place in Batheaston, Somerset, the only child of Alick Harold David Collett and his second wife Alice Sarah Jane Stockwell.  The birth of Ruth Anne Collett was recorded at Bath register office (Ref. 5c 1518) during the first three months of 1941, when her mother’s maiden name was confirmed as Stockwell.  Around the time Ruth was eighteen months old, her mother died in October 1942 following the Luftwaffe bombing the City of Bath as a revenge attack for the earlier bombing of Dresden.  As a result of that tragic incident, baby Ruth was taken into the care of Alick’s sister-in-law Vi (Violet) Stockwell, who moved in with Alick.  Ruth was thirty-eight when her father died at Bath in 1979 and had been married for sixteen years.

 

 

 

The marriage of Ruth Anne Collett was also recorded at Bath register office (Ref. 7c 4) during the last three months of 1963, when Ruth A Collett was 22, as was Richard Moseley.  His birth was recorded at the Buckinghamshire Amersham register office (Ref. 3a 2252) during the third quarter of 1941, when his mother’s maiden name was stated as Brash and he was confirmed as Richard Moseley.  During their life together, Ruth presented Richard with two sons, Seth Moseley and Oliver Moseley.  In 2018 Richard from London, made contact and supplied the details that son Seth and his partner Becca have a son Jackson Moseley (born in 2009), while Oliver and wife Sally-Ann have sons Noah Moseley (born in 2011), and Tom Moseley (born in 2014).  At that time in 2018, Ruth Anne Moseley, nee Collett, was living in sheltered accommodation in Taunton, sadly suffering from dementia and memory loss. Prior to that, she has been looked after tirelessly by her son Seth.

 

 

 

 

22Q10

George Edward Collett was born at Rose Park in South Australia around 1914, the first-born son of Bernard Clifford Collett who was born at Marrickville in 1892, and believed to have been married twice.  He married Helen Maud Huxtable possibly at Chatswood in New South Wales around 1936 and it was there that both their sons were born.  Helen was probably related to the earlier Huxtable family, whose daughter Sophia Sarah Jones Huxtable married Arthur Thomas Collett (Ref. 22N2) at Evandale in 1845, Arthur being George’s great grandfather.  Their youngest son was named after George’s father, while their oldest son was named after Bernard’s brother of the same name.

 

 

 

22R7

Edgar George Collett

Born in 1937 at Chatswood, NSW

 

22R8

Bernard Clifford Collett

Born in 1958 at Chatswood, NSW

 

 

 

 

22Q11

James Vincent Collett was born at Rose Park in South Australia on 29th January 1916 and he entered the Second World War as soon as he became of age.  His entry in the Service Records of the National Archives of Australia (www.naa.gov.au) confirms that he was born at Rose Park, that he enlisted at Melbourne, that his service number was 31396, and that his father and next-of-kin was Bernard Collett.

 

 

 

 

22Q12

Peter Collett was the first of the four sons of Bernard Clifford Collett and his second wife Phyllis H Langwill.  It is understood that all of the brothers were born in New South Wales and, with it established that his brother Gerry (below) was born in 1925 and their parents were married in 1919, Peter may have been born during any of the years in between.  Peter was the father of Jacqueline and Andrew, wife not known at the moment, and it was married Jackie Roser nee Collett who kindly provided the brief information about her family, and those of her three younger uncles below.  By 2018, Peter had died some years earlier, while Andrew was living in Gordon and has a son Luke Collett, and a Collett daughter.

