PART FORTY-SIX

The Charlton-on-Otmoor (Oxon) Area Line 1720 to 1870

Updated December 2018

This is the first of two sections of this family line

The October 2015 re-issue of this family line incorporates the family of George Thomas Collett,

whose details were previously included in Section 3 of the Appendix at the end of the second file.

It is thanks to Hannah Rachel Collett (Ref. 46T2) that this switch has been achieved,

with Hannah’s family line now highlighted by the names in italics

This is the family line of Stephen Collett (Ref. 46Q71) who kindly provided

much of the early information and whose family line is depicted by the names in capitals

It is also the line of Stephen John Busby (Ref. 46P78) who kindly provided the initial information,

whose family line is depicted by the names that are underlined

It is hoped that, in time, this line will be connected to the other Oxfordshire lines

Fencott, Murcott and Oddington all lie within one mile of Charlton-on-Otmoor

It is acknowledged that some of the data has not been verified by secondary sources,

particularly where it relates to Richard and Ann Collett (Ref. 46M14), since there were two such

couples with those names that were bearing children around the same time and at the same place

The major update of the file in December 2010 was thanks to

Janet Wood (Ref. 46Q41) and her aunt Edith Ballard nee Collett (Ref. 46Q44),

and with the file becoming much larger during 2011 it has now been split into two sections

46K1	WILLIAM COLLETT was born around 1723. He married Mary Freeman at Charlton-on-Otmoor in 1746. It is established from the parish records that the marriage produced at least four of the five children below for William and Mary and all of them having been born at Fencott. The settlements of Fencott and neighbouring Murcott had no church of their own so all baptisms, marriages and burials for the area were conducted at the Parish Church of St Mary in Charlton-on-Otmoor. William’s wife Mary died at Fencott in 1795 and was buried at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 12^th December 1795 and the parish register recorded that she was the wife of William Collett. William lived the life of a widower for almost another ten years after Mary’s passing, before he too died at Fencott in 1805 and was likewise buried at Charlton on 17^th February 1805.
	46L1	William Collett	Born in 1748 at Fencott
	46L2	Richard Collett	Born in 1752 at Fencott
	46L3	Mary Collett	Born in 1755 at Fencott
	46L4	Joseph Collett	Born in 1758 at Fencott
	46L5	John Collett	Born in 1761 at Fencott
46L1	William Collett was born at Fencott in 1748 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 20^th February 1748. It would appear that he died at Bletchington in 1779, following which he was buried at Charlton on 29^th December 1779. Bletchington later became Bletchingdon which it still is today. There is a record that a William Collett married Avis Smallbroke at Bletchingdon on 24^th May 1779 and it seems likely, although not proved, that he was William Collett of Fencott. If so, then his marriage to Avis only last for seven months and it is not known whether, during that time, Avis became with child.
46L2	RICHARD COLLETT was born at Fencott in 1752 and, although not yet proved, it seems very likely that he was the son of William Collett and Mary Freeman. Recently discovered records indicate that Richard was married twice, and on both occasions to a Mary. Richard married (2) Mary Ivins in St Mary’s Church at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 25^th October 1790. It would appear that the couple settled within the parish of Charlton, since it was at St Mary’s Church that all of their children were baptised.
	However, it is very likely that the family lived all their life at Fencott where all of the children were born and where Richard and Mary were living when Richard passed away. He died at Fencott during September 1826 at the age of 74 and was buried in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church on 13^th September 1826. Fifteen years later, on the 20^th August 1841, a Mary Collett aged 74 was buried at Charlton-on-Otmoor and she may well have been Richard’s widow. The place of residence for Mary at the time of her death was given as Oakley, just across the county boundary into Buckinghamshire.
	46M1	William Collett	Born in 1792 at Fencott
	46M2	Mary Collett	Born in 1795 at Fencott
	46M3	Richard Collett	Born in 1797 at Fencott
	46M4	Elizabeth Collett	Born in 1800 at Fencott
	46M5	John Collett	Born in 1803 at Fencott
	46M6	Hannah Collett	Born in 1805 at Fencott
46L3	Mary Collett was born at Fencott in 1755 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 26^th October 1755. Her life was cut short at the age of 24 when she died at Fencott in 1779 and was buried in the churchyard of St Mary in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 4^th April 1779. The church’s burial record stated that Mary Collett was the daughter of William and Mary Collett, indicating that she had never married.
46L4	Joseph Collett was born in 1758 at Fencott and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 6^th August 1858. He married Maria with whom he had nine children. All of their children were born at Fencott and baptised at St Mary’s Church in Charlton-on-Otmoor. Joseph’s wife Maria died at Fencott in 1837 at the age of 75 and was buried at Charlton on 30^th March 1837.
	46M7	Mary Collett	Born in 1784 at Fencott
	46M8	William Collett	Born in 1786 at Fencott
	46M9	Mary Collett	Born in 1788 at Fencott
	46M10	John Collett	Born in 1790 at Fencott
	46M11	Elizabeth Collett	Born in 1792 at Fencott
	46M12	Thomas Collett	Born in 1794 at Fencott
	46M13	Thomas Collett	Born in 1795 at Fencott
	46M14	Richard Collett	Born in 1798 at Fencott
	46M15	George Collett	Born in 1801 at Fencott
	46M16	James Collett	Born in 1803 at Fencott
46L5	John Collett was born at Fencott in 1761 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 8^th March 1761. Sadly, he only survived for just over two years before he died at Fencott in 1763 and was buried at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 31^st May 1763.
46M1	William Collett was born at Fencott in the latter half of 1792 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 24^th February 1793. He married Prudence Pittam on 30^th March 1812 at Twyford, a village just over the county boundary into Buckinghamshire, to the north-east of Bicester. The couple’s first three children were born while they were living at Fencott and before the family moved the short distance to Murcott, where the remaining children were born. All of their children were baptised at St Mary’s Church in Charlton-on-Otmoor.
	Sadly, William Collett died at Murcott in early 1837 and was buried at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 8^th February 1837. His age at the time of his death was incorrectly given as 42 instead of 45. His widow Prudence was listed at Murcott in the first national census on June 1841 as having a rounded age of 50 years. Living with her was her sons George 20 and John 15, and daughter Elizabeth aged 12.
	Ten years later Prudence’s age was more accurately given as 59 and by 1861 she was 69. On the latter occasion in 1861 Prudence Collett from Twyford in Buckinghamshire was a pauper living in the next dwelling to her married son George. Living with Prudence at that time was her married daughter Charlotte Elizabeth Walker from Murcott, who was 29 and who was described as a field woman. With her were her two daughters Harriet Walker and Eliza Walker, but not her husband, although she was confirmed as married rather than a widow. Prudence was still living next door to her son George in Murcott in 1871 but passed away five years later at the age of 84 in 1876.
	46N1	Martha Collett	Born in 1813 at Fencott
	46N2	Richard Collett	Born in 1815 at Fencott
	46N3	Thomas Collett	Born in 1817 at Fencott
	46N4	William Collett	Born in 1819 at Murcott
	46N5	George Collett	Born in 1821 at Murcott
	46N6	John Collett	Born in 1823 at Murcott
	46N7	Benjamin Collett	Born in 1825 at Murcott
	46N8	Mary Collett	Born in 1826 at Murcott
	46N9	Charlotte Elizabeth Collett	Born in 1829 at Murcott
	46N10	Benjamin Collett	Born in 1831 at Murcott
46M2	Mary Collett was born at Fencott, either towards the end of 1794 or during January 1795, and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 8^th February 1795 when she was curiously named as the daughter of Richard and Ann Collett, rather than Richard and Mary. No other record for Mary has so far been found.
46M3	Richard Collett was born at Fencott during the first half of 1797 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 18^th June 1797. He married Martha Bottrell at Wendlebury just two miles north of Fencott on 20^th November 823. Martha was with child at the time of her wedding and the child was born at Wendlebury six months later. Richard’s stated occupation at the child’s baptism was labourer. Martha was the daughter of John Bottrell and Ann Buckle and had been born in 1798. Sometime after the birth of the couple’s first child the family moved five miles east just over the county boundary to Boarstall in Buckinghamshire where it is known that the remainder of their children were born.
	At the time of the census in June 1841 the family was still living in Boarstall at Panshill Farm within the Aylesbury & Thame registration district. The family comprised Richard and Martha, both with a rounded age of 40, and their children John age 15, Richard age 14, Ann age 12, Felicia who was nine, Elizabeth who was five and baby Martha who was six months old. Completing the household were John Preston and Eliza Simmons.
	By the time of the next census in 1851 the family had moved back to Murcott in Oxfordshire and was living within the Bicester & Bletchingdon registration area. The children missing from the family that day were son Richard, who was married by then and also living in Murcott, and daughters Helena – who was referred to as Felicia, and Martha – who was recorded with her married brother John and his wife. The full census listing was made up of Richard age 54, Martha age 52, son John who was 26 and daughters Ann who was 20 and Elizabeth who was 15, and Martha who was 10.
	Within the next decade all bar one of Richard’s and Martha’s children left the family home, so by April 1861 the couple was living in the Bicester census district where Richard was 63, Martha was 62 and their daughter Martha Collett from Boarstall was 20. Staying with the family that day was Richard’s grandson Arthur Collett who was only eight years of age, the son of Richard and Mary Collet. Completing the household were James Hopcraft age 20, Mary Leach age 17 and Joseph Jackman who was 15. Just thirty months later Richard Collett died during the third quarter of 1863 and was buried in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church at Charlton-on-Otmoor. Martha survived for another seven years before she passed away in 1870.
	46N11	John Collett	Born in 1824 at Wendlebury
	46N12	Richard Collett	Born in 1827 at Boarstall
	46N13	Ann Collett	Born in 1829 at Boarstall
	46N14	Helena (Felicia) Collett	Born in 1832 at Boarstall
	46N15	Elizabeth Collett	Born in 1836 at Boarstall
	46N16	Martha Collett	Born in 1841 at Boarstall
46M4	Elizabeth Collett was born at Fencott around late 1799 or early 1800 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 15^th June 1800. It is possible that her two daughters were base-born before she was married, since both girls were baptised at nearby Blackthorn with the Collett surname. Shortly after the birth of the second child she married Thomas Priest but tragedy struck the family when, as Elizabeth Priest, she died at Ambrosden near Bicester in April 1824, possibly during childbirth.
	46N17	Susanna Collett	Born in 1820 at Blackthorn
	46N18	Sarah Collett	Born in 1823 at Blackthorn
46M5	John Collett was born at Fencott in 1803 according to his stated age in later census records. He was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 27^th October 1805 in a joint ceremony with his sister Hannah (below). At the age of around 26 or 27 the names of John Collett, a farmer at Fencott, and his friend or associate Robert Sturch, a farmer at Murcott, were amongst the 22 men accused of being involved in the Otmoor Riots. The full list of the names was published in the Oxford Journal on Saturday 17^th July 1830. However, one week later the pair of them had been acquitted, as was reported in the journal of 24^th July. It was less than nine years later that the daughter of Robert Grove Sturch married Richard Collett, the son of John’s eldest brother William (above).
	It was also at St Mary’s Church in Charlton that John married Sarah Hopcraft on 16^th December 1833. Sarah was the daughter of William and Charlotte Hopcraft of Charlton-on-Otmoor. It was originally understood from parish records that John’s and Sarah’s first three children were born at Fencott, with the remaining children being born after the family had moved to live at the neighbouring hamlet of Murcott. However, this conflicts with the details in the census of 1851 and 1861, when all of their children were stated as having been born at Murcott.
	By June 1841 Sarah had presented John with their first three children. That year’s census recorded the family as living at Murcott within the parish of Charlton-on-Otmoor with both John and Sarah having the rounded ages of 35 and their three children being Elizabeth who was six, William who was four, and Charlotte who was two years old. Within the next seven years a further four children were added to the family while they were living at Murcott. The census of 1851 for Murcott listed the family as John Collett of Fencott and his wife Sarah from Charlton, both aged 46, and with them were six of their seven children. They were Elizabeth 16, William 13, Thomas 10, George who was eight, John who was six, and Richard who was three years old. At that time John was a farmer of 80 acres.
	The main difference between the two census records of 1841 and 1851 are the daughters Elizabeth and Charlotte, and it is this difference that may have caused confusion in the past. It would appear from the two sets of details that Charlotte Collett died after 1841 while she was still very young, hence her absence from the census in 1851. On that occasion Elizabeth, age 16, was ten years older than her age in 1841, as would be expected. However, it would appear that Elizabeth then adopted the name of her late sister, and became Charlotte Collett, as recorded in the next census – see below.
	Ten years later in 1861 John and Sarah were both 55, when they were living in the hamlet of Fencott with five of their seven children. John Collett from Fencott was a farmer of 60 acres and had working with him his eldest son William who was 22 and from Fencott, who was described as a farmer’s son. The other children at that time were Thomas 18, George 16, John 14, and Richard 13, and all of them again confirmed as born at Murcott. Living in the property right next door to John and his family was the family of farmer Richard Collett of Murcott (Ref. 46N2), the eldest son of John’s older brother William Collett (above).
	By 1871 all of John’s and Sarah’s children, with the exception of their eldest son William and their youngest son Richard, had left the family home. John and Sarah were both then 66, while William Collett was 35 and Richard Collett was 22. Both sons were still unmarried at that time. Ten years later, according to the Charlton-on-Otmoor census of 1881, John was 77 and was a farmer of 88 acres, employing one man. The census return confirmed he had been born at Fencott and that his wife Sarah, who was also 77, had been born at Charlton-on-Otmoor. Still living with them were their two unmarried sons William who was then 44 and Richard who was 32, both of whom were listed as having been born at Fencott, and both were described as farmer’s son.
	The couple’s absence from the 1891 Census very likely indicates that both John and Sarah died during the 1880s, and it was also very likely after their death that their eldest son William became a married man.
	46N19	Elizabeth Collett	Born in 1834 at Murcott
	46N20	William Collett	Born in 1836 at Murcott
	46N21	Charlotte Collett	Born in 1838 at Murcott
	46N22	Thomas Collett	Born in 1841 at Murcott
	46N23	George Collett	Born in 1843 at Murcott
	46N24	John Collett	Born in 1846 at Murcott
	46N25	Richard Collett	Born in 1848 at Murcott
46M6	Hannah Collett was born at Fencott in 1805 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 27^th October 1805 in a joint ceremony with her brother John (above). No other record for Hannah has so far been found.
46M7	Mary Collett was born at Fencott in 1784 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 12^th December 1784, the daughter of Joseph and Mariah Collett. And it was there that she buried just over five months later on 25^th May 1785.
46M8	William Collett was born at Fencott in 1786 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 31^st May 1786. No other record for William has so far been found.
46M9	Mary Collett was born at Fencott in 1788 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 18^th May 1788. It seems very likely that she gave birth to a base-born daughter in 1809, the child incorrectly being registered as ‘Dennis the natural daughter of Mary Collett’. Less than two years later on 19^th January 1811 Mary married Richard Westbury by licence at St Mary’s Church in Charlton. Richard was of Grendon Underwood to the east of Bicester and one of the witnesses to the marriage ceremony was Mary’s father Joseph Collett.
	46N26	Denise Collett	Born in 1809 at Fencott
46M10	John Collett was born at Fencott in 1790 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 2^nd May 1790. No other record for John has so far been found.
46M11	Elizabeth Collett was born at Fencott in 1792 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 29^th April 1792. No other record for Elizabeth has so far been found.
46M12	Thomas Collett was born at Fencott in 1794 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 20^th April 1974. Tragically he lived for just less than nine months and was buried at Charlton on 3^rd January 1795. The parish burial register confirmed he was the son of Joseph and Maria Collett.
46M13	Thomas Collett was born at Fencott in 1795 and was named in honour of his brother who had died in January that year. He was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 27^th December 1795 but he died around the time of his twenty-seventh birthday and was buried at Charlton on 30^th December 1822. It is possible, although not yet proved, that he married Hannah Eyres at Charlton on 14^th June 1819, with his older brother John Collett (above) acting as one of the witnesses, which means that he died before his son was born at Fencott.
	46N27	William Collett	Born in 1823 at Fencott
46M14	Richard Collett was born at Fencott in 1798 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 19^th August 1798. He was married by licence to (1) Phyllis Goome on 9^th June 1825 at Charlton who was with child at the time. Phyllis was the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Goome and was baptised at Charlton on 11^th September 1803. The couple’s first child was born at Fencott less than four months after they were married and was followed by a second child born at Fencott eighteen months later. Tragically Richard’s wife Phyllis died exactly one year later, possibly during the birth of a further child, which also did not survive.
	Phyllis was just 24 years of age when she died in 1828 and was buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s Church in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 22^nd June 1828. Six years later Richard had a son James although that was at a time between his two known wives, which raises the question was he married three times. Two years later Richard was married by banns to (2) Ann Faulkner at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 18^th July 1836. The parish register confirmed that Richard was a widower of Charlton, while Ann was a spinster of the parish. She was also many years younger than Richard having been born between 1811 and 1816 according to the later census records.
	That marriage produced a further six children for Richard, the first two being born while Richard and Ann were living at Charlton. There followed a move to Fencott where the next three were born, and a later move to Murcott where the last one was born. All of them though, were baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor. At the time of the baptism of all of his children, Richard was described as a labourer. There may be a possibility of some confusion with their children since, living in the same area at the same time was another married couple named Richard Collett (Ref. 46N2) and his wife Ann, although she was born at Hungerford in Berkshire.
	It is also confirmed in the parish register at Charlton-on-Otmoor, that four of the couple’s children were privately baptised at home, presumably because they were too ill to attend St Mary’s Church. As a result, all four of those children did not survive beyond a few months, and they were George, Eliza Ann, William, and George the younger.
	With the complications surrounding the census in 1841 no positive record of the family has been found, but by 1851 Richard and his reduced family was living in Murcott. Richard, age 52 and from Fencott, was a pauper and an agricultural labourer. His wife Ann was 39 and from Fencott, and the three children living with them were James, age 16 and an agricultural labourer from Fencott, John who was six years old, and George who was eleven months old, but who died in 1852. According to the next census in 1861 Richard Collett gave his age as 60, rather than 62, while his wife Ann was 44. Living with them at Murcott was their son John Collett who was 16. Richard Collett died at Murcott just two years after the census day in 1863 and was buried at Charlton on 3^rd September 1863 at the age of 66.
	46N28	Joseph Collett	Born in 1825 at Fencott
	46N29	Thomas Collett	Born in 1827 at Fencott
	46N30	James Collett	Born in 1834 at Fencott
	The children of Richard Collett by his second known wife Ann are listed below:
	46N31	George Collett	Born in 1837 at Charlton-on-Otmoor
	46N32	Thomas Collett	Born in 1839 at Charlton-on-Otmoor
	46N33	John Richard Collett	Born in 1844 at Fencott
	46N34	Eliza Ann Collett	Born in 1846 at Fencott
	46N35	William Collett	Born in 1847 at Fencott
	46N36	George Collett	Born in 1850 at Murcott
46M15	George Collett was born at Fencott in 1801 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 1^st November 1801. No other record for George has so far been found.
46M16	James Collett was born at Fencott either late in 1802 or early in 1803. He was a labourer and he and his wife Sarah were both listed as being aged 40 in the 1841 Census, although Sarah was much older than James. The census return had the following children also listed with them at Fencott in 1841 and they were Caroline age 12, Ann who was nine and Charlotte who was six. The three daughters of James and Sarah were all baptised at the Church of St Mary in Charlton-on-Otmoor when their parents were named as labourer James Collett of Fencott and his wife Sarah.
	The Fencott census of 1851 listed James Collett, age 51 and an agricultural labourer of Fencott, living with just his wife Sarah, age 57 and from Ludgershall, and their daughter Charlotte who was 16 and born at Fencott. Also lodging with the family was unmarried 26 years old agricultural labourer Mary Hine from Ludgershall. Two years after that James Collett of Fencott died at the age of 51, following which he was buried at the Church of St Mary in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 18^th December 1853. Sarah died almost exactly three years later and was also buried at Charlton with her husband on 16^th December 1856, at the age of 64.
	46N37	Caroline Collett	Born in 1828 at Fencott
	46N38	Ann Collett	Born in 1831 at Fencott
	46N39	Charlotte Collett	Born in 1834 at Fencott
46N1	Martha Collett was born at Fencott in 1813 and was baptised on 17^th July 1813 at Charlton-on-Otmoor, the eldest daughter of William Collett and Prudence Pittam. Eighteen years later on 11^th July 1831 Martha married Jonathan Orchard at Swanbourne near Winslow, north of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. Jonathan was born at Swanbourne on 16^th April 1809, the son of Thomas Orchard and Rebecca Matthews. The early years of their married life together was spent at Swanbourne where their daughter Rebecca Orchard was born on 1^st September 1834. At the time of the census in 1851 Martha and her family were still living at Swanbourne when she gave her place of birth as Murcott.
	Jonathan Orchard had relations living in Hampshire and it was there at South Stoneham on 25^th July 1853 that his daughter Rebecca married (1) Henry Currell who was born at Swanbourne on 19^th October 1827. The marriage produced a son, Edward Currell, whose second wife was Maud Turner who came from a long line of the Collett family based at Over near St Ives in Cambridgeshire. Maud was born on 21^st March 1886 and, previously, the details of her Collett family line could be found in Appendix One at the end of this family line. However, in October 2014 the Collett Family History website was pleased to launch Part 69 – Other Cambridgeshire Families which includes three separate branches of the family living in villages between St Ives and the City of Cambridge. The first of those three branches provide details of the Colletts from Ireland in 1432 through to Maud Turner in 1886, resulting in the removal of the old Appendix One from this file.
	The Orchard family eventually emigrated to Australia and settled at Black Springs in Barraba, New South Wales. Shortly after they arrived, Martha Orchard nee Collett died at Black Springs on 10^th December 1875 and was followed almost six years later by her husband Jonathan who died there on 16^th November 1881.
	Back in England Rebecca’s husband Henry Currell died on 3^rd February 1870, following which she married (2) Thomas Johnson at Little Horwood in Buckinghamshire. Once they were married Rebecca and Thomas sailed out to Australia to be reunited with her parents, just prior to her mother’s death. Rebecca Johnson formerly Currell nee Orchard died at Black Springs on 15^th June 1902, and just over four years later on 5^th October 1906 her second husband Thomas died while living at Barraba in NSW.