 

 

 

22R9

Jacqueline Collett

Born in Australia after 1940

 

22R10

Andrew Collett

Born in Australia after 1940

 

 

 

 

22Q13

Gerald Langwill Collett, who was known as Gerry, was born in New South Wales during 1925, the second of the four sons of Bernard and Phyllis Collett.  He was taught to drive by his father’s chauffeur, while his early occupation was that of a marine engineer.  Gerald was around twenty-eight years of age when he married Barbara during 1953 at a Nuptial Mass in St Anthony's Catholic Church in Mosman.  Their children are believed to have been born in New South Wales, although only the first two, and the youngest, are credited to Gerry and Barbara.  Within the family there is talk about the mother of the other two children being either Bernice or Susan.  For security reasons, no dates for the five siblings have been provided by Charelle Collett.  What we do know about the siblings is the following.  By 2018 Debby has a daughter Emily Margaret, Stephen’s wife is Joan and their daughter is Charlotte, Martin has two children Chloe and Stefan, and Paul has a son Geordie, but is no longer with us, as he passed away in 2012.  That was also the year that Gerald Langwill Collett died.

 

 

 

22R11

Deborah (Debby) Collett

Born in New South Wales, Australia after 1945

 

22R12

Stephen Collett

Born in New South Wales, Australia after 1945

 

22R13

Martin Collett

Born in New South Wales, Australia after 1945

 

22R14

Paul Collett

Born in New South Wales, Australia after 1945

 

22R15

Charelle Collett

Born in New South Wales, Australia after 1945

 

 

 

 

22Q14

Brian or Bryan Collett was another son of Bernard and Phyllis Collett born in New South Wales and was born after the birth of his brother Gerry (above) in 1925.  New details provided by his niece Jackie Roser in 2018, stated that Bryan Collett had already passed away by then, but that his marriage had produced two sons, the eldest last heard of in Canberra, and the younger one thought to be residing somewhere in the Sydney area.

 

 

 

22R16

Matthew Collett

Born in Australia after 1945

 

22R17

Darren Collett

Born in Australia after 1945

 

 

 

 

22Q15

David Collett was the last of the four children of Bernard Clifford Collett and Phyllis H Langwill, who may have been born around or after 1930, in New South Wales.  According to his niece Jackie Roser, nee Collett, David was still alive in 2018, the only surviving son of Bernard and Phyllis Collett.  He had three sons, the second of them no longer living in 2018, with the youngest son Philip residing in Oatley in 2018.

 

 

 

22R18

Mark Collett

Born in Australia after 1950

 

22R19

Anthony Collett

Born in Australia after 1950

 

22R20

Philip Collett

Born in Australia after 1950

 

 

 

 

22R1

BARRY COLLETT married Pauline Simpson and they had five children.  Barry was raised and educated in Australia and later became a student at Oriel College in Oxford.  He returned to Australia and worked at the Department of History at Melbourne University.  More recently Barry returned to England and now teaches history at Oxford and lives in Reading.

 

 

 

 

22R2

Graeme Collett married Margo and they had two children.

 

 

 

 

22R3

Barbara Collett married Lloyd Hemphill and they had two children.

 

 

 

 

22R4

Marion Collett was possibly born at Cobram in 1941 and she married Keith Ardley.  Marion Ardley nee Collett died at Beerholm in Queensland during May 2000.

 

 

 

 

22R5

Phillip Russell Bain was born at Coburg on 3rd March 1954 and he (1) married Robyn Elizabeth Sinclair on 29th January 1981 in Melbourne.  Robyn was born at Essendon in Victoria on 2nd September 1954.  Their marriage produced a daughter Granniah Elise Bain who was born later that same year in Melbourne on 31st December 1981.  Phillip later married (2) Viet-Lee Pedersen who was born on 5th February 1967 at Fremantle in Western Australia.  Both of the children of that second marriage were born at Bendigo in Victoria and they were Henry Mervyn James Bain who was born on 26th January 1996 and Eliza Ruby Ellen Bain who was born on 13th May 1998.

 

 

 

 

22R6

Rodney James Bain was born at Ivanhoe on 25th September 1956.  He married (1) Christine Walkeden in September 1977 at the Knox Presbyterian Church in Ivanhoe.  Rodney and Christine had one daughter Kelly Louise Bain born in January 1992 while they were living at Echuca in Victoria.  Sometime later Rodney married (2) Meryl with whom he had a son Matthew James Bain when living at Shepparton in Victoria and he was born during January 2006.