	The aforementioned Edward Currell, who was born at Swanbourne in 1857, was first married to Mary Esther McNeill but, following her death, he married Maud Turner in New South Wales on 31^st May 1927. That second marriage produced a son Clifford Currell who was born at Barraba on 15^th July 1931 and who was nearly five years old when his father died at Barraba on 2^nd May 1936. His mother Maud Currell nee Turner died at Stockton in NSW on 27^th January 1962.
	On 23^rd July 1952 at Petersham in NSW, Clifford Currell married Josephine Elys Everitt who was born at Murwillumbah in NSW on 22^nd December 1931. The daughter from that marriage was Joanne (Jo) Patricia Currell who was born at Parramatta in NSW on 14^th April 1969 who married Matthew James Power at Bankstown on 30^th August 1991, Matthew having been born at Sutherland in NSW on 9^th January 1968. Jo’s father Clifford Currell passed away nearly fourteen years later when he died on 20^th January 2004 at Blacktown in New South Wales. Jo and Matthew Power currently live in the Campsie area of Sydney with their three children Brett, Ben, and Katelyn. And it is thanks to Jo that the continuation of the life of Martha Collett and her descendants has been included here.
46N2	Richard Collett was born at Fencott, and that may have taken place a few years before he was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 4^th June 1815, the son of William Collett and Prudence Pittam. On leaving school Richard worked as a labourer at Murcott and at the age of 23 he was married by licence to Ann Grove Sturch who was also 23 and the daughter of Robert Grove Sturch, a farmer at Murcott. The wedding took place at St Mary’s Church in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 14^th February 1839 where their daughter Elizabeth was baptised only nineteen weeks later. She may have been one half of a set of twins, the male half perhaps being too poorly to attend. It was therefore two months later that their son Thomas was baptised at Charlton on 22^nd August 1839. Two years after they were married Ann presented Richard with another son who was also born at Murcott but, after a further two years, the couple’s eldest son – born before they were married, died.
	By June 1841 Richard’s rounded age was 30 and listed living with him at Murcott was his one-year old daughter Elizabeth. At that time, for whatever reason his wife Ann was with their son Robert who was under one year old, when they were recorded in the St Clement & Headington district of Oxford. During the next ten years Ann presented Richard with a further six children while the family was living at nearby Fencott. All of the children’s baptisms were recorded at Charlton and in each case the child’s father was described as Richard Collett labourer. From the parish register it can be determined that some of the children were born having poor health, and for that reason they were recorded as having been ‘privately baptised’, which meant they were baptised at home.
	As a result of their poor health, two children died during the 1840s and a further one passed away prior to 1851, with all of them being buried at Charlton. Therefore, by the time of the census in 1851 the family living at Murcott was made up of Richard Collett of Murcott who was 39 and a farmer of 60 acres, his wife Ann from Hungerford who was 36, together with six of their nine children. The six surviving children were listed as Elizabeth, age 12 and of Murcott, Robert who was 10 and also from Murcott, Albert who was eight, David who was six, Edwin who was three, and Philip who was one year old, and all of them born at Fencott. The three deceased infants were Eliza Ann, William and George. Supporting the family was servant William Horwood, aged 18 and from Piddington of Oxfordshire.
	The Fencott census of 1861 listed Richard from Murcott and Ann from Hungerford as both being aged 45. The only children listed with them on that occasion were Edwin aged 13 from Fencott, Philip aged 11 from Murcott, both described as farmer’s sons, Spencer who was eight and from Murcott and Auten who was three years old and from Fencott. The missing child on that occasion was their eldest son George. By that time in his life Richard’s landholding had reduced from 60 acres to just 11 acres. Living next door to the Collett family in Fencott in 1861 was another Collett family, that of Richard’s uncle John Collett (Ref. 46M5) of Fencott and his wife Sarah Collett from Charlton-on-Otmoor.
	There is a mystery surrounding the passing of Richard Collett since, when he died at the age of 52, there was an inquest held into his death. That may indicate he died under suspicious circumstances or that he was killed in some way, rather than dying of natural causes. Either way, the death of Richard Collett was recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 382) during the last three months of 1867, following which Richard was laid to rest in the churchyard of St Mary in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 29^th October 1867. Having lost her husband, it appears that Ann left Oxfordshire when she travelled south into Buckinghamshire and, on the day of the next census in 1871, she was working as the housekeeper for John Belgrove at his home in Swanbourne, midway between Winslow and Stewkley. Widowed Ann Collett from Hungerford was 55.
	It was exactly the same situation ten years later when, once again, Ann Collett was 65 and described as the general the housekeeper at Above Mead Farm in Swanbourne, the home of bachelor farmer John Belgrove of Stewkley who was farming 200 acres, employing 5 men and 2 boys. During the next decade Ann Collett moved further south, to Maidstone in Kent, to live near her married son David Collett. That was confirmed in the census of 1891 when Ann Collett from Hungerford was a lodger at Boxley Road in Maidstone, where she was described as a widow of 75 who was living on her own means. Ten years later Ann Collett from Hungerford was still living in Maidstone in 1901, but as a boarder at a lodging house run by Edward and Jane Thatcher in Brewer Street, very near to Earl Street where her son David had been living in 1891. On that occasion Ann was still living on her own means at the age of 84. Four year after that, the death of Ann Collett was recorded at Maidstone register office (Ref. 2a 535) during the first three months of 1905, when her age was said to be 90.
	46O1	George Collett	Born in 1837 at Murcott
	46O2	Thomas Collett twin?	Born in 1839 at Murcott
	46O3	Elizabeth Collett twin?	Born in 1839 at Murcott
	46O4	Robert Sturch Collett	Born in 1841 at Murcott
	46O5	Albert Collett	Born in 1843 at Fencott
	46O6	David Collett	Born in 1844 at Fencott
	46O7	Eliza Anne Collett	Born in 1845 at Fencott
	46O8	Edwin Collett	Born in 1846 at Fencott
	46O9	William Collett	Born in 1847 at Fencott
	46O10	Philip Collett	Born in 1848 at Fencott
	46O11	George Collett	Born in 1849 at Murcott
	46O12	John James Collett	Born in 1850 at Murcott
	46O13	Spencer Collett	Born in 1852 at Murcott
	46O14	Auten Collett	Born in 1857 at Fencott
46N3	Thomas Collett was born at Fencott in 1817 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 6^th April 1817. Not long after he was born the family left Fencott and moved to nearby Murcott. Although no listing has been found for Thomas in the census of 1841, by 1851 he was 35 and was married to Mary, age 28, who was also of Fencott. Their marriage at that time had so far produced two sons for the couple and they were Thomas who was three years of age, and baby Henry who was not yet one year old. The family was living at Murcott at that time. Sadly, their son Charles, who was born three years later in 1854, died just one month after he was born.
	It would appear that one further child was added to the family over the following years, so by 1861 Thomas Collett, who was 44 and an agricultural labourer from Murcott, and his wife Mary, who was 38 and from Fencott, had listed as living with them their three sons Thomas who was 13 and a plough-boy, Henry who was 10 and still at school, and Caleb who was four years old and who had also been born at Murcott like his two brothers.
	By 1871 the couple’s two oldest surviving sons had left the family home, leaving just Caleb, age 14, still living with his parents, Thomas who was 54, and Mary who was 48. According to the Charlton-on-Otmoor census of 1881, Thomas Collett from Fencott was 64 years old and was then a farmer of eight acres. Mary, his wife and also of Fencott, was 58. Still living with them was their unmarried son Caleb who was 24 and born at Murcott, who was employed as an agricultural labourer.
	Thomas must have died during the 1880s since Mary was a widow at the age of 68 by 1891. Still living with her was her son Caleb who was then 34. As Mary was not listed in the census of 1901 it must be assumed that she died during the 1890s. Following his death, the farmland owned and worked by Thomas Collett at Murcott was shared between three of his sons, they being Thomas, Henry and Caleb.
	46O15	Thomas Collett	Born in 1847 at Murcott
	46O16	Henry Collett	Born in 1851 at Murcott
	46O17	Charles Collett	Born in 1854 at Murcott
	46O18	Caleb Collett	Born in 1856 at Murcott
46N4	William Collett was born at Murcott in 1819 and was baptised on 16^th July 1819 at Charlton-on-Otmoor, the son of William Collett and his wife Prudence Pittam. Thanks to Shirley Martin in 2012 it is now established that the information previously written here about William Collett was incorrect, although it was correct insofar as he did marry Mary Ann. However, she did not die after the birth of their son John, nor did William re-marry Sarah, so there are some unresolved details regarding that William and Sarah who, it is now known, were from Fencott and Eynsham respectively.
	It was on 9^th January 1840 that William Collett from Murcott married Mary Ann Clark at the parish church in Charlton-on-Otmoor. Mary Anne was the daughter of farmer John Clark and was baptised on 10^th September 1820 at the Church of St James in Boarstall, Buckinghamshire. At the time of their wedding Mary Ann was a spinster of Murcott at the age of 19, while William was a bachelor and a labourer of Murcott, whose father was confirmed as labourer William Collett. The witnesses at the ceremony were William’s older brother Thomas Collett (above) and Sarah Cox. Once they were married the couple settled in Horton-cum-Studley, just a short distance from Murcott and Charlton.
	It now appears that Mary Ann may have already given birth to a son prior to their wedding day or was in an advanced state of pregnancy on that day. The evidence in the later census of 1861 suggests that the child may have even been born as early as 1838 or 1839. However, it was just three months after they were married that Mary Ann’s son was baptised as William Collett at Charlton-on-Otmoor, as were the couple’s following sons, there being no church at Murcott or Horton-cum-Studley. What is very interesting is that within the census of 1841 William’s and Mary Ann’s eldest son was named John, while it was their third son who was eventually baptised with the name John four years later. William and Mary Ann were both 20 years of age in 1841, while their son ‘John’ was one year old, when the family was living at Whitecross Green in Horton-cum-Studley, where William was an agricultural labourer.
	The next census in 1851 again raises questions about the couple’s eldest son, since the family was still living at Horton-cum-Studley, but seemingly without their son William Collett. Instead, the child of around the same age who was living there with them was William Clark who was 11 years of age and born at Headington who was described as son-in-law, possibly indicating that he was the child of Mary Ann Clark. The rest of the family comprised William and Mary Ann Collett, both 31, with their two youngest sons George Collett, who was seven, and John Collett who was five. The family was recorded under the surname Collet, when William from Murcott was still working as an agricultural labourer. Mary Ann was confirmed as having been born at Boarstall, and the two sons at Horton-cum-Studley. Staying with the family on that occasion was Mary Ann’s brother William Clark, age 27, an agricultural labourer from Studley, who was described as brother-in-law.
	It is highly likely that Mary Ann was with-child on the day of the census, because later that same year she gave birth to fourth son. Less than four years after that William Collett died and was buried at Beckley Church on 5^th February 1855, when he was described as being aged 34 and from Whitecross Green. It was thirty-two months later that Mary Ann Collett married James Payne at Beckley on 15^th October 1857. James was a bachelor and a labourer of 29 from Whitecross Green, the son of labourer William Payne, while Mary Ann Collett, age 37, was a widow from Whitecross Green, the daughter of farmer John Clark. The witnesses were James Blake and Emma Payne.
	The marriage of Mary Ann Collett nee Clark and James Payne produced a daughter who was born around the time that the couple was married, as confirmed by the Beckley census of 1861 when James Payne was 31, his wife Mary A Payne was 40, and their daughter Thurza Payne was just three years of age. Also living in Beckley with the family at that time were Mary Ann three sons William Collett, age 20, George Collett, age 18, and Ellis Collett who was nine years old. All three sons had been born at Horton (in Headington) and were described as son-in-law to head of the household James Payne. It is interesting that Mary Ann’s missing son, John Collett, had left school by that time and was working as a shepherd on the Boarstall farm of William Blake. He was very likely related to the aforementioned witness James Blake and is believed to be the half-brother James Payne’s mother.
	Further tragedy must have struck Mary Ann sometime during the 1860s when her husband was killed or died as the result of an accident, he being so much younger than her. Her loss may have resulted in her losing the house at Beckley, since in 1871 she was lodging at the home of farmer William Cox within the Whitecross Green area of Horton-cum-Studley. With her on that occasion was her unmarried son George. During the next decade Mary Ann settled in Charlton-on-Otmoor, where she was living in 1881, again with her son George and her daughter Theresa Payne, who was 23 and a domestic servant. Widow Mary A Payne from Boarstall in Buckinghamshire was a laundress at the age of 60.
	46O19	William Clark Collett	Born in 1839 at Horton-cum-Studley
	46O20	George Collett	Born in 1843 at Horton-cum-Studley
	46O21	John Collett	Born in 1845 at Horton-cum-Studley
	46O22	Ellis Collett	Born in 1851 at Horton-cum-Studley
46N5	George Collett was born at Murcott in 1821 and was baptised on 25^th June 1821 at Charlton-on-Otmoor. He had a rounded age of 20 in June 1841. Around 1850 George married Eliza Harris of Islip with whom he had at least five children and all of them born at Murcott. Over the following ten years the marriage produced the couple’s first four children, so by 1861 the family was made up of George, age 38 from Murcott, who was a labourer, his wife Eliza age 32 and from nearby Islip, and their sons Lewis who was seven, William who was three, and George who was two, together with their daughter Elizabeth Ann who was four years old.
	Living in the dwellings on either side of the property occupied by George and his family was his brother Thomas Collett (above) with his family and, on the other side, George’s widowed mother Prudence, who had living with her George’s youngest sister Charlotte Elizabeth Walker nee Collett (below) with her two daughters. Shortly after the 1861 Census date Eliza presented George with their last child which indicated that she was with child on the day on the census. Ten years later the 1871 Census recorded the family as George 47, Eliza 42, Lewis 17, William 14, George 11, and latest edition Alfred who was nine. Missing from the family home was daughter Elizabeth who was 15 and who by then was living and working fifteen miles away at Winslow in Buckinghamshire. However, still living next door to the family was George’s elderly mother Prudence.
	During the next decade the family moved a couple of miles south to Beckley where they were recorded as living in 1881. George was 60 and from Murcott, while his occupation was then that of a farmer of thirty acres. His wife was 55 on that occasion. The only member of the family still living with them at that time was their unmarried son George who was 21, from Murcott, who was working as an agricultural labourer. The couple’s youngest son Alfred was living with Eliza’s sister Esther Harris and her husband Thomas Honour in Hampshire.
	46O23	Lewis Collett	Born in 1853 at Murcott
	46O24	Elizabeth Ann Collett	Born in 1855 at Murcott
	46O25	William Collett	Born in 1857 at Murcott
	46O26	George Collett	Born in 1859 at Murcott
	46O27	Alfred Collett	Born in 1862 at Murcott
46N6	John Collett was born at Murcott in 1823 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 25^th February 1823, the son of William Collett and Prudence Pittam. He was later recorded as being 15 years old in 1841. The marriage of John Collett and Matilda Attwood was recorded at Bicester (Ref. 16 67) during the last quarter of 1848. Matilda, who came from nearby Horton-cum-Studley, presented John with their first child in the following year and another, a year later. In 1851 the family living at Murcott comprised agricultural labourer John Collett, aged 26, who was born at Murcott, his wife Matilda, age 23 and from Horton, and their two daughters Louisa Collett who was two years old and Selina Collett who was only six months old, both girls born at Murcott.
	By the time of the 1861 Census the family had grown with the birth of four more children. The census record for Murcott in the Bicester & Bletchington registration district revealed that John was 37, Matilda was 35 and their children were Caleb, who was ten, Clara who was seven, Emily who was five, Rosanna who was three, and baby Eli who had only just been born. On that occasion the couple’s eldest daughter Louisa, at the age of 12, had already started work as a house servant at the Murcott home of William, a farmer and publican, whose surname in the census is unreadable. However, the absence of daughter Selina may indicate she had already suffered an infant death.
	During the next ten years three more children were added to the family but the absences from the census of 1871 might indicate that two of the older children had left home. The two missing children were Caleb who would have been 20, and Emily who would have been 15. Their son Eli Collett had sadly died during 1865. The family therefore comprised John 48, Matilda 46, daughters Clara 18 and Rowena 12, together with new arrivals Herbert who was eight, Walter who was five, and baby Jane who was only one year old.
	According to the 1881 Census, only sons Herbert and Walter were still living with their parents at that time. It is therefore possible that John’s and Matilda’s youngest daughter Jane, who would have been ten, had also not survived beyond childhood. The census return in 1881 recorded that the family was living at Charlton-on-Otmoor where John was 58 and his birth place was confirmed as being Murcott, as it was for his sons Herbert aged 17 and Walter aged 15. All three men were working as agricultural labourers.
	John’s wife Matilda was 56 and her place of birth was confirmed as Horton. With no details having been found for Matilda in the later census records, it may be safe to assume that she had passed away during the 1880s. By the time of the next census in 1891 for the Bletchington & Bicester area, John Collett was 68 and still living with him were his two unmarried sons Herbert and Walter whose ages were given as 26 and 24 respectively. It would appear that John died during the 1890s, as he has not been identified in the census of 1901.
	46O28	Louisa Collett	Born in 1849 at Murcott
	46O29	Selina Collett	Born in 1850 at Murcott
	46O30	Caleb Collett	Born in 1851 at Murcott
	46O31	Benjamin Collett	Born in 1852 at Murcott
	46O32	Clara Collett	Born in 1853 at Murcott
	46O33	Emily Collett	Born in 1855 at Murcott
	46O34	Rowena Collett	Born in 1857 at Murcott
	46O35	Eli Collett	Born in 1860 at Murcott
	46O36	Herbert Collett	Born in 1862 at Murcott
	46O37	Walter Collett	Born in 1865 at Murcott
	46O38	Jane Collett	Born in 1870 at Murcott
46N7	Benjamin Collett was born at Murcott in 1825 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 22^nd January 1825. It would appear that he was subject to an infant death as the family’s next male child was also named Benjamin (below).
46N8	Mary Collett was born at Murcott in 1826 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 1^st May 1826, the daughter of William and Prudence Collett. No other record for Mary has so far been found.
46N9	Charlotte Elizabeth Collett was born at Murcott in 1829 and was baptised as Elizabeth Collett on 4^th October 1829 at Charlton-on-Otmoor, the youngest daughter of William and Prudence Collett. In 1841 Elizabeth was 12 years old when she was still living with her family at Murcott. It was as Elizabeth that she married William Walker on 11^th December 1849 in Swanbourne north of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, where her older married sister Martha (above) was living with her family at that time. In the Swanbourne census of 1851 Elizabeth Walker from Murcott was 23 when she was living there with her husband William, who was also 23, and their daughter Harriet Walker who was not yet one year old. She presented William with a second daughter two years later but, by 1861 Elizabeth Walker was a widow who had returned to Murcott with her two daughters to live there with her widowed mother Prudence Collett from Twyford in Buckinghamshire.
	The census that year recorded her under her full name of Charlotte Elizabeth Walker. On that occasion she curiously stated that she was 29 years of age, although she did say that she had been born at Murcott. Charlotte was working as a field woman at that time, while her two daughters were listed with her as Harriet Walker who was 10, and Eliza Walker who was seven, both of them born at Swanbourne in Buckinghamshire.
46N10	Benjamin Collett was born at Murcott in 1831 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 27^th November 1831, the last child of William Collett and Prudence Pittam. Sadly, he only survived for less than two years and was buried at St Mary’s Church in Charlton on 30^th August 1833.
46N11	John Collett was born at Wendlebury near Bicester on 30^th May 1824 where his parents had been married during November in the previous year. It would also appear from the records that he was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 30^th May 1824. During the years after he was born John and his parents left Oxfordshire and moved the short distance across the county boundary to settle in the village of Boarstall in Buckinghamshire. And it was at Panshill Farm in Boarstall where the family was living in June 1841 when John was 15, but by 1851 he was 26 and a farmer and a visitor at the home of widow Martha Foster and her unmarried brother William Foster at Caversfield near Bicester. It was Martha’s daughter that John may have been seeing at that time because, just over three years later, at thirty years of age, he married Lucy Foster at Caversfield on 9^th November 1854. Lucy was born at Bucknell just north of Bicester on 4^th June 1830 where she was baptised on 13^th June 1830. She was the daughter of the late Richard Foster and Martha King, although other records gave the mother’s name as Martha Coleman.
	Within the next seven years the marriage produced the first four children for John and Lucy, so by the time of the census of 1861 the family comprised John Collett from Wendlebury who was 36 and a farmer of 116 acres, employing 22 men. His wife Lucy from Bucknell was 30 and their four children were Richard who was five, Martha who was four, John who was two and William who was five months old. All four children had been born at Arncott, with the family living at Clew Hill (Farm) in Arncott on that occasion. Completing the household were servants James Sampley, Sarah Massey and James Hubbucks. The couple’s next two children were born after John and Lucy had move to Charlton-on-Otmoor and sometime over the following years John returned to Boarstall with his family. And it was at Boarstall that his last five children are known to have been born. The family move to Boarstall may have been prompted by the death of John’s father Richard in 1863 and the need to be back in the village of his childhood to be near his widowed mother Martha.
	At the time of the 1871 Census for Boarstall farmer John Collett from Wendlebury was 46, Lucy Collett was 40 and their children then were Richard Collett 15, John Edwin Collett 12, William Foster Collett 10, James Bottrell Collett who was seven, Walter George Collett who was five, Esther Collett who was three and Edith Bessie who was not yet one year old. Their eldest daughter Martha was missing from the family list following her death in 1863 but staying with the family, that year, was John’s nephew Arthur Collett aged 18 and from Murcott who was a farm servant and the son of John’s younger brother Richard (below). One other person was recorded with the family and she was Jane Jennings from nearby Oakley who was 15.
	By April 1881 John was farming 190 acres of land at Pansole Farm in Boarstall where he also employed three men, two of whom may have been his sons John and James who were still living with John and Lucy at that time. The full census record confirmed that John was 56 and born at Wendlebury, and that his wife was Lucy who was 50 and born at Bucknell. Listed with them were sons John Edwin Collett, age 20 of Arncott, James Bottrell Collett, age 17 of Charlton-on-Otmoor, and Herbert Spencer Collett who was six, and their daughters Esther, age 13, Edith Bessie, age 11, and Beatrice Mary who was nine. The census confirmed that the four youngest children had all been born at Boarstall.
	John Collett died at Boarstall on 29^th December 1881 where he was also buried. Sometime after the death of her husband Lucy left Boarstall with some of her children and moved back to the Bicester area where they were recorded as living in 1891. Widow Lucy was 60 and still living with her were just four of her children James 26, Edith 20, Beatrice 19 and Herbert 16. Over the following years Lucy returned to Boarstall where she presumably lived until her death in 1914 at the age of 83.
	The 1901 Census confirmed that she was back living at Boarstall with her son John Edwin Collett and his wife and family. She was 70 and her place of birth was again confirmed as Bucknell near Bicester. According to the next census in April 1911 Lucy Collett had left Boarstall and at the age of eighty was living at Charlton-on-Otmoor with two of her youngest unmarried daughters. They were Esther who was 43, and Beatrice who was 39. Also living with the three ladies was Martha Alice Collett who was 24 and the granddaughter of Lucy Collett, being the daughter of her eldest son Richard. It was three years after that when Lucy Collett nee Foster died during 1914.
	46O39	Richard Collett	Born in 1855 at Arncott
	46O40	Martha Ann Collett	Born in 1857 at Arncott
	46O41	John Edwin Collett	Born in 1859 at Arncott
	46O42	William Foster Collett	Born in 1861 at Arncott
	46O43	Lucy Louisa Collett	Born in 1862 at Charlton-on-Otmoor
	46O44	James Bottrell Collett	Born in 1864 at Charlton-on-Otmoor
	46O45	Walter George Collett	Born in 1865 at Boarstall
	46O46	Esther Collett	Born in 1867 at Boarstall
	46O47	Edith Bessie Collett	Born in 1870 at Boarstall
	46O48	Beatrice Mary Collett	Born in 1871 at Boarstall
	46O49	Herbert Spencer Collett	Born in 1874 at Boarstall
46N12	Richard Collett was born Boarstall in Buckinghamshire in 1827 and was the second child of Richard Collett and Martha Bottrell. By the time of the census in 1841 Richard was 14 years old and still living at Panshill Farm in Boarstall with his family. Shortly before the next census day Richard married Mary who was born at Oakley to the south of Boarstall. That was confirmed by the census in 1851 when Richard Collett from Boarstall was 23 and a farmer of nine acres and Mary Collett from Oakley was 21. At that time the couple was residing in the village of Murcott, not far from Richard’s family, and staying with the childless couple was Richard’s youngest sister Martha Collett who was 10 years old and also born at Boarstall.
	It is possible that Richard’s wife may not have lived through the ordeal of giving birth to the couple’s only known child, who was born at Murcott, since Richard was a lodger at the Birmingham home of Thomas and Mary Allan at Brewery Street in 1861. Richard Collett from Boarstall was 33 and working as a labourer. His marital status on the census return was blank. At that time in his young life his son Arthur was being looked after by Richard’s elderly parents at Bicester.
	46O50	Arthur Collett	Born in 1852 at Murcott
46N13	Ann Collett was born at Boarstall in 1829 and by 1841 she was 12 years of age when living in Boarstall with her family on Panshill Farm. Over the following decade the family crossed the county boundary into Oxfordshire and in 1851 she was 20 years old when she was still living with her family at Murcott within the Bicester & Bletchingdon area. It seems likely that Ann was married not long after that since no record of Ann Collett from Boarstall has so far been found.
46N14	Felicia Collett was born at Boarstall in 1832 and according to the 1841 Census Felicia Collett was nine years old when she was living with her family at Panshill Farm in Boarstall. No further record of her as either Felicia or Helena has been found in any later census records, perhaps because she was married prior to the census day in 1851.
46N15	Elizabeth Collett was born at Boarstall in 1836 and was aged five years in the Boarstall census conducted in June 1841 when she and her family were living at Panshill Farm. Ten years later she was 15 years of age in the Murcott, Oxfordshire, census of 1851. Between April and June in 1856 Elizabeth married Mark Honour, the marriage being registered in Bicester. Mark was born at Murcott in 1832 and was the younger brother of Thomas Honour who employed his nephew Alfred Collett (Ref. 46O27) in 1881 on his farm in Hampshire. Shortly after Elizabeth and Mark were married, she presented her husband with their first child which was born at Murcott, as were all of their five children.
	However, sometime after the birth of the last child the family left Murcott and moved south to Swyncombe near Watlington in Oxfordshire. And it was there that the family was living in 1881. Mark was 48 and was farming 500 acres of land known as Lower Farm in Swyncombe where he employed four men and a boy. His place of birth was confirmed as Murcott, while Elizabeth his wife, who was 41, was confirmed has having been born at Fencott and not Boarstall which seems rather curious. Their children were Sarah, age 24, Albert, age 22, Walter, age 18, Bessie, age 16, and William who was nine. Also supporting the family were two domestic farm servants William Morton and Benjamin Groves both aged 18. Tragically it was later that same year when Elizabeth died at Swyncombe.
46N16	Martha Collett was born at Panshill Farm in Boarstall during the first month of 1841 and was five months old in the June census of 1841. She may have been only a few years old when her father took the family to live at Murcott in Oxfordshire. However, the census return for Murcott in 1851 placed Martha Collett aged 10 years living with her recently married brother Richard Collett and his wife Mary, with Martha’s parents living close by. Over the following years Martha returned to live with her parents, as confirmed in the next census of 1861 when Martha Collett from Boarstall was 20 years old.
46N17	Susanna Collett was born in 1820 and may have been base-born since she was baptised at Blackthorn on 14^th May 1820 using her mother’s maiden name. No other record for Susanna or Susannah has so far been found.
46N18	Sarah Collett was born in 1823 and may have been base-born since, like her sister Susanna (above) she was baptised at Blackthorn on 4^th July 1823 using her mother’s maiden name. No other record for Sarah has so far been found.
46N19	Elizabeth Collett was born at Murcott in 1834 but was baptised at the parish church in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 25^th December 1834, the eldest child of farmer John and Sarah Collett. She was six years old in the June census of 1841 and was 16 in 1851 when, on both occasions, she was living with her parents at Murcott. By the time she was 26 she was very likely married, as there is no record of Elizabeth Collett of Murcott around that age listed within the census of 1861.
46N20	William Collett was born at Murcott in 1836 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 14^th May 1837, the eldest son of farmer John Collett and Sarah Hopcraft. His age quoted in each of the subsequent census returns varied a great deal, starting with him being four years in Murcott/Fencott census of 1841. Ten years later he was 13 in the Murcott/Fencott census of 1851 when he was described as a farmer’s son. By 1861 he was 22 but was more correctly recorded in the census of 1871 when he was 35 years old. According to the next census in 1881 he was still living with his parents on their farm at Fencott, within the Charlton-on-Otmoor registration district, when he was 44.
	Following the death of his parents over the next few years, it would appear that William took over the farm at Fencott and eventually became a married man when he was approaching his fiftieth birthday. By the time of the census in 1891 William Collett, age 52, was a farmer living in a farmhouse in Fencott, where he also stated that he had been born. His wife Susannah Collett from Shillingford in Oxfordshire was only 39 and by then she had presented William with a son. Charles W J Collett had been born at Fencott and was just one year old. The census return stated that William was an employer and placed the farmhouse in which his family was living as being immediately adjacent to the public house known as The Bull Inn.
	It was at that same dwelling next door to the re-named Black Bull Inn that the family of three was still living ten years later. The Fencott census of 1901 recorded the family as William Collett, who was 63 and a farmer who had been born at Fencott, his wife Susannah Collett, age 49 and from Shillingford, while their son Charles W J Collett from Fencott was 11. With his advancing years William passed away during the first decade of the new century, so by April 1911 it was just his widow Susannah, who was 59, and his son Charles W J Collett, age 21, who were still living in Fencott.
	46O51	Charles William John Collett	Born in 1889 at Fencott
46N21	Charlotte Collett was born at Murcott in 1838 and was baptised at the parish church in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 21^st April 1839, the daughter of John Collett and Sarah Hopcraft. By June 1841 Charlotte was two years old but it would appear that she died shortly thereafter, since she was not listed with her family at Murcott in 1851, nor has any record of her been found after the 1841 census.
46N22	Thomas Collett was born at Murcott in 1841 following his family’s move there from nearby Fencott. Thomas was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 27^th June 1841, the son of farmer John Collett and Sarah Hopcraft. At the time of the Murcott census of 1851 Thomas was 10 years old and was living with his family, when his place of birth was given as Murcott. He later married Anne Cox of Horton-cum-Studley during October to December in 1867 and their first child was born at Whitecross Green in Horton shortly after they were married.
	It may be of interest to note that an Ellen Martha Cox was born in 1866 at Whitecross Green in Horton-cum-Studley. She was the daughter of Thomas and Margaret Cox and she later marry James Bottrell Collett in 1895. It is likely that Thomas Cox was the brother of Anne Cox. Thomas and Margaret Cox were also the parents of Maud Cox of Whitecross Green in Horton-cum-Studley who married Albert John Collett (Ref. 46O59) around 1893, Albert being the nephew of Thomas Collett, with Maud being the niece of Anne Cox.
	The Collett connection between Thomas of Murcott and James Bottrell of Charlton was through Thomas’ father John Collett, who was the brother of Richard Collett who was James’ grandfather. In total Thomas Collett and Anne Cox are known to have had six children, the second and third child having been born while the family was living at Arncott and their last three children after the family had moved to Fencott.
	The census of 1881 recorded the family as living within the Charlton census area which would have included Fencott where Thomas and Anne are known to have been living in 1878. That year’s census revealed that Thomas was a farmer of 230 acres employing three men and two boys. His place of birth was given as Murcott and he was 40 years old. His wife Anne had been born at Horton-cum-Studley and was 34. Their six children at that time were Aubery (recorded as Albury), age 13 and described as a farmer’s son, Herbert, age 10, Mildred who was nine, Beatrice who was five, Percival who was four, and Arthur who was two years old.
	Ten years later the complete family was still together and comprised Thomas, age 49, Annie, age 47, and their children Aubery who was 23, Herbert who was 20, Mildred who was 19, Beatrice who was 15, Percival who was 13, and Arthur who was 11. Just after the turn of the century Thomas and Anne were still living at Charlton but with just two of their children. Farmer Thomas was 59 of Murcott, Annie of Horton was 53, and daughter Beatrice was 25 and son Percy was 23, both of Fencott.
	The later census of 1911 placed the couple living at Fencott where farmer Thomas Collett was 69 and his wife Annie was 64. Annie stated that Horton was where she had been born, whereas Thomas said he was from Fencott. The census confirmed that Thomas and Annie had been married for forty-four years. The couple’s son Herbert, whose wife had died during the previous decade, had returned to live with them, together with the youngest of his three daughters.
	46O52	Aubrey Thomas Collett	Born in 1868 at Horton-cum-Studley
	46O53	Herbert James Collett	Born in 1870 at Arncott
	46O54	Mildred Collett	Born in 1872 at Arncott
	46O55	Beatrice Collett	Born in 1875 at Fencott
	46O56	Percival Cox Collett	Born in 1877 at Fencott
	46O57	Arthur Collett	Born in 1879 at Fencott
46N23	George Collett was born at Murcott in 1843 but was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 4^th June 1843, the son of farmer John and Sarah Collett. George was eight years old in the Murcott census of 1851, when it was noted that he had been born at Murcott. It was when he was in his mid-twenties that he married Emma who was eight years his senior, Emma having been born at Worminghall in Buckinghamshire in 1835.
	The marriage produced twin daughters who were born while George and Emma were still living at Fencott. However, soon after the girls were born George, age 26 and Emma, age 35, were living in the village of Beckley within the Headington St Clement registration district of Oxford with their twin daughters who were not yet one year old. During the 1870s the family of four left Oxford and moved south to Swyncombe near Watlington in Oxfordshire where George’s cousin Elizabeth Honour nee Collett (above) and her family had also moved around the same time.
	The census of 1881 for Swyncombe recorded the family in error using the Collott spelling of the surname. George Collott, aged 37 and from Fencott, was the farmer of 70 acres at Darkwood Farm, while his wife Emma Collott from Worminghall was 45. Their two daughters Sarah A Collott and Mary E Collott were both 11 years of age and, supporting the family was a domestic farm servant by the name of Frederick Chalduran, aged 18, also from Worminghall.
	Ten years later the family was once again living within the Bicester & Bletchington registration district, where George Collett was 46, Emma Collett was 52, Sarah Ann Collett was 21, and Elizabeth Mary Collett was also 21, both daughters confirmed as having been born at Fencott. In March 1901 George Collett, age 56, a farmer from Murcott was living at Writchwick Farm in the Market End district of Bicester with his daughter Elizabeth Collett, age 30 and from Fencott, and his wife who was recorded in error as Eva Collett, age 57 and from Worminghall, instead of Emma Collett age 63 from Worminghall. Also living in that same registration district was Ellen [Rebecca] Collett (Ref. 46P46), the granddaughter of George’s cousin William Collett (Ref. 46N4).
	However, by April 1911 both of their daughters were most likely married, since George, age 66 and from Fencott, was still living at Market End in Bicester with just his wife Emma, age 74 and from Worminghall, for company.
	46O58	Sarah Ann Collett twin	Born in 1870 at Fencott
	46O59	Mary Elizabeth Collett twin	Born in 1870 at Fencott
46N24	John Collett was born at Murcott in 1845, the son of John and Sarah Collett. He was recorded as being six years old in the Murcott census of 1851, but by 1861 he and his family were living at Fencott when John Collett age 15 was confirmed again as having been born at Murcott. On 20^th September 1870 John married Edith who was born at Charlton-on-Otmoor around 1848. Once married the couple settled initially in Fencott, where they were living in April 1871 when John was 26 and Edith was 23, and they were awaiting the arrival of their first child. Their second child was also born at Fencott, before the family moved to Charlton where their third child was born.
	By 1881 the family was living in a cottage in nearby Oddington, where John was a farmer of 140 acres employing four men and two boys. The census confirmed he was aged 35 and born at Fencott and that his wife Edith E Collett was 32 and of Charlton. Their three children at that time were Albert J Collett, who was nine, Thomas H Collett, who was eight, and Sarah J Collett who was seven. However, it is established that the couple did have another son John who was born at Oddington around four years later and he was living with the family at Oddington in 1891.
	The Oddington census that year recorded the family as John Collett from Murcott who was a farmer and an employer at the age of 45, his wife Edith E Collett who was 43, together with their three sons Albert J Collett who was 19, Thomas Collett who was 18, and latest arrival John Collett who was five years old. By that time their daughter Sarah C Collett was 17 and was recorded nearby. According to the next census in 1901 Edith E Collett of Charlton-on-Otmoor was 54, while he husband farmer John Collett was 55 and his place of birth on that occasion was listed as Murcott. Living with them was their youngest son John Collett who was 15 and born at Oddington.
	By April 1911 John Collett of Murcott was 65, his wife Edith E Collett of Charlton was 63, and by that time in their lives the couple was living in the hamlet of Noke-next-Oddington with their son John who was 25. On 20^th September 1920 John and Edith celebrated fifty years of married life together and the occasion was marked by the presentation to the couple of an illuminated scroll. Today the scroll hangs on the wall inside the house of John’s great grandson Stephen Collett.
	46O60	Albert John Collett	Born in 1871 at Fencott
	46O61	Thomas H Collett	Born in 1872 at Fencott
	46O62	Sarah Cecilia Collett	Born in 1873 at Charlton-on-Otmoor
	46O63	John Collett	Born in 1885 at Oddington
46N25	Richard Collett was born at Murcott in 1848 and was the youngest child of farmer John Collett and his wife Sarah Hopcraft. At the time of the Murcott/Fencott census of 1851 Richard was three years old and his place of birth was confirmed as Murcott. Thirty years later, according to the 1881 Census, Richard Collett was 32 and a bachelor who was listed as a farmer’s son. At that time, he was still living with his elderly parents on their 88-acre farm in Fencott, within the parish of Charlton-on-Otmoor.
	Richard’s parents died during the 1880s and by 1891 he was living alone in Fencott, within the Bicester & Bletchington registration when he was 44. The next census in March 1901 listed Richard Collett as being 54 years old and born at Fencott, where he was living at that time and where he was working as a thatcher. He was still unmarried and living alone ten years later when, rather curiously, he was recorded as being 59 years old.
46N26	Denise Collett was born at Fencott in 1809 and was the daughter of Mary Collett of Fencott who was not married until 1811. She was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 12^th March 1809 and the entry in the parish records referred to her as ‘Dennis the natural daughter of Mary Collett’. Therefore, the assumption has been made that the name today would be Denise. It is not known whether she retained the Collett name or adopted the Westbury name, following the marriage of her mother to Richard Westbury on 19^th January 1811. No other record for Denise or any similar named female has so far been found.
46N27	William Collett was born at Fencott in early 1823, the son of Thomas Collett and Hannah Eyres. Sadly, his father had died in December 1822 and by the time of the first national census in 1841 William, who would have been 17, had left the family home at Fencott, although no record of him at that time has so far been found.
	Within the Bicester registration area in 1841, which included Fencott, there was a William Collett who had a rounded age of 15 who was living at Cottisford to the north-east of Bicester. However, he had been born at Cottisford and was the son of Joseph and Jane Collett. After a further ten years William Collett from Cottisford was 25 and an agricultural labourer living at a dwelling named Juniper in Cottisford. Living there with him was his wife Hannah, aged 26 and from Shutford in Oxfordshire, and their son Arthur Collett of Cottisford who was one year old. Who they were and where they link into the Collett family has still to be determined.
	It was during the fourth quarter of 1846 at Witney parish church (Ref. 16 305) that William Collett of Fencott married Harriet Hunt from Brize Norton near Witney, the daughter of Thomas Hunt, their wedding taking place on 6^th December 1846. Once they were married the couple settled in the hamlet of Hailey near Witney where, over the next three years, Harriet presented William with two children, both of them born at Hailey. According to the census in 1851 William Collett from Fencott was curiously recorded as being 32 when he was working as a carter, while living at Crawley Road in the hamlet of Hailey near Witney. His wife Harriet from Witney was 28 and their two children were Elizabeth Collett who was three and George T Collett who was only ten months old. Ten years earlier, Harriet Hunt was 19 and living at Brize Norton with her widowed father Thomas.
	Missing from the family home in the parish of Witney in 1861 was the couple’s daughter Elizabeth Collett who would have been 13. Instead, the census return simply recorded the family as just William Collett who was 39 years of age and from Foxcott (Fencott), his wife Harriet who was 38 and their son George who was 10. Six years later that Harriet Collett nee Hunt died at Witney during 1867.
	Following the death of his wife William married (2) Sarah Kench at Witney (Ref. 3a 761) during the first three months of 1868. Sarah was the widow of John Kench who died in 1867 and had been born as Sarah Martin, the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Martin. Three years later, in April 1871, William and Sarah were living at Cape Terrace, off Gloucester Place in Witney, just along from the High Street. William Collett from Fencott was 48 and a brewer’s drayman, his wife Sarah was 49 and from Eynsham, and staying with them was their granddaughter Louisa Annie Dore who was one year old and born at nearby Hailey, but entered on the census form as Louisa Ann Collett. She was their married daughter’s first child. Two other people were recorded at the same address and they were Annie Collett Lucas who was seven years old and attending school, who was described as a boarder from Woodstock, while lodging with the family was Joseph Seeley aged 21 and from Hailey who was a domestic servant.
	The census of 1881 confirmed that William Collett of Fencott was 56 and that he was still married to Sarah who was 58 and from Eynsham. At that time the couple were living at Witney where William was a labourer employed at the local brewery. Four other people were lodging at their house and they were former brewery worker Shayler Clarke and his adopted son Frederick Drinkwater, a tin plate worker by the name of Edwin Jones, and ostler Frederick Timms.
	Sarah Collett, formerly Kench nee Martin passed away during the 1880s since, by the time of the next census in 1891, William Collett from Fencott was a widower at the age of 65. On the day of the census he had lodging with him at Witney, four other individuals. They were Lea Long and her son George Long, and Thomas Rickett and John Desmond. Just less than three years later the death of William Collett was recorded at Witney (Ref. 3a 581) during the first three months of 1894, when it was also recorded that he was 71 years of age.
	It is now known from Les Brown that the marriage certificate of William Collett confirmed his father as Thomas Collett and that William was twice married (as detailed above), and that it was his first wife Harriet Hunt of Brize Norton who was Les’ great grandmother.
	46O64	Elizabeth Collett	Born in 1848 at Hailey, nr Witney
	46O65	George Thomas Collett	Born in 1850 at Hailey, nr Witney
46N28	Joseph Collett was born at Fencott during 1825 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor later that same year on 13^th October 1825, the first of two sons born to Richard and Phyllis Collett. It is not clear what happened to Joseph after his mother died and his father re-married, but by 1881 he was living at 47 Cavendish Road in Walton-on-the-Hill in Lancashire. From the census record it is apparent that he married Mary from Shropshire during the 1850s with whom he had at least one child. By that time in his life Joseph Collett, age 58 and from Fencott, was a general labourer living with his wife Mary, age 48 and a farm servant, and their son William Collett who was 20 and a general labourer who had been born at Ashton-under-Lyne. Three other people were boarding with the Collett family and they were George and Jane Radford, with their one-year old daughter Alice.
	46O66	William Collett	Born in 1860 at Ashton-under-Lyne
46N29	Thomas Collett was born at Fencott in 1827 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 24^th June 1827, the second of two sons born to Richard and Phyllis Collett. Tragically he only survived for around eighteen months before he died and was buried at St Mary’s Church in Charlton on 22^nd January 1829.
46N30	James Collett was born at Fencott in 1834, the son of Richard Collett of Fencott. He was born at a time in Richard’s life which was six years after the death of his first wife, and two years before he married for a second time. It is therefore possible that James was the son of Richard Collett and a second, so far unknown second of three wives. It was in 1851 that James Collett of Fencott was 16 when he was working as an agricultural labourer, while living with his father and his stepmother Ann, and two younger half-brothers at Murcott.
46N31	George Collett was born at Charlton-on-Otmoor in 1837. Being of poor health he was subject to a private baptism at his home in Charlton on 3^rd February 1838 but died shortly after and was buried at Charlton on 17^th February 1838.
46N32	Thomas Collett was born at Charlton-on-Otmoor in 1839 and was baptised there on 22^nd August 1839. Thomas was the son of Richard and Ann Collett and he survived for only thirty-one months and, following his death on 9^th February 1842, he was buried at Charlton.
46N33	John Richard Collett was born at Fencott in 1844 and was baptised on 18^th August 1844 at Charlton-on-Otmoor, one of the very few children of Richard and Ann Collett to survive beyond infancy. By 1851 he was living at Murcott with his parents at the age of six years when his place of birth was given as Murcott, and it was the same situation ten years later in 1861, when John from Murcott was 16 and still living there with his family. Where he was after that time is not clear.
46N34	Eliza Anne Collett was born at Murcott in 1846, the daughter of Richard and Anne Collett. She was not in the best of health, as indicated by the fact that she was the subject of a private baptism at the family home on 11^th April 1846. Sadly, Eliza never recovered from her illness and died just of twelve months later and was buried at Charlton on 20^th April 1847.
46N35	William Collett was born at Murcott in 1847 and probably suffered with the same ailments as his older sister Eliza Anne (above) who died seven months before he was born. William was also baptised at home in a private baptism on 14^th November 1847, but he died six months later and was buried at Charlton on 18^th May 1848.
46N36	George Collett was born at Murcott during April 1850 and was the fourth child of the family to die while still an infant. Like his three siblings immediately before him, he was privately baptised on 9^th May 1850 and survived for almost two years thereafter. At the time of the census in 1851 he was eleven months old and was living at Murcott with his parents Richard and Ann Collett. Following his passing one year later, he was buried at St Mary’s Church in Charlton on 1^st April 1852.
46N37	Caroline Collett was born at Fencott in 1828 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 19^th October 1828, the eldest daughter of James and Sarah Collett. She was 12 years old in the Fencott census of 1841 when she was living there with her family, but by 1851 she was living and working in Woodstock, where she was recorded as Caroline Collet, age 22, from Fencott. It is highly likely that she was married during the 1850s, since no record of Caroline Collett of Fencott has been found in 1861.
46N38	Ann Collett was born at Fencott in 1831 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 1^st January 1832, the daughter of James and Sarah Collett. In the census of 1841 Ann was nine years old when she was living with her family at Fencott. Ten years later Ann was 19 when she was living and working in the Headington district of Oxford, and on that occasion her place of birth was confirmed as Fencott. Her absence from the next census in 1861 probably indicates that she was married by then.
46N39	Charlotte Collett was born at Fencott in 1834 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 8^th March 1835, the youngest of the children of James and Sarah Collett. It was with her parents at Fencott that Charlotte was living in 1841, when she was six, and again in 1851 when she was listed as Charlote (sic) Collett, age 16.
	During the latter half of the next decade Charlotte gave birth to two base-born sons while she was still unmarried. Both boys were born at Fencott where the three of them were living in the ‘last dwelling in the hamlet of Fencott’ as confirmed by the census in 1861. Charlott (sic) Collett from Fencott was 26, Walter Collett was three, and Thomas Collett who was two years old. It is interesting to note that only three dwellings away from the Collett’s home, was the home of the Cooper family, where unmarried labourer Thomas Cooper was living with his parents Richard and Elizabeth Cooper, Thomas being credited as the father of all of Charlotte’s children.
	In 1871 Charlotte was 35 and living in Fencott with her five of her six children, only the eldest son Walter Wentworth Collett was absent from the census that year and that was because he had died during 1870 at the age of 13. The other children were Tom Collett, age eleven, Georgina Collett, who was eight, Barry (Berea) Collett, who was six, Abigail Collett, who was three, and Jonah (Jana) Collett who was one year old. All of the children were confirmed as having been born at Fencott, where two further children were added to the family over the following few years.
	By the time of the census in 1881 Charlotte Collett was still listed as a ‘single woman’, even though by then she had seven children. At that time, she was living at the Fencott home of the aforementioned bachelor Thomas Cooper who was 50 and an agricultural labourer from Murcott. Charlotte was confirmed as being 47 and born at Fencott, and her occupation was given as a needlewoman. However, all of her children were listed as Cooper Collett, with all of them having been born at Fencott, and they were Tom 22, Georgina 19, Barry (Beeri) 15, Abigail 13, Jonah 11, Richard, age nine, and Anne who was four.
	According to the next census in 1891 Charlotte Collett, from Fencott was 55, and was still living in Fencott, with her family, but strangely on that occasion they all had the surname of Copper. The children’s family was Thomas Cooper, age 59, while the children living with them were Tom Cooper, age 30, Barry (Beerie) Cooper, age 25, Jonah Cooper, age 21, Richard Cooper, age 18, and Annie Cooper who was 14. In March 1901 Charlotte Collett was 66 and the census return that year confirmed she had been born at Fencott, where she was still living at that time with the father of her children Thomas Cooper who was 70, together with their son Tom Collett who was 40 and a hay binder.
	Thomas Cooper died during the first decade of the new century, following which Charlotte became Charlotte Cooper for the first time in her life. And it was as the widow Charlotte Cooper that she was recorded in the April census of 1911. On that occasion she was described as being 76 and from Fencott, where she was still living with her unmarried son Tom, who had also taken the name Cooper, to be listed at Tom Cooper, age 51 and from Fencott.
	46O67	Walter Wentworth Collett	Born in 1857 at Fencott
	46O68	Thomas Cooper Collett	Born in 1859 at Fencott
	46O69	Georgina Cooper Collett	Born in 1862 at Fencott
	46O70	Barry Cooper Collett	Born in 1865 at Fencott
	46O71	Abigail Cooper Collett	Born in 1867 at Fencott
	46O72	Jonah Cooper Collett	Born in 1869 at Fencott
	46O73	Richard Cooper Collett	Born in 1871 at Fencott
	46O74	Anne Cooper Collett	Born in 1876 at Fencott
46O1	George Collett was born at Murcott in 1837 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 3^rd February 1838, the first child born to Richard and Ann Collett. His absence from the family in the subsequent census returns perhaps indicates that he suffered an infant death.
46O2	Thomas Collett, who was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 22^nd August 1839, may well have been a twin brother to his sister Elizabeth (below). The parish record certainly confirmed his parents were Richard and Ann Collett, but he was no with his family on the day of the census in 1841, and he died on 9^th February 1842.
46O3	Elizabeth Collett was born at Murcott in 1839 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 31^st June 1839, the eldest child of Richard Collett of Fencott and Ann Grove of Hungerford. Elizabeth was one year old in the 1841 Census for Murcott when she was living there with her father. Within two or three years Elizabeth’s family moved to Fencott where they lived for seven years before returning to Murcott. It was at Murcott that she was living with her family at the time of the census in 1851 when she was 12 years old. By the time of the next census she was very likely married.
46O4	Robert Sturch Collett was born at Murcott in 1841 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 29^th March 1841, the son of Richard Collett and Ann Grove Sturch. Curiously in the census that year, when he was less than three months old, he was with his mother Ann in the St Clement & Headington area of Oxford, while his father Richard was at their home in Murcott. Ten years later Robert was 10 years old when he was living with his family on their 60-acre farm at Murcott, where he was confirmed as having been born. By the time he was 20 he had left Murcott and was living and working at Swalcliffe, near Banbury.
	It was while in the Banbury area that he met Mary Ann whom he married a few years later. Mary Ann was born at Hanwell near Banbury and was the same age as Robert. There is a chance that she was Mary Ann Baker – see 1881 Census note below. Where they were married has not been discovered, but either at that time or a little while after the couple moved to London and the birth of their only known child was registered while Robert and Mary Ann were living at Waterloo Road in Lambeth. It is however likely that the couple were living at Brill in Buckinghamshire at the time of their son’s birth, according to later census records.
	And it was there that the family of three was still living in 1871. Robert was aged 30, as was Mary Ann, while their son William was four years old. Sometime during the next decade the family moved west and north of the River Thames and settled in Norwood Green in Middlesex.
	According to the census of 1881 the family was living at Featherstone Larches in Norwood where the occupation of Robert B Collett (sic) was a beer retailer. Both he and his wife Mary were 40 years of age and Robert gave his place of birth as Fencott, while Mary confirmed she was of Hanwell in Oxfordshire. It was at Fencott that Robert had lived with his family from 1842 to 1850, although before and after those dates he and his family had been living at Murcott where he was born.
	Robert’s son William was then 14 and was still attending school. Staying with the family at that time was Kate Baker aged 41 of Wootton in Oxfordshire, the wife of an agricultural labourer who was described as ‘sister-in-law’, together with her daughter Margaret who was three and from Hounslow. It would appear that Robert continued to live at Norwood for the rest of his life, although no record of him at all has been found in 1901. However, in both 1891 and 1911 he was listed as living there.
	By 1891 Robert ‘Stauch’ Collett and Mary Ann Collett were both 50 and were living alone at Norwood. When Mary Ann died has not been determined and that may be linked with their absence in 1901. The census of 1911 confirmed that Robert Sturch Collett was still living at Norwood at the age of 70, by which time he was a widower.
	46P1	William Collett	Born in 1866 at Brill
46O5	Albert Collett was born at Fencott in 1843 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 21^st May 1843, the son of Richard and Ann Collett. Apart from the Murcott census of 1851, when he was eight years old and living with her family, and again ten years later when he was 17. However, not long after the census in 1861 it would appear that he moved to Daventry in Northamptonshire where he met and married Elizabeth Tooby who was born there in 1841. The marriage took place at Daventry where it was recorded during the last three months of 1863 (Ref. 3b 231) when the witnesses were Thomas Appelbee, Jane Wall and Elizabeth Tooby who was most likely the bride’s mother.
	By the time of the Daventry census of 1871 Albert, age 27, and Elizabeth, age 29, had four children and they were Emily who was seven, Mary A Collett who was five, Elizabeth who was two, and Edith who was not yet one year old. During the next decade Elizabeth presented Albert with four more children, although the absence from the census in 1881 of one of their earlier children, Elizabeth Ann, may suggest that they had not survived much further into the 1870s. Their daughters Mary and Edith were also missing in 1881 but had returned to Daventry by 1891.
	The census return for 1881, placed the family living at 24 Sheaf Street in Daventry, from where Albert Collett, age 38 from Fencott, was working as a domestic groom. His wife Elizabeth was 39, and their five children on that occasion were Emily who was 17, Spencer who was eight, Clara who was six, Edwin who was four, and Arthur who was two years old. All of the children had been born at Daventry. Ten years later in 1891 the family was still residing in Daventry when Albert was 48, Elizabeth was 49, with their children Edith Collett was 29, Spencer Collett 18, Clara Collett 16, Ed Collett 14, Arch A G Collett 11, and William Collett who was eight years old. Living in the Wandsworth & Putney area of London at that time was Albert’s daughter Mary A Collett who was 25 and from Daventry.
	Sometime after that Albert became a publican, as confirmed by the Daventry census of 1901. The census listed him as being 57 and from Fencott, having his own account while being the landlord of the Plume of Feathers Inn on Chapel Lane. Living there with him was his wife Elizabeth, 58 and from Daventry, who was supported by their daughter Clara who was 26 with no occupation. Also, still unmarried and living at the family home were sons Arthur and William. In addition to the immediate family, Albert and Elizabeth also had living with them their two grandchildren Harvey and Dorothy Sharpe and Arthur Sharp, the children of their daughter Elizabeth Ann Sharp, who died around that same time, as did Dorothy during the following year.
	Married by that time in March 1901, but still living nearby in Daventry, was their daughter Edith with her family, and their son Edwin with his wife. By the time of the next census in April 1911 Albert and Elizabeth were living alone in Daventry, although the town was still home to many members of their family. Albert was 67 and Elizabeth was 68, and by that time their two grandsons Harvey and Arthur Sharp were either in a home for orphaned children or had already been sent to North America by then.
	It was during the next few months that same year when Albert Collett passed away at the age of 68, his death recorded at Daventry register office (Ref. 3b 53) during the second quarter of 1911. His wife Elizabeth Collett nee Tooby had survived him by just over nine years when she passed away in 1920 aged 78, the event being recorded at Daventry register office (Ref. 3b 97) during the third quarter of that year.
	46P2	Emily Collett	Born in 1864 at Daventry
	46P3	Mary Ann Collett	Born in 1865 at Daventry
	46P4	Elizabeth Ann Collett	Born in 1868 at Daventry
	46P5	Edith Collett	Born in 1870 at Daventry
	46P6	Spencer Collett	Born in 1872 at Daventry
	46P7	Clara Collett	Born in 1874 at Daventry
	46P8	Edwin Collett	Born in 1876 at Daventry
	46P9	Arthur Albert George Collett	Born in 1878 at Daventry
	46P10	William Collett	Born in 1882 at Daventry
46O6	David Collett was born at Fencott in 1844 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 27^th April 1845, the son of Richard and Ann Collett. By 1851 David was six years old when he was living at Murcott with his parents, who stated that he had been born at Fencott. Upon leaving school, David also moved out of the family home which was then in Fencott, and by 1861 he was employed as a baker’s servant in Fencott. He was 16 years old, but curiously gave his place of birth as Murcott. It was just over six years later when David Collett married the much older Eliza Stennett who was born at Sleaford in Lincolnshire, where she was baptised on 31^st January 1831, the daughter of Nicholas and Mary Stennett. The wedding was recorded at Camberwell in London (Ref. 1a 924) during the third quarter of 1867.
	Once married the couple initially settled in Peckham in Surrey where their two daughters were born and where the family of four was still living in 1871. By then David Collett from Fencott Hill in Oxfordshire was 25 and working as a railway porter. His wife Eliza Collett from Sleaford was said to be 32, rather than 40, and their two children were Mary E Collett who was two and Margaret G Collett who was one year old. However, by the time of the census in 1881 the family of four was living at 55 Peel Street in Maidstone, Kent. At that time in his life David Collett, aged 38, was again working as a railway porter, when his place of birth was simply stated as Oxford. His wife Eliza from Lincolnshire was 48 and their two daughters were Mary Collett who was 12 and Margaret Collett who was 11.
	Some years after the death of his father, David’s mother Ann Collett also moved to Maidstone to be close to David and his family, as confirmed by the next census in 1891. On that occasion the family of four was residing at Earl Street, close to the town centre, where David was 46 and a club steward, Eliza was 58, and their unmarried daughter Mary Elizabeth Collett was 23. Living nearby in Boxley Road was David’s mother from Hungerford who was 75. One year prior to the next census in 1901, the death of David Collett was recorded at Maidstone register office (Ref. 2a 492) during the second quarter of 1900. On the day of the census Eliza Collett from Sleaford was living at Newton Road in Tunbridge Well, Kent, where she was living on her own means at the age of 69. That was the home of her married daughter Mary Elizabeth Lane.
	Upon her death, just over six years later, Eliza was very likely buried with her late husband at Maidstone, since it was a Maidstone register office (Ref. 2a 411) that her death was recorded during the third quarter of 1907, when she was 75 years of age.
	46P11	Mary Elizabeth Collett	Born in 1868 at Peckham, Surrey
	46P12	Margaret Grace Collett	Born in 1870 at Peckham, Surrey
46O7	Eliza Anne Collett was born at Fencott in 1845 but was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 11^th April 1846, the daughter of Richard and Ann Collett. It was just over one year later that she died on 20^th April 1847.
46O8	Edwin Collett was born at Fencott in 1846 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 30^th May 1847, the son of farmer Richard Collett of Murcott and his wife Ann Grove from Hungerford. He was living with his parents at Murcott in 1851, when he was three years old, but by the time of the next census in 1861, the family had returned to Fencott where Edwin Collett, age 13 and of Fencott, was described as a farmer’s son.
	No record for Edwin has so far been found in 1871, at some time during the 1870s he had left Oxfordshire and settled in the city of Warwick. At the time of the census in 1881 Edwin Collett from Fencott was an unmarried man from Fencott, and at the age of 35 he was a publican living at 18A Cape (Street) in Warwick St Mary. His housekeeper on that occasion was 30 years old widow Mary Ann Carter from Great Ashstead in Suffolk.
	It was just after 1881 that Edwin married Sarah Ann who was born at Milton in Oxfordshire, and during the following year the couple’s only child was born while they were still living in Warwick. The family of three was still living in Warwick in 1891 and ten years later in 1901. In 1891 Edwin Collett was 43, his wife Sarah A Collett was 41 and their son Ernest E Collett was eight years old.
	By 1901 Edwin Collett, age 52 and from Fencott, was a general dealer, while his wife was Sarah was 50 and from Milton in Oxfordshire, and his son was Ernest Edwin Collett of Warwick who was 18 and a basket maker’s apprentice. Edwin Collett died during the first decade of the new century, so by April 1911, the Warwick census that year simply recorded Sarah Ann Collett, aged 61, living there with her son Ernest Edwin Collett who was 28.
	One year later, the 1912 edition of Kelly’s Directory for Warwick included an entry for Ernest Edwin Collett of Linen Street who was a basketware maker. That was also his trade when he died on 22^nd April 1940, having been admitted to the Warwick Institution five days earlier, his death recorded at Warwick register office (Ref. 6d 1375).
	46P13	Ernest Edwin Collett	Born in 1882 at Warwick
46O9	William Collett was born in 1847 at Fencott, and it was at Charlton-on-Otmoor where he was baptised on 14^th November 1847, the son of Richard and Ann Collett. He only survived for another six months, when he died on 18^th May 1848.
46O10	Philip Collett was born at Murcott in 1849 but was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 17^th March 1850. And it was at Murcott that he was still living with his parents at the age of 11 in 1861. He married Louisa Little at Clapham in London on 26^th October 1872. Louisa had been born at Clapham in 1848, the daughter of Slater Little, the forename she gave to her first son. The marriage register also confirmed that Philip was the son of Richard Collett. Once they were married the couple headed for Dorset, where they settled at Leigh Road in Wimborne Minster, just north of Poole, where their children were born and where the family was living in 1881.
	The census that year confirmed Philip had been born at Murcott, that he was 30, and that he was working as a railway agent and bus proprietor carrier. His wife was Louisa, age 32 and from Clapham in Surrey, and their four children on that occasion were Sidney who was six, Reginald who was four, Edgar who was three, and Edith who was only nine months old. Fifteen months after the census day that year the couple’s fifth and last child was born in July 1882, but with tragic consequences. Whilst the child survived the ordeal, Louisa did not and, with the passing of his wife, Philip named the child in honour of his late wife.
	By 1891 the family was listed at Wimborne as Philip aged 41, Reginald who was 14, Edgar who was 13, Edith who was 10 and Louisa who was eight years of age. Philip’s eldest son Sidney, at the age of 16, was living and working at Christchurch near Bournemouth on that occasion. Ten years later according to the census of 1901 the family was still living at Wimborne and comprised widower Philip aged 51 of Murcott, who was a delivery agent, and three of his remaining four children. On that occasion it was Philip’s second son Reginald who was not living at the family home. Instead he had left Dorset and was living in Derbyshire.
	The members of the family still living with Philip were his sons Sidney who was 26 and Edgar who was 23, who were both working as motorcar drivers for their father in the family business, and his daughter Louisa who was 18. It is unclear at this time where Philip’s eldest daughter Edith was in 1901, since it is established that she was still not married when her father died eight years later.
	Philip Collett died at Clyde Villa on Avenue Road in Wimborne on 5^th March 1909. His Will was proved at Blandford on 13^th May 1909 when he was described as a gentleman of Wimborne Minster. The executors of his estate of £3,742 16 Shillings 7d were named as his widow Emma Collett, his daughter Edith Louisa Collett, spinster, and his brother Spencer Collett, a hotel keeper. Also included in the list of names was baker Henry William Mitchell Cowdrey, who has yet to be identified. Philip was buried at Wimborne where a headstone in the cemetery there marks his grave. The headstone inscription (see below) also includes epitaphs for his wife and his son Reginald. It therefore seems very likely that surviving sons Sidney and Edgar arranged for the installation of the headstone to mark the grave of their parents and their brother.
	In Loving Memory of Philip Collett who fell asleep in Jesus March 5 1909 aged 59 years Labour ended, Jordon passed Also Louisa Collett wife of the above died July 30 1882 And Reginald Philip Collett second son of the above died Sept 9 1901 aged 25 years
	Also following the death of their father, Philip’s two sons Sidney and Edgar took over the running of the family business and by April 1911 they had left Wimborne and had moved to Salisbury in Wiltshire where they continued to managed the business.
	46P14	Sidney Slater Collett	Born in 1874 at Wimborne Minister
	46P15	Reginald Philip Collett	Born in 1876 at Wimborne Minister
	46P16	Edgar William Collett	Born in 1877 at Wimborne Minister
	46P17	Edith Louisa Collett	Born in 1880 at Wimborne Minister
	46P18	Louisa Collett	Born in 1882 at Wimborne Minister
46O11	George Collett was born at Murcott in 1849 and was named in honour of his later brother who had died prior to 1841. The second son of Richard and Ann Collett to be given that name was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 9^th May 1850. However, with no record of him in the census of 1851, it would appear that he also suffered an infant death.
46O12	John James Collett was born at Murcott in 1850 and was baptised on 4^th August 1850 at Charlton-on-Otmoor, the son of Richard Collett of Fencott and Ann Grove of Hungerford. By the time of the census at the end of March in 1851 John James Collett was not recorded as living at Murcott with his family, which may suggest that he had died while still under one year old. However, fifty years later a John Collett from Charlton-on-Otmoor was 50 and an agricultural labourer living at Market End in Bicester, although nothing so far has been found to indicate that this was John James Collett.
46O13	Spencer Collett was born at Fencott, perhaps at the end of 1852 or early in 1853, since his birth was recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 549) during the first quarter of 1853. Furthermore, he was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 6^th February 1853, the son of Richard and Ann Collett. He was eight years old at the time of the Fencott census of 1861, when his place of birth was said to be Murcott. Where he was in 1871 has not been discovered, while it was on 15^th August 1875 at St Peter’s Church in Southampton that he married (1) Alice Gubbins, who was 19 and the daughter of Thomas Gubbins, while the father of Spencer Collett was confirmed as Richard Collett. Alice was born at Moulsford, to the south of Wallingford, a village on the Great Western railway mainline between Oxford and London and, since Spencer was a railway porter, it seems likely that they may have met as a result of his work.
	Once married, the couple initially settled in South Stonham, where the birth of their first child was recorded, before moving into Southampton, where their remaining seven children were born. By 1881 the family living at 5 Osborn Road Hill in Millbrook within the parish of Southampton through which the south-coast mainline railway ran, where Spencer was continuing to work as a railway porter. His place of birth was confirmed as Fencott and his age was 28. His wife Alice was 24 and from Moulsford and their three sons were Albert S Collett who was four, Auten William who was three and Ernest W Collett who was one year old. The place of birth for all three boys was said to be Southampton Hill, while the births of the two younger sons had been recorded at Freemantle in Southampton.
	Shortly after the census day, the family moved from Millbrook to Blechynden Terrace in central Southampton, the births of their subsequent recorded at nearby Shirley. By the time of the census in 1891 the family living at Blechynden Terrace had increased in size and was made up of Spencer Collett who was 38 and a railway porter, Alice Collett who was 34, Albert S Collett who was 14, Auten W Collett who was 13, Ernest W Collett who was 11, George R Collett who was nine, Arthur S G Collett who was seven, Alice E Collett who was five and Harold P Collett who was just one year old. Less than six years later, Alice presented Spencer with their last child, but after a further eighteen months the death of Alice Collett was recorded at South Stoneham (Ref. 2c 58) during the third quarter of 1898, when she was only 41 years old.
	Having lost his wife, widower Spencer, from Murcott, took his family to live in Shirley, where he was 48 years of age and a licenced victualler in the census of 1901. Still living there with him were five of his children and they were Auten W Collett, aged 23, George R Collett, aged 19, Arthur S Collett, aged 17, Elsie A Collett who was 15, Harold P Collett who was 11 and Hilda W Collett who was four years old. It may be interesting to note that the brothers Spencer and Auten (below) both gave up their previous occupations as a railway porter and a greengrocer respectively, around the end of the century, to become licenced victuallers.
	Just weeks after the census day in 1901, the marriage of Spencer Collett and (2) Amy Thomas was recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 2c 9) during the second quarter of 1901. Widower Spencer was 48, while spinster Amy was only 26 and managed to give her husband two more children over the next six years. The family was still living in the Southampton parish of All Saints in 1911, where Spencer was 58 and a licenced victualler who gave his place of birth as Murcott, while his wife Amy Collett was 36 and from the Southampton parish of St Denys. Still living with them was Spencer’s youngest child from his first marriage, Hilda Winifred Collett who was 14, and his two children by Amy, Reginald Frank Collett aged seven years and Amy Isabel Collett who was four.
	Two years earlier, in 1909, Spencer Collett was named as one of the executors of the Will of his brother Philip Collett (above), when he was described as a hotel keeper. Nineteen years later, the death of Spencer Collett was recorded at Southampton register office (Ref. 2c 79) during the fourth quarter of 1928, when he was 75 years of age. Probate of his Will was proved at Southampton on 28^th November 1928 in favour of his joint beneficiaries, his wife Amy Collett and his son George Robert Collett.
	46P19	Albert Spencer Collett	Born in 1876 at South Stoneham
	46P20	Auten William Collett	Born in 1877 at Southampton, Millbrook
	46P21	Ernest Wilfred Collett	Born in 1879 at Shirley
	46P22	George Robert Collett	Born in 1881 at Shirley
	46P23	Arthur Sydney Gubbins Collett	Born in 1883 at Shirley
	46P24	Alice Elsie Collett	Born in 1885 at Shirley
	46P25	Harold Philip Collett	Born in 1889 at Shirley
	46P26	Hilda Winifred Collett	Born in 1897 at Southampton, Milford
	The following are the two children from the second marriage of Spencer Collett and Amy Thomas:
	46P27	Reginald Frank Collett	Born in 1903 at Southampton, Mill Brook
	46P28	Amy Isabel Collett	Born in 1906 at Southampton
46O14	Auten Collett was born at Fencott in 1857, the youngest child of Richard Collett of Fencott and Ann Grove of Hungerford. He was listed as Hantin, aged three years and of Fencott, in the census of 1861 when he was still living there with his family. No record of him has been identified in 1871 but, six years later, the marriage of Auten Collett and Elizabeth Maria Allsop was recorded at Lambeth in London (Ref. 1d 529) during the second quarter of 1877. Elizabeth was born at Berrow Green, near Worcester, and by 1881 the pairs of them, and their first child, were living at 14 Hinton Road (Herne Hill), Brixton within the London Borough of Lambeth, where Auten Collett was 23 and a greengrocer. His wife Elizabeth M Collett was 25, and their son Albert Edward Collett was three years of age and had been born at Lambeth (Brixton). Supporting Auten was Charlie Cotton who was 20 and a greengrocer’s assistant, while helping Elizabeth was domestic servant Rose Cross who was 15.
	Over the next decade a further three children were added to the family which, was still living at 14 Hinton Road in Brixton in 1891. Head of the household was recorded as Austin Collett who was 33 and working as a fruiterer and a greengrocer. Elizabeth M Collett was 36 and their four children on that day were Albert E Collett who was 13, Arthur E Collett who was seven, Mary M Collett who was five and Winifred Collett who was one year old. Once again Auten was employing two servants, George H Baker who was 23 and Ellen Burr who was 16.
	By the end of the century Elizabeth had presented her husband with two more children, the first born while the family was still living at Brixton, with the couple’s last child was born at Reading, where they lived for a short while. From there the family later moved to Tunbridge Wells in Kent, which was where the family was residing by the turn of the century.
	In the census of 1901 Austin Collett from Fencott was 43 and by then was working as a licenced victualler having passed his greengrocery business over to his eldest son. In March that year the family was living at Upper Grosvenor Road in Tunbridge Wells where Elizabeth M Collett from Berrow was 45 and her four Brixton born children were Arthur E Collet who was 17, Maud M Collett who was 16, Winifred Collett who was 11 and Harry A Collett who was six years of age. Completing the family was their daughter Florence B Collett who was four years old and born at Reading. On that day the family only had one servant and that was Edith A Smith from Tunbridge Wells who was 17.
	By 1911 the family had moved again, that time to Wood Green in Middlesex, midway between Muswell Hill and Tottenham, where Austin Collett from Fencott was 53 and an off-licence holder, his wife Elizabeth Maria Collett being 55. Still living with the couple was their youngest child, Florence Beatrice Collett from Reading who was 15. Seven years later Auten and Elizabeth Collett were living at 41 High Road in Wood Green, where they received the news that their son Arthur Ernest had been killed in action during the First World War, when he was thirty-five.
	The shock of losing her son, may have taken its toll on Elizabeth, because the marriage of Austin Collett and Emily Smith was recorded at Edmonton register office (Ref. 3a 768) during the first quarter of 1917. What is interesting is that, upon his death on 18^th September 1925, the two named beneficiaries were named as George Frederick Smith and Wallace William Harding.
	46P29	Albert Edward Collett	Born in 1878 at Lambeth
	46P30	Arthur Ernest Collett	Born in 1883 at Brixton
	46P31	Maude Mary Collett	Born in 1885 at Brixton
	46P32	Winifred Mary Collett	Born in 1889 at Brixton
	46P33	Harry Austin Collett	Born in 1894 at Brixton
	46P34	Florence Beatrice Collett	Born in 1896 at Reading
46O15	Thomas Collett was born at Murcott in 1847, the eldest son of farmer Thomas Collett and his wife Mary. It would appear that he later left the family home in Oxfordshire and moved south to London where, in 1871 as a bachelor, he was 24 and was living in Kingston-upon-Thames where he was working as a policeman. It would also appear that he married Frances Isabella Muckle shortly after the 1871 census day, as the first of their children was born at Hampton during the following year. Frances was four years younger than Thomas, having been born at Albury near Bishop’s Stortford in 1851. Her father was a Queen’s Messenger and, on passing, his widow had a position as cook and housekeeper at Hampton Court, living there in a ‘grace and favour’ apartment.
	Frances Isabella Collett, who was known as Granny Collett in her later years, told the tale to her grandchildren that, as a little girl, she remembered being driven in an open carriage in one of Queen Victoria’s processions. Over the next decade after they were married, Frances presented Thomas with a further five children all of whom were born at Hampton or Hampton Hill. By the time of the 1881 Census the family was living at 9 Wolsey Road in Teddington in the Hampton census district. Wolsey Road is still there today and lies between the High Street (A311) and Uxbridge Road (A312). Thomas’ occupation was confirmed as being a police constable and he gave his place of birth as simply Charlton. He was 33, while his wife Frances Isabella was 29.
	Their children were Eleanor Mary, who was eight, Elizabeth Frances, who was six, William Thos, who was five, Frances Jane, who was four, Isabella Muckle Collett, who was three, and Andrew Ralph who was seven months old. It is possible that 9 Wolsey Road was a police house, and that all of the children had been born there. Also living at the house with the family was Frances’ older brother Augustus Frederick Muckle, age 32 of Albury, who was an unemployed blacksmith. During the next decade the family left Hampton and moved to Hanworth where their last child was born.
	By the time of the Hanworth census in 1891 the family living was living in a dwelling on Hounslow Road, right next door to the Jolly Sailor Inn. The details for the family were as follows, Thos Collett, age 43 and from Charlton-on-Otmoor, was a constable with the metropolitan police, his wife was Frances I Collett, age 39 and from Aldbury (sic), and the five children living there with them were Wm T Collett 15, Frances J Collett 14, Isabella M Collett 13, Andrew R Collett 10, all born at Hampton, and Arthur M Collett who was just five months old and born at Hanworth.
	At that same time in 1891 Thomas’ and Frances’ eldest daughter Eleanor, was living with Granny Muckle in her ‘grace and favour’ apartment in Hampton Court, where they were both working. Thomas Collett died sometime during the 1890s, and it seems highly likely that his youngest son Arthur did not live very long after the census of 1891, since no further record of him has been found.
	It is also known that, following the death of her husband, Frances lived at Fuchsia Cottage in Hanworth where she had living with her for a while, the widow of her brother Alexander Muckle. From Fuchsia Cottage, she moved to the East Dulwich area of London to look after her grandchildren, the children of her son Andrew Ralph Collett, following the death of his wife in 1919. When her son Andrew married for a second time in 1921, Frances spent alternate six-month periods living with her daughter Nell in East Dulwich, and her daughter Bess at Farncombe, near Godalming in Surrey. That arrangement continued until the time of her passing, although it did include a break from that routine in 1923, which is described below.
	In 1923 Frances worked for a while at The Rectory in Hanworth, helping out when they had two visiting missionaries. During that year she had staying with her for four months, her granddaughter Edith Collett who was four years old and the daughter of her son Andrew Ralph Collett. It seems likely that Edith was with her, while her stepmother mother was giving birth to another child for her father.
	Edith Collett has many recollections of her younger days, and in particular, the four months spent with her Granny Collett at The Rectory in 1923. Edith recalls that her grandmother had a fascination with the aeroplanes at the nearby Hanworth Aerodrome and would spend her free afternoons watching the planes coming and going. At that time it cost five shillings for a flight, which she would have loved to have done, had she had the money. On some occasions Granny Collett lost track of the time, resulting in the need for someone from The Rectory to go there and bring her back.
	After her period working at Hanworth Rectory, Frances reverted back to her previous living arrangements, alternatively living with her two daughters in East Dulwich and Francombe. And it was during one of those periods, while she was living with daughter Bess at Farncombe, that Frances Isabella Collett nee Muckle eventually died in April 1937 at the age of 86. Following her passing, Frances’ body was taken to Hanworth, where she was buried with her husband.
	It is understood within the family that Thomas Collett inherited one third of the farmland previously owned and worked by his father in the Murcott area of Oxfordshire. Upon his death, the property was passed to his widow Frances but, sadly when she died, the land was sold when it was under flood conditions, and therefore its full value was not realised. The money that was raised from the sale was shared amongst her children.
	46P35	Eleanor Mary Collett	Born in 1872 at Hampton
	46P36	Elizabeth Frances Collett	Born in 1874 at Hampton
	46P37	William Thomas Collett	Born in 1875 at Hampton
	46P38	Frances Jane Collett	Born in 1876 at Hampton
	46P39	Isabella Muckle Collett	Born in 1877 at Hampton
	46P40	Andrew Ralph Collett	Born in 1880 at Hampton
	46P41	Arthur M Collett	Born in 1890 at Hanworth
46O16	Henry Collett was born at Murcott in 1851. Just like his older brother Thomas (above) Henry also became a police constable and may have even initially moved to London with him. On the day of the census in 1871 Henry Collett from Murcott was recorded as being 23 (sic) when he was working as a police constable while living at Garsington in Oxfordshire. Eighteen months later Henry Collett married (1) Charlotte Osborne at Bilton near Rugby in Warwickshire on 7^th or 11^th September 1872, the daughter of Hezekiah Drain, most likely suggesting that Henry was her second husband. Charlotte was born at Southminster near Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex in 1841 and was nine years older than Henry. Her place of birth in the marriage register was incorrectly recorded at Southampton. Once they were married the couple initially settled in Newbold-on-Avon, just north of Rugby, where their first child was born, before moving to Hillmorton to the east of Rugby, where their second child was born. Not long after that there was another move for the family, that time to Harbury to the south-west of Southam, all in Warwickshire.
	According to the 1881 Census the family was living at Church Terrace in the Warwickshire village of Harbury where thirty years old Henry was a police constable. His place of birth was given as Charlton Murcott. His wife Charlotte was 39 and their two children were Henry Herbert Collett who was seven, and Anne Marie M Collett who was four years old. Within a few years of the 1881 Census, Charlotte died at Harbury, perhaps during the birth of a third child for the couple who also did not survive. However, following the death of his wife Henry married (2) Eliza Howkins from Harbury, where they were married on 23^rd October 1884. That marriage resulted in the birth of another daughter for Henry, who was also born at Harbury, and whose baptism record confirmed that her father was Henry Collett a police constable.
	Many years earlier, in the census of 1861, Eliza was seven years old when she was living with her widowed mother Mary Howkins at Chapel Street in Harbury and four of her siblings. By the time of the census in 1891 the Collett family living at Harbury comprised policeman Henry who was 40, his wife Eliza who was 36, Henry’s daughter Maud 14, the younger of the two children from Henry’s first marriage, and the couple’s own daughter Eliza who was two years old. Just after the start of the new century Henry was described as a police pensioner at the age of 46 (real age 50) and was still living at Harbury with Eliza 46. Still living with them was Ann Maud Mary Collett who was 24 and a domestic servant, and twelve years old Eliza Anne Collett, both daughters confirmed as having been born at Harbury.
	No record of Henry has been found in the census of 1911 so it must be assumed that he had died during the first decade of the new century. According to the April census on 1911 his widow Eliza Collett was 55 and was living alone in the village of Knightcote within parish of Burton Dassett and within the Southam registration district of Warwickshire, where her place of birth was confirmed as Harbury. Also, by that time, her unmarried daughter Eliza was living at Atherstone.
	46P42	Henry Herbert Collett	Born in 1873 at Newbold-on-Avon
	46P43	Anne Maud Mary Collett	Born in 1876 at Hillmorton
	46P44	Eliza Anne Collett	Born in 1888 at Harbury
46O17	Charles Collett was born at Murcott in September 1854 but died one month later and was buried at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 11^th October 1854.
46O18	Caleb Collett was born at Murcott in 1856 and was four years old in 1861 and was 14 by the time of the census in 1871. According to the next census in 1881, Caleb Collett, at the age of 24, was still living with his parents at Charlton-on-Otmoor, from where he was working as an agricultural labourer. Following the death of his father during the 1880s, Caleb inherited one-third of his father’s farm holding, the other two-thirds going to his brothers Thomas and Henry. Also, after his father died, Caleb remained living with his elderly widowed mother Mary in the parish of Charlton-on-Otmoor, as confirmed by the census of 1891.
	Sometime during the next few years, it would appear that his mother died, following which he became a married man. By 1901 he was living within the Fencott & Murcott area and, at the age of 44, he was living with his wife Emma, who was 42, and who had been born at Thame in Oxfordshire, when his occupation was confirmed as being that of a farmer.
	Ten years later in April 1911, the couple was still living in the Murcott area, where Caleb Collett of Murcott was 54, and his wife Emma Collett was 52. The only other facts known about Caleb Collett are that he eventually purchased, or inherited, land within the Thame area, which may have been something to do with his wife, since she was born there. It is also known that he died in 1952 when he was 96 and still living at Thame. This information was kindly provided by Janet Wood – see Ref. 46Q41.
	During the Second World War Caleb and Emma were living at 93 High Street in Thame, although Emma was a patient at the nearby Cottage Hospital in Thame when she died on 12^th April 1942. Her Will was proved at Oxford on 22^nd May that same year for which her husband Caleb Collett, of no occupation, was one of the three executors. The other two executors of her estate valued at £1,247 7 Shillings 2d were Fred West, a cycle agent, and James Benjamin West, a garage proprietor.
46O19	William Clark Collett was a man of mystery, since it would appear that he was born at Horton-cum-Studley in 1838 or 1839 as William Clark, the son of unmarried Mary Ann Clark. He was however baptised as William Collett at Charlton-on-Otmoor (there being no church at Horton) on 12^th April 1840 when his parents were named as William Collett and his wife Mary Ann, who were only married three months earlier in January that same year. He was also curiously listed as John Collett in the census of 1841 when he was one year old and living with his parents at Whitecross Green in Horton-cum-Studley.
	Even more strange was his possible placement in the Horton-cum-Studley census of 1851, when William and Mary Ann Collet (sic) had living with them their sons George and John (below, plus William Clark who was 11 and described as son-in-law. It therefore seems more than likely that he was in fact the former William Collett, although his place of birth was given as Headington, which was the registration district for Horton-cum-Studley. Previously within Part Three of the Appendix at the end of this family line, there were details of William Collett of Headington, who we now know to be this William, thanks to the information provided by Shirley Martin in 2012, together with the details contained within the census of 1861.
	Shortly after the census day in 1851 the last of William’s three known brothers was born at Horton, and four years after that his father died in 1855, following which his mother Mary Ann Collett nee Clark married James Payne. By the time of the census in 1861 William Collett of Headington was 20 and was working as an agricultural labourer when he was living at Beckley with his mother, her husband, their daughter and William’s half sister Thurza Payne, and two of his three brothers, George Collett and Ellis Collett (below). It was just over six years later that he married Emma Parker at Piddington parish church on 21^st October 1867.
	Their marriage details were recorded as follows. William Collett, of full age, bachelor, and labourer of Horton (in the parish of Beckley) married to Emma Parker, 19, spinster and daughter of William Parker, labourer. The witnesses were Rebecca Parker and William Parker, who were most likely Emma’s parents. It was also at Piddington that Emma had been in 1848.
	By the time of the birth of the couple’s first child William and Emma were living in Horton-cum-Studley, although the child was baptised at Piddington. His name probably is enough proof that William Collett was formerly William Clark, since the child was named Frederick William Clark Collett. However, within the census of 1871 the child’s place of birth was stated as being Fencott. The census that year recorded the family as William Collett, age 29, Emma Collett, age 22, and their son Fredrick Collett who was two years old.
	Over the next decade another four children were added to the family while they were still living in Fencott. By 1881 the family residing at Fencott was made up of William, age 41, who was a carpenter from Headington, his wife Emma, age 32 from Piddington, and their five children, all of whom had been born at Fencott. They were Fredrick Collett, age 12, Elen R Collett, who was eight, Anne E Collett, who was five, Edwin C Collett who was three, and Willie Collett who was only seven months old.
	During the next ten years three further children were born into the family, the first of them at Fencott, with the latter two born at the family had moved to Charlton-on-Otmoor, where they were living in 1891. By that time William was 52, Emma was 42, and the children still living there with them were Frederick, who was 22, Edward, who was 13, William, who was 10, Louisa, who was eight, Arthur, who was five, and Beatrice who was two years old. Of the couple’s two missing daughters Ellen Rebecca Collett was 19 and was living and working not far away in Bicester, while Annie F Collett was 15 and was recorded in the Headington area of Oxford. Sometime during the last decade of the century the family left Fencott and moved into Charlton-on-Otmoor, as confirmed by the census in 1901.
	On that occasion William Collett from Headington was still working at home as a carpenter with his own account at the age of 63. The property in which the family was living was one dwelling away from School House. Living there him was his wife Emma, age 52 and from Piddington, and three of their sons and just one of their daughters. Edwin Collett, who was 24 and a yardman working with cattle on a farm, William who was 21 and an under carter working with a horse perhaps on the same farm, while Arthur who was 13 (sic) was another yardman working with cattle on a farm, again very likely with his two older brothers. All three of them were confirmed as having been born at Fencott. Their daughter Beatrice was 12 and had been born at Charlton-on-Otmoor. At that same time in 1901 William’s and Emma’s daughter Ellen was living and working within the Headington registration district of Oxford. Their other daughter Annie was married by then with a family of her own, and one of her children was staying with William and Emma, that being Ellen Marriott who was three years old and born at Market End in Bicester.
	By the time of the next census in April 1911 William from Headington was 73 and Emma was 63 and, living with the couple at Charlton, was their younger son Arthur who was 26, and their grandson Jack Collett who was nine and had been born at Charlton. He was the base-born son of William’s and Emma’s unmarried daughter Ellen Rebecca Collett. During the First World War the couple had to endure a double death in the family, when their sons Arthur and William were both killed in action during the summer of 1916.
	It was almost exactly two years after receiving that sad news when William Clark Collett died during September 1918, following which he was buried at the parish church in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 21^st September. His death was recorded at Bicester [Ref. 3a 1021] as follows: Death in Sep 1918 of William C Collett of Charlton, age 80. It has been assumed that the middle initial C was for Clark. Also laid to rest with her husband in the grounds of the parish church at Charlton was his widow Emma Collett of Charlton, who was buried there on 20^th March 1937 at the age of 88, following her death at Woodstock earlier that month. At the time of her passing she may have been living with her eldest son Frederick.
	46P45	Frederick William Clark Collett	Born in 1868 at Fencott
	46P46	Ellen Rebecca Collett	Born in 1872 at Fencott
	46P47	Anne Elizabeth Collett	Born in 1875 at Fencott
	46P48	Edwin Charles Collett	Born in 1877 at Fencott
	46P49	William Collett	Born in 1880 at Fencott
	46P50	Louisa Collett	Born in 1883 at Fencott
	46P51	Arthur John Collett	Born in 1885 at Charlton-on-Otmoor
	46P52	Beatrice Collett	Born in 1888 at Charlton-on-Otmoor
46O20	George Collett was born at Horton-cum-Studley but with no church at Horton he was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 5^th March 1843, the son of William Collett and Mary Ann Clark from Boarstall. Two years before he was born, his parents were living at Whitecross Green in Horton in 1841, so it seems likely that it was there where he was born. It was also in Horton that he and his family were still living in 1851 when George Collet (sic) was seven years old. Not long after the census day the family moved to nearby Beckley where his father died in 1855 and where his mother remarried in the autumn of 1857.
	In 1861, and at the age of 18, George and his older brother William (above) and his younger brother Ellis (below), were living at the Beckley home of their mother Mary Ann Payne, formerly Collett, and her second husband James Payne, when the brothers were described as the sons-in-law to head of the household James Payne. It is possible that his stepfather died during the 1860s, since by 1871 George was still living with his mother, who at that time had left Beckley and was staying at the Whitecross Green home of farmer William Cox. George Collett from Whitecross Green was unmarried at 28, and was working as an agricultural labourer, perhaps even employed by farmer Cox. Ten years later George, age 38, was still living with his widowed mother, but at Charlton-on-Otmoor, where he was once again employed as an agricultural labourer. What happened to him upon the death of his mother is not known, as no record of him has been found in any census after 1881.
	It is possible, although not proved that George Collett later went to live at Boarstall where his mother had been born and where his brother John was living at one time. That assumption arising from a record that states George Collett, a farmer of Panshill in Boarstall, died on 11^th April 1918 and that his personal effects of £384 16 Shillings 2d was handled by farmer Ernest William Cox.
46O21	John Collett was born at Horton-cum-Studley in 1845 but was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 22^nd June 1845 the third son of William Collett and Mary Ann Clark. In 1851 he was living with his family at Horton-cum-Studley when he was five years old and his place of birth was confirmed as Studley. Tragically four years later his father died, following which his mother married James Payne in 1857 and the family moved to the next hamlet of Beckley. However, by the time of the next census in 1861 John Collett, age 15 and born at Whitecross Green, was living at the home of farmer William Blake and his wife Rebecca at Boarstall. At that time in his life John was working as a shepherd, while William Blake was the half-brother of John’s grandmother. Ten years later in 1871 John Collett, age 26 from Charlton-on-Otmoor was living and working within the St Clements Headington area of Oxford.
	What happened to him after that time is currently not known, although in 1901 there was living in the Kensington area of London a John Collette (sic) age 56 who was born ‘near Stow Wood in Oxfordshire’, Stow Wood being within the parish of Beckley and adjacent to Horton-cum-Studley. He was married to Marian Collett, age 53, who was born at Marylebone in London, and their daughter Frances Collett was 29 and had been born at Lambeth. Curiously no record of the family has been located in 1881 and 1891, nor again in 1911.
	46P53	Frances Collett	Born in 1871 at Lambeth
46O22	Ellis Collett was born at Horton-cum-Studley after the census day in 1851 and was the youngest of the four sons of William Collett and Mary Ann Clark. When he was baptised at Beckley parish church on 28^th September 1851 he was recorded as Eliseus Collett the son of labourer William Collett and his wife Mary Ann. Over the following years his parents took the family to live in the village of Beckley, two miles south-west of Horton, and it was there that his father died in early 1855. Two years after that loss, Ellis’ mother married James Paynes, and the new family was recorded living in Beckley in 1861. Son-in-law Ellis Collett was nine years old and a farmer’s boy, when living there with his mother, his stepfather, his half-sister, plus two of Ellis’ older brothers.
	Where Ellis Collett was over the next few decades has not been discovered, although by 1871, when he would have been 19, he may have joined the army and not been living in England. The situation was the same in 1881 when he would have been 29, with no trace of him having been found anywhere in Great Britain at that time.
	However, he returned from his travels during the 1880s and was recorded as unmarried Ellis Collett, age 37, and an agricultural labourer from Horton who was boarding with Richard Maycock and his mother Anne Maycock at Wendlebury to the south of Bicester. He was still living with the Maycocks ten years later, when the census in 1901 confirmed that he was Ellis Collett from Horton who was 48, who was employed as an ordinary agricultural labourer. It was at Wendlebury that he was once again residing with Richard Maycock and his mother in 1911 when bachelor Ellis Collett from Horton was 59 and a labourer on a farm. Ellis Collett never married and it was in January 1926 that he passed away at the age of 74, following which he was buried in the churchyard of the parish church at Wendlebury on 23^rd January 1926.
46O23	Lewis Collett was born at Murcott in 1853 and was seven and 17 in the census records for 1861 and 1871. Within a couple of years of the latter census, Lewis married Mary who was born at Horsepath near Wheatley in 1853 and their first child was born at Murcott. Not long after the birth the family moved to Farthinghoe in Northamptonshire where their next four children were born. For a short while the family next lived at Croughton, south-west of Brackley, where another child was born, before finally settling at Edgcote where all of Lewis’ and Mary’s remaining four children were born.
	Today there is no settlement at Edgcote but the site is well known for its famous battle of 1469 as one of the major battles in the Wars of the Roses.
	The family’s time at Farthinghoe was confirmed by the census of 1881 in which Lewis aged 28 of Murcott was a carter and agricultural labourer married to Mary A S Collett aged 27. Living with them at their home in South Street, were Albert, who was six and of Murcott, and Edith, who was four, and Lewis who was two years old, who were both born at Farthinghoe.
	The next census in 1891 revealed that the family was living at Edgcote in Northamptonshire, just north of Banbury, and was made up of Lewis 38, his wife Mary 37, and their children Albert 16, Edith 14, Lewis 12, Auten, who was nine, Mary, who was six, George, who was three, and Frances who was under twelve months. Just after the turn of the century Lewis, who was then 49, was employed as a stockman on a farm in Edgcote, but on that occasion he gave his place of birth as Fencott. His wife was listed as Selina, aged 48 of Horsepath, presumably the same Mary A Selina Collett.
	By 1901 the two oldest children had left the family home, leaving five of the children listed in 1891, plus the three new arrivals. The full list of children was Spencer, who was 21 and a groom, Kate, who 15 and a domestic housemaid, George, age 13, Fanny, age 10, Arthur, who was eight, William, who was five, and Minnie who was two years old. It was not long after the 1901 Census that the Collett family left Edgcote and moved east into Buckinghamshire where they settled in the village of Lillingstone Lovell just north of Buckingham. According to the census of 1911 Lewis was 57 and his wife Selina was 56.
	The children still living with them were the five youngest, they being George 23, Frances Eliza 20, Arthur 18, William 15, and Minnie who was twelve. Sadly, for the family, the youngest son William died as a result of injuries sustained in serving his King and Country in 1918, at which time Lewis and Selina were still living at Lillingstone Lovell, where their son was buried.
	46P54	Albert Collett	Born in 1874 at Murcott
	46P55	Edith Elizabeth Collett	Born in 1876 at Farthinghoe
	46P56	Lewis Spencer Collett	Born in 1879 at Farthinghoe
	46P57	Auten Collett	Born in 1881 at Farthinghoe
	46P58	Mary Katherine Collett	Born in 1884 at Farthinghoe
	46P59	George H Collett	Born in 1887 at Croughton
	46P60	Frances Eliza Collett	Born in 1890 at Edgcote
	46P61	Arthur Collett	Born in 1892 at Edgcote
	46P62	William H Collett	Born in 1895 at Edgcote
	46P63	Minnie Collett	Born in 1898 at Edgcote
46O24	Elizabeth Ann Collett was born at Murcott in 1855, the second child of George Collett and Eliza Harris. By 1861 she was four years old and was still with her family at Murcott but ten years later, when she was 14, she was working at Winslow in Buckingham, and was possibly in service at Winslow Hall. In the 1891 Census a Lizzie Collett was recorded as living in the Bicester area aged 35, and she may have been Elizabeth Ann. It was later, on 13^th December 1890, at the parish church in Charlton-on-Otmoor, that Elizabeth Ann Collett, aged 35 a spinster from Murcott and the daughter of George Collett, a labourer, married widower Thomas Buse who was 36 and a coachman from Michaelstow in Cornwall, the son of John Buse, a gardener. The bride’s brother William Collett (below) was one of the witnesses.
	Thomas already had a son, William Buse born in 1878, who was 22 and a carpenter living with Thomas and Elizabeth at Port Isaac in Endellion, Cornwall in 1901. By that time Elizabeth had given birth to Beatrice who was nine, Lewis who was seven and Spencer who was four, all of them born at Michaelstow. Elizabeth Buse from Oxford was 46. Ten years later Thomas and Elizabeth were managing a boarding house in St Miniver, where Elizabeth Buse was 55 and born in Oxford. Still living with the couple was their daughter Beatrice Buse, together with Edith Buse, a daughter of Thomas’ first marriage.
46O25	William Collett was born at Murcott in 1857 where he was living with his parents in 1861 at the age of three years, and in 1871 he was 14. Sometime just before the end of the decade William married (1) Emily who was two years older than William and who had been born in the hamlet of Wytham near Wolvercote in Oxford. Shortly after they were married William and Emily made the two miles journey to live at Horton-cum-Studley. And it was there that they were living in 1881. Their residence was in Middle Green Road from where William, age 24, was working as a carpenter. His wife was 26 years old Emily L Collett of Wytham in Berkshire (as it was then).
	By the time of the census of 1891 it would appear that Emily had already passed away in the mid to late 1880s. Following her death, William married (2) Charlotte and the couple was living at Horton-cum-Studley where William was 34. Charlotte was 33 and living with them was William’s son who was two years old and born at Horton-cum-Studley. William senior’s place of birth was confirmed as Murcott, but so far it has not been determined whether his son William was the child of Emily or Charlotte.
	Ten years later the family of three was still living at Horton-cum-Studley where William, then 44 and from Murcott was working as a wheelwright and a carpenter. His wife Charlotte, age 43, was from London and the son William, born at Horton, was 12 and was listed as still attending the local school. In April 1911 the family was still living in Horton when William, age 54, was recorded as having been born at Charlton-on-Otmoor, while and his wife Charlotte was 53 and from Middlesex. Still living with them was their William who was 23, together with his wife Elizabeth who was 20 and born in Oxford.
	46P64	William Collett	Born in 1888 at Horton-cum-Studley
46O26	George Collett was born at Murcott in 1859 and the census for Murcott in 1861 recorded him as being two years old, while he was 11 ten years later in 1871. During the next decade, with his siblings leaving the family home, George and his parents moved from Murcott to Beckley just north of Oxford where they were recorded as living in 1881. At that time George was a bachelor of 21 whose occupation was that of an agricultural worker. The census record confirmed his place of birth as Murcott.
	By the time of the census in 1901 George was married and was living at Charlton-on-Otmoor, where he was working as a general labourer at the age of 42, and when his birthplace was confirmed as Murcott. His much older wife Caroline Collett was 54 and a dressmaker who had been born at Stanton St John. According to the census in 1911 George Collett had returned to the village of his birth. The census return for Murcott confirmed that he had been born there and that he was 51 years old. Living with him was his wife Caroline Collett who was 65 and born at Stanton-St-John.
	The Appendix at the end of the file, lists apparently unrelated members of the Collett family, including those with a connection to the village of Beckley.
46O27	Alfred Collett was born at Murcott in 1862 and was aged nine years in 1871. Upon leaving school it would appear that he left Oxfordshire and moved to Hampshire where he was working in 1881. According to the census that year Alfred was 18 and from Murcott, when he was working as an agricultural labourer. He was one of three men employed by farmer Thomas Honour on his 247-acre farm. Thomas was 51 and was formerly of Murcott.
	In addition to working for Thomas Honour, Alfred was also living with him and his wife at Church Farm in Eversley in Hampshire where Alfred was described as nephew. Thomas’ wife was Esther Honour nee Harris of Islip who was Alfred’s aunt, she being the younger sister of Alfred’s mother. Another connection between the Collett and Honour families was through the married of Thomas’ younger brother Mark Honour and Elizabeth Collett (Ref. 46N15).
	It is unclear where Alfred was in 1891, but it would appear that he married Alice Hayward of Charlton-on-Otmoor around, or just after, his thirtieth birthday. In 1881 at the age of 18, Alice was in service as a kitchen maid at Kirtlington Mansion, the home of Henry W Dashwood, Baronet, Justice of the Peace, and farmer of an extensive estate employing 76 men, 14 boys, and 6 women.
	Before the end of the 1890s Alice had presented Alfred with two children, both having been born at Murcott, but after the birth of the second child the family moved to Charlton. By the end of March 1901, Alfred and Alice were both 38 and their children were Alfred junior who was six, and daughter Kate who was five. Alfred’s occupation at Charlton that year was a non-domestic gardener. Ten years later Alfred and Alice were both listed as being 47 in the 1911 Census for Murcott. By that time neither of their children was still living with them. No trace has been found of their son Alfred who would have been 16, while their daughter Kate was 15 and was living at either Woodstock or Headington.
	46P65	Alfred Collett	Born in 1894 at Murcott
	46P66	Kate Collett	Born in 1895 at Murcott
46O28	Louisa Collett was born at Fencott in 1849, the eldest child of John Collett of Murcott and his wife Matilda Attwood from Horton-cum-Studley. At the time of the census in 1851 Louisa was two years old and living with her parents and younger sister Selina (below) at Murcott. Ten years later she had left school and was already working as a house servant at the age of 12 in the hamlet of Murcott close to her parents. Her employer was William (?) a farmer and a publican of Murcott. With no further record of her as Louisa Collett, it may be correct to assume that she was married by 1871.
46O29	Selina Collett was born at Murcott on 15^th October 1850, the second child of John and Matilda Collett, who was six months old in the Murcott census of 1851 and living there with her family as Selina Collett. On the recording of her birth, at Bicester (Ref. 16 39) during the fourth quarter of 1850, she was named as Sylenia Collett, although that was the only occasion when the name was used. It was again as Selina Collett that she was still living with her family in Murcott in 1861. The marriage of Selina Collett and Joseph Shepherd was recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 1039) during the last three months of 1870, with their wedding actually taking place at Oddington Church on 3^rd November. The witnesses at the wedding were William Busby and Eliza Walker, the latter being the daughter of Charlotte Elizabeth Walker, nee Collett, (Ref. 46N9).
	The childless couple was residing at Charlton-on-Otmoor in 1871, within six months of their wedding, where Joseph Shepherd from Oddington was 19 and an agricultural labourer and Selina Shepherd from Murcott was 21. Around three years later and after the birth of their first child at Charlton, the family moved to Joseph’s home village of Oddington, one-mile south-west of Charlton, where their subsequent children were born. Joseph was still working as an ag lab at the age of 30, Selina was 31, and their four children were Emily B Shepherd who was eight, Walter J Shepherd who was six, Oliver Shepherd who was two and Clara Shepherd who was under three months old.
	No record of her husband has been found after 1881, with Selina also missing from the census returns in both 1891 and 1901. By 1911, Selina Shepherd from Murcott was 61 and in domestic employment in Woodstock. The death of Selina Shepherd nee Collett was recorded at Oxford register office (Ref. 3a 1416) during the second quarter of 1938, when she was 87. Although only four children for Selina and Joseph are named above, they actually had eight, one of which was Ethel Shepherd the grandmother of Brenda Purves’ husband, it being Brenda who kindly provided the family details for Selina Collett.
46O30	Caleb Collett was born at Murcott in 1851 but after 30^th March as he was not listed with his family living at Murcott on the day of the census. He was the eldest son of John and Matilda Collett, with whom he was living at Murcott in 1861 at the age of ten years. However, no further records of him have been found in any subsequent census returns.
46O31	Benjamin Collett was born at Murcott in 1852 and was baptised at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 15^th May 1852, the son of John and Matilda Collett. Tragically he died eighteen months later on 15^th November 1853.
46O32	Clara Collett was born at Murcott in 1853 and was seven years old in the Murcott census of 1861. Ten years later Clara was still living with her parents at Murcott when she was listed 18. A few years after 1871 something happened to Clara that took her from rural Oxfordshire to the industrial north, and the West Riding of Yorkshire. Around the middle of the 1870s she married William Widdop who was born at Crigglestone, just south of Wakefield in 1854, and it was at Crigglestone where the couple’s four known children were born.
	It was also at Calder Grove in Crigglestone that the family was living in 1881. Clara’s husband William was 26 and was employed at a local paper-mill as a labourer, while Clara stated she was 24 (sic) and from Oxfordshire. Their children were Robert, age four, Rowena, age three, John William, who was one, and baby George who was one month old. Two other men were living with the family on that occasion, and they were paper-mill labourer George Widdop, age 29 – William’s older brother, and Aaron George, who was 61 and a millwright.
	By the turn of the century the couple was still at Crigglestone and all of their children were still living with William aged 46 and Clara 47. In the census of 1901 William was no longer working at the paper-mill but was employed as a brewer’s labourer and gave his place of birth as Calder Grove. Clara gave her place of birth as Murcott. Of their children, Robert was 24 and John was 21 and they were both coalminers, George was 20 and an engine tester, Arthur was 16 and an apprentice joiner, Matilda 15 was a stinner at a worsted mill, and Percy age 12 was an above ground colliery worker.
46O33	Emily Collett was born at Murcott in 1855 and only appeared in the 1861 Census at the age of five years, so it might be assumed that she suffered a childhood death.
46O34	Rowena Collett was born at Murcott in 1857. In the 1861 Census she was referred to as Rosanna aged three, but that was corrected in 1871 when she was Rowena who was 12. On both occasions she was living at Murcott with her parents. No trace of her has been found in the 1881 Census so she may have been married by then.
46O35	Eli Collett was born at Murcott just before 7^th April in 1861 the day of that year’s census. However, he only survived for a few years when he died in 1865 at the age of four years. As Eli Collett of Murcott he was buried at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 28^th February 1865.
46O36	Herbert Collett was born at Murcott in 1862 and was eight years old in 1871. He was 17 in 1881 when he was still living with his parents at Charlton-on-Otmoor. At that time Herbert and his brother Walter (below) were both working with their father as agricultural labourers. Herbert’s mother died sometime during the 1880s, so by 1891 bachelor Herbert, age 26, was living with his father John and brother Walter at Murcott. By the turn of the century he was still living and working in the Murcott & Fencott area of Oxfordshire. The 1901 Census described him as being aged 36 and of Murcott, and his occupation was that of a general labourer. Herbert was still a bachelor at that time.
46O37	Walter Collett was born at Murcott in 1865 and was five in 1871. Ten years later Walter was 15 and was already working with his older brother Herbert (above) and his father as an agricultural labourer at Murcott where they were all living at that time. Walter’s mother Matilda died during the 1880s so by 1891 Walter was an unmarried 24-year old labourer still living at Murcott with his father John and his brother Herbert (above).
	Just a short while later Walter married Ellen from Charlton-on-Otmoor and they initially settled in Murcott, where their first two children were born. However, not long after the birth of the second child the family headed for London and set up home in Hendon. According to the Hendon census of 1901, Walter Collett of Murcott was 36 and a cowman working on a farm, his wife Ellen Collett from Charlton was 37, and their Murcott born children were John Collett who was eight and Florence M Collett who was six, while the two children born at Hendon were William Collett who was three and Harry Collett who was just six months old. At that time the family was residing in Shoelands Cottage, where their three next-door neighbours were William Mannering, who was the steward at Hendon Asylum, Joseph Hill a medical practitioner, and John Hopkins a medical superintendent, all of which might indicate that Walter was working on the land attached to the asylum.
	And it was within the Hendon registration district that the family was still living in April 1911. Walter Collett was 45, Ellen Collett was 46, and their children were listed as John Collett, aged 18, Florrie Collett, aged 16, William Collett, aged 13, and Harry Collett who was 10. On that occasion Murcott was recorded as the place of birth for both Walter and Ellen and the two older children.
	46P67	John Collett	Born in 1892 at Murcott
	46P68	Florence Matilda Collett	Born in 1894 at Murcott
	46P69	William Collett	Born in 1898 at Hendon
	46P70	Harry Collett	Born in 1900 at Hendon
46O38	Jane Collett was born at Murcott in 1870 and was just one year old in the census of 1871 when she was living with her family at Murcott. Her absence from the family home in 1881 probably indicated that she died as a child during the 1870s. She was the last child of John Collett and Matilda Attwood.
46O39	Richard Collett was born at Arncott in 1855 the eldest child of John Collett and Lucy Foster. Rich Collett was five years of age in the Arncott census of 1861, but by 1871 when he was 15 Richard and his family were residing in the Buckinghamshire village of Boarstall. In the late 1870s he married local girl Florence Alice Arnatt of Fencott and the first of the couple’s two daughters was born at Elsfield just north of Oxford. Almost immediately after the birth of the child the family left Oxfordshire and moved to the Dorking area of Surrey where they were recorded as living at the time of the census of 1881. It was also in the area that the family was living in 1891, 1901 and 1911. However, the census in 1881 raises a big question over the ages of all members of the household. The census listed Richard Collett from Arncott as working as a farm bailiff who was employed by J Bonner Esquire on his 250-acre Shootlands Farm at Wotton near Dorking. Why then was his age stated as being 46 when he was 26, following which he was 35, 45 and 55 in the next three Dorking census returns.
	Richard’s wife Florence was listed as Alice Collett of Fencott who was 35 instead of 25, while their daughter Lucy Helen Collett from Elsfield who was recorded as being 14 and not just one year old. Living with the family and working with Richard as a bailiff’s help was his brother Walter. Whilst his place of birth was correctly recorded as Boarstall it was curious that he had the name Walter John Collett and not Walter George Collett and that he was 45 years old and not 15. During the next five years the family moved the five miles south to Ockley where Richard’s and Florence’s second daughter was born. By 1891 the family comprised Richard aged 35, Florence aged 34, and daughters Lucy E Collett who was 11 and Martha A B Collett who was four years old.
	It was presumably Richard’s work as a farm bailiff that was the reason why the family made so many house moves and, just after the turn of the century, another move had taken place which took them to nearby Capel, where they were living in 1901. That year’s census confirmed that Richard was continuing to work as a farm bailiff, that he was 45 and from Arncott and, that his wife was Florence A Collett of Fencott. The couple’s two daughters were still living with them and were Lucy E Collett, a 21-year old laundress, and 14-year old school girl Martha A Collett of Ockley in Surrey.
	During the next ten years the couple’s youngest daughter Martha returned to Oxfordshire, to live with her grandmother Lucy Collett at Charlton-on-Otmoor. The rest of family remained living in the village of Capel, and in April 1911 were recorded as Richard Collett who was 55, his wife Florence Alice who was 54, and their unmarried daughter Lucy Ellen who was 24. Richard’s birth place was confirmed as Arncott, his wife’s as Fencott, and his daughter’s as Elsfield, and all within the county of Oxfordshire.
	46P71	Lucy Ellen Collett	Born in 1879 at Elsfield, Oxon
	46P72	Martha Alice C Collett	Born in 1886 at Ockley, Surrey
46O40	Martha Ann Collett was born at Arncott in 1857 and was four in the Arncott census of 1861. In 1862 her family left Arncott and moved to Charlton-on-Otmoor where Martha died in 1863. She was buried at St Mary’s Church in Charlton on 4^th March 1863 aged six, when her place of residence was confirmed as Charlton. Six days after her burial Martha’s baby sister Lucy Louisa Collett (below) was also buried there.
46O41	John Edwin Collett was born at Clew Hill (Farm) in Arncott in the fourth quarter of 1859 and was two years old in the 1861 Arncott census. Ten years later in 1871 he was listed as being aged 12, but for the next census in 1881 his age was given as 20. That year he was still living with his parents who, by that time, had left Arncott and were living at Pansole Farm in Boarstall, where John Edwin was simply listed as being a farmer’s son. It seems likely that, following the death of his father in December 1881, John took over running the farm, which it would appear he did until the early 1890s when he became a married man.
	It is also likely that he continued to live at Pansole Farm after he was married, where he was joined by his younger brother William (below) and his family around the mid 1890s. John married late in his life, being around thirty-three years of age when he wed Mary Jennings. The marriage took place in early 1893 and was recorded in the Thame registration district. Mary Jennings was born at Oakley in 1863 and was the daughter of farm labourer George Jennings of Turn Again Lane in Oakley in Buckinghamshire and his wife Ruth Lake of Boarstall.
	In 1881 Mary was in domestic service at 29 Montpelier Square in Westminster, the home of retired licenced victualler Joseph Edmons who came from Edgcott in Buckinghamshire, not far from Mary’s own home. By 1891 Mary had returned to Oakley and was living with her parents once again.
	John and Mary were both listed in the 1901 Census and were living at Boarstall where John’s occupation was that of a farmer 40. Mary of Oakley was aged 36. However, instead of giving his place of birth as Arncott, John gave it as Boarstall Honeyburge. The marriage is understood to have produced nine children for the couple, of which only five are detailed below. In the 1901 Census only two of the couple’s possible four children were listed with John and Mary, and they were Ruth who was four and Annie who was one year old, and both of them born at Boarstall.
	The census of 1911 confirmed that farmer John Edwin of ‘Cluehills’ (Clew Hill) was 52, and that his wife of eighteen years was Mary, age 48 and from Oakley. At that time the couple were living at Arngrove Farm midway between Boarstall and Brill. The children living with them in April 1911 were Lucy Ruth, age 14, Annie Elizabeth, age 11, Mary Margaret, who was nine, Hilda Maud, who eight, and Lillian Edith who was two. It therefore must be assumed that the four unnamed children listed below had died by that time, and the first two before 1901.
	Also living with the family was 53-year old servant Walter George Allam from Oddington in Oxfordshire, whose occupation was listed as being a cowman and farm labourer. In addition to him, John’s cousin one-step-removed Aubrey Collett (below) was also living at Arngrove Farm at that time. John Edwin Collett lived a long life and died at Charlton-on-Otmoor on 13^th December 1943 at the age of 84 and was buried shortly after at Boarstall.
	46P73	a Collett child	Born in 1893 at Boarstall; infant death
	46P74	a Collett child	Born in 1895 at Boarstall; infant death
	46P75	Lucy Ruth Collett	Born in 1897 at Boarstall
	46P76	Annie Elizabeth Collett	Born in 1899 at Boarstall
	46P77	Mary Margaret Collett	Born in 1901 at Boarstall
	46P78	Hilda Maud Collett	Born in 1902 at Boarstall
	46P79	a Collett child	Born in 1904 at Boarstall; infant death
	46P80	a Collett child	Born in 1906 at Boarstall; infant death
	46P81	Lillian Edith Collett	Born in 1908 at Boarstall
46O42	William Foster Collett, who was known as Bill, was born at Clew Hill (Farm) in Arncott in either late 1860 or early 1861 as he was under one year old at the time of the 1861 Census. By 1871 he was aged ten and was living with his parents, whereas by April 1881 he was 20 and had left the family home by then. That year’s census recorded him living alone at nearby Horton-cum-Studley in what appears to be accommodation attached to Warren Farm where he was employed as a domestic industrial general servant. The census also confirmed his place of birth as having been Arncott.
	Around eight and a half years later, when he was approaching his twenty-ninth birthday, William married (1) Mary Leach at Oxford during the fourth quarter of 1889, Mary having been born at Blackthorn in 1867. Mary was the daughter of farmer James Leach and his wife Emma of Arncott. According to the 1881 Mary was 13 and was living with her family at Ambrosden just west of Blackthorn. Shortly after the couple were married Mary presented William with the first of their three known children.
	By the time of the census in 1891 the family of three was living at Arncott where William was 30, Mary was 23, and their son William was just one year old. Two years later the couple’s second and third child were born at Arncott where the first was also born, before the family moved across the county boundary to settle in Boarstall. The move to Boarstall may have been a return to the family home at Pansole Farm where it is known William and his family lived during his life. William’s older brother John Edwin had managed the farm following the death of their father died at the end of 1881 and had probably continued to run the farm until around 1893 when he married, after which it may have been jointly managed by the brothers.
	According to the census of 1901 the family still living at Boarstall comprised farmer William, age 40 of Clew Hill, and his two sons William, who was 11, and Richard, who was eight, both of them listed as having been born at ‘Cluhills’ (Clew Hill) in Arncott. His youngest son Hubert was absent from the family home on that day and was recorded in error as Hubert W Cottett aged six years from Cluehill, as a visitor to the home of widower James Griffin, the employer of his aunt Edith Bessie Collett (below) – his father’s sister – at The Limes in Tetsworth, three miles south of Thame. Tragically the family had suffered a double loss during the 1890s with, first the death of William’s and Mary’s daughter Lilian, and later Mary herself, who died in 1895 while giving birth to baby Hubert.
	About eleven years after Mary had died William married (2) Eva Annie Jane Malin during the spring of 1906. That took place in Warwickshire and was registered in the Rugby area. Eva was the daughter of boot maker and postmaster George Malin and his wife Elizabeth who was an assistant shopkeeper. Eva was born at Willoughby near Rugby in 1882 and was over twenty years younger than her husband William Collett. At the time that she married William she was working with her parents in their shop and post office in Willoughby.
	Once married the couple continued to live in Boarstall where their son was born a few years later. However, shortly after the birth, the family left Boarstall and moved the short distance to nearby Brill where they were living in April 1911. The census that month revealed that William Foster Collett was 50 and his new wife Eva was much younger at 28 years of age. At that time, they were living at Panshill Farm in Brill, where William was a farmer from Arncott. It seems highly likely that it was at Pansole Farm in Boarstall where they were living at that time.
	The census confirmed that the couple had only been married for four years, but that the marriage had produced one son for William and Eva. It seems very likely that further children may have been born into the family over the following years. In addition to their new baby son, two of William’s surviving children from his previous marriage were also still living with the family. The new arrival was Leslie P Collett who was just one year old, and the two older boys were Richard J Collett, age 17, and Hubert W Collett, who was 15, who were both working on the farm with their father. William Foster Collett lived a long life and died at Boarstall on 20^th July 1945 at the age of 84 and was followed shortly after by his wife Eva, who died on 9^th June 1947.
	46P82	William Collett	Born in 1889 at Arncott
	46P83	Lillian Esther Collett	Born in 1891 at Arncott
	46P84	Richard J Collett	Born in 1893 at Arncott
	46P85	Hubert Walter Collett	Born in 1895 at Arncott
	The following is the only known child of William Collett by his second wife Eva:
	46P86	Leslie P Collett	Born in 1909 at Arncott
46O43	Lucy Louisa Collett was born at Charlton-on-Otmoor in June 1862 and died nine months later and was buried at St Mary’s Church in Charlton on 10^th March 1863 six days after her older sister Martha Ann Collett (above) was buried there.
46O44	James Bottrell Collett was born at Charlton-on-Otmoor in 1864 and was baptised there on 5^th June 1864, the son of John Collett and Lucy Foster. After he was born, the family left Charlton and moved to Boarstall. In the two census records following his birth he was seven years old and 17, and for the latter he was listed as a farmer’s son and was still living with his parents at Pansole Farm in Boarstall.
	Ten years later James was 26 when he was living with his widowed mother Lucy and three of his siblings in the Bicester area. At the age of thirty-one in the summer of 1895 James Bottrell Collett married Ellen Martha Cox at Bicester, where the marriage was recorded at the register office (Ref. 3a 1470) during the third quarter of the year. The witnesses at the wedding were Herbert Alfred Cooper and Susan Watson. Ellen was born at Whitecross Green in Horton-cum-Studley in 1866 and was the daughter of farmer Thomas Cox and his wife Margaret. It is very likely that Ellen Martha was a niece to Anne Cox of Horton-cum-Studley who married Thomas Collett in 1867.
	Almost immediately after they were married Ellen presented James with a son while they were living at Murcott. The family then left Murcott and moved to nearby Arncott where they were living at the time of the 1901 Census. James B Collett was a farmer of 36 from Charlton, Ellen M Collett his wife was 34 and of White Cross Green, and their son Murray J Collett was four years old and of Murcott. It was later that same year when the couple’s next child was born, although sometime after the birth the family left Oxfordshire and moved across the county boundary in to neighbouring Warwickshire.
	By the time of the next census in 1911 the family had been extended by the birth of a further two sons, both of whom had been born after the family had settled in the Warwickshire village of Willoughby. According to the census that year for Willoughby & Grandborough James Bottrell Collett, age 46 and from Charlton in Oxfordshire, was a farmer and a grocer, while his wife Ellen Martha Collett was 44. The children listed with them on that occasion were Murray James Collett, age 14 and from Murcott, Cyril John Collett, who was nine and whose birthplace was confirmed as Arncott, Rowland Thomas Collett, who was seven, and Basil (as Bazil) Dean Collett who was four, both of Willoughby. At that time in their life the family was supported by a domestic servant Nellie Ridley who was 16, while their daughter Marjorie must have been born after the second of April 1911.
	46P87	Murray James Collett	Born in 1896 at Murcott
	46P88	Cyril John Collett	Born in 1901 at Arncott
	46P89	Rowland Thomas Collett	Born in 1903 at Willoughby, Warw.
	46P90	Basil Dean Collett	Born in 1906 at Willoughby, Warw.
	46P91	Marjorie (Margery) Collett	Born after 1911 at Willoughby
46O45	Walter George Collett was born in 1865 just after his parent left Charlton-on-Otmoor for Boarstall where they were living in 1871. Walter George Collett was five on that occasion but was not living with his family at Boarstall in 1881. Instead he was living and working in Surrey with his farm bailiff brother Richard and his family at Wotton near Dorking. However, the accuracy of the detail within the census has been brought into question. Why every member of the household was credited with an enhance age is the big issue. According to the census return Walter John (sic) Collett rather than Walter George was 45 (sic) and not 15, although his place of birth was correctly given as Boarstall in Buckinghamshire. At that time, he was working for his brother as a bailiff’s help at Shootlands Farm which was owned by J Bonner Esq.
	It was during the 1880s that Walter George Collett married Ellen Busby who was born at Ambrosden in Oxfordshire in 1864, not far from where his older siblings were born. It seems likely that they were married in Oxfordshire before they initially settled in the Peckham area of Camberwell & Peckham in London. And it was there that the pair of them were residing in 1891 when Walter Geo Collett from Boarstall was 25 and his wife was Ellen Collett who was 26 and expecting their first child.
	Walter and Ellen left London not long after the census and made their way to Blackthorn near Arncott and Ambrosden, where their first two children were born. Around the middle of the 1890s the family temporarily lived at Southmoor in Berkshire for a short while before settling in the village of Waterstock, midway between Oxford and Thame, towards the end of that decade, and it was there that their fourth child was born. However, Ellen Collett nee Busby did not survive the ordeal of giving birth for a fourth time and died shortly after or even during the birth. By the time of the census at the end of March in 1901 Walter was a widower when he and his young family were living in a cottage in Waterstock.
	The census return that month confirmed that Walter G Collett was 35, and that looking after him and his children was his sister unmarried Esther Collett, age 33, who was described as his housekeeper. Walter was employed as a farm bailiff, while the place of birth for both him and his sister was recorded as Panshill in Buckinghamshire, a likely reference to Pansole Farm in Boarstall – see below. Their children in 1901 were named as Winifred Eva Collett who was nine and Walter C F Collett who was eight, both of them born at Blackthorn, Percival T Collett who was six and born at Southmoor, and William J Collett who was only two months old who had been born at Waterstock where it is assumed his mother died.
	Around three years later Walter George Collett married (2) Elizabeth A M Way who was from Ickford near Aylesbury. Elizabeth was the eldest daughter of farmer Thomas Richard Way from Worminghall and his wife Sarah from Ickford. By the time of the next census in 1911 the family had been dramatically reduced, with only Walter’s youngest son still living with him and his new wife. The three of them were still residing in Waterstock, where Walter Collett from Boarstall was 45 and a farm bailiff who had been married to Elizabeth, age 40, for six years with no issue. Walter’s son was named as William Collett from Waterstock who was 10 years of age and still attending the local school, while their accommodation was described as having five rooms.
	Of Walter’s three absent children in 1911 it is known that Percival Thomas Collett eventually had a granddaughter in America, while his only daughter was living and working within the Marston Headington district of Oxford in 1911 when she was described as Winifred Eva Beatrice Collett aged 19 and from Blackthorn. As regards Walter’s missing eldest son Walter, no record of him has been found, nor has any thing been heard of him after 1901. It is also worth noting that it was at Panshill Farm [Pansole Farm] where Walter’s older brother William was living with his family in 1911.
	46P92	Winifred Eva Beatrice Collett	Born in 1891 at Blackthorn
	46P93	Walter C F Collett	Born in 1892 at Blackthorn
	46P94	Percival Thomas Collett	Born in 1894 at Southmoor
	46P95	William J Collett	Born in 1901 at Waterstock
46O46	Esther Collett was born at Boarstall in 1867 and was three years old in the Boarstall census of 1871. Ten years later Esther was 13 when she was living at Pansole Farm in Boarstall with her family. Curiously no record of Esther has so far been found in 1891 or 1901. However, by April 1911 Esther Collett was still a spinster at the age of 43, when she was living with her elderly mother Lucy Collett at Charlton-on-Otmoor. Also living with them was Esther’s younger sister Beatrice and the sister’s niece Martha A Collett, the daughter of their oldest brother Richard (above).
46O47	Edith Bessie Collett was born at Boarstall, Buckinghamshire, in 1870 and was one year old in the census of 1871. Ten years later, according to the census in 1881, she was 11 years of age when she and her family were living at Pansole Farm in Boarstall. With the death of her father later that same year, Edith was still living with her widowed mother Lucy in 1891 and was 20 years old. Upon the death of her mother, spinster Edith sought work as a domestic servant and, in 1901 and at the age of 30, Edith B Collett was living at The Limes in Tetsworth, a village on the main road between Oxford and London. In error, her surname was recorded by her employer on the census form as Cottett, while her place of birth was written as Panshill, Bucks – which is in Boarstall. At that time in her life she was working for 76 years old widower James Griffin, while visiting The Limes that day was Hubert W Collett from Cluehill in Oxfordshire, who was six years of age. Hubert Walter Collett was Edith’s nephew, the son of her brother William Foster Collett and his wife Mary Leach who died during the birth.
	Sometime after 1901 Edith married William (Will) Harding and it is thought that they lived at Hampton Poyle, just north of Kidlington. However, in 1911 Edith Bessie Harding from Boarstall was 40 when she was living with her husband and her brother-in-law at Onley Fields in Rugby, Warwickshire. William Harding from Northumberland was a farmer and was also 40, while his brother John Harding, also from Northumberland, was 44.
	Edith B Harding was still living in Warwickshire when she died in 1939. Probate of her Will confirmed that Edith Bessie Harding of White House in Willoughby, wife of William Harding, died on 2^nd December 1939, when the executors of her state valued at £210 19 Shillings 11d and proved in London 1^st March 1940 were named as Hubert Walter Collett and John Robert Pickering, farmers. The death of Edith Bessie Harding at the age of 69 was recorded at Rugby register office (Ref. 6d 1292) during the fourth quarter of 1939. It seems highly likely that Hubert Walter Collett was raised by Edith from the time of his birth and the death of his mother in 1895, until his father William Foster Collet remarried in 1906, after which they were reunited, as confirmed in the 1911 census.
46O48	Beatrice Mary Collett, who was known as Beattie, was born at Boarstall in 1871. At the age of nine years she was living with her family at Pansole Farm in Boarstall. Beatrice was still living with her widowed mother at Boarstall in 1891 at the age of 19 and was listed as being 28 in the 1901 Census. By April 1911, when Beatrice M Collett was 39, she was living at Charlton-on-Otmoor with her mother Lucy, her sister Esther, and her niece Martha A Collett. Beatrice never married and, possibly following the death of her mother, she returned to lived at Boarstall where she died just short of her sixtieth birthday on 16^th May 1930, and it was there also that she was buried.
46O49	Herbert Spencer Collett was born at Boarstall in 1874. His early years were spent at Pansole Farm in Boarstall where he was six years old at the time of the census in 1881. His father John died at the end of that same year when he was still six, following which he continued to live with his mother until towards the end of the century, at which time he left the family home to make his way in the world. In 1901 Herbert was 26 and was a farmer living at Charlton-on-Otmoor. Curiously on that occasion he gave his place of birth as being Panshill rather than Pansole. It may be significant that Herbert’s older brother William Foster Collett (above) and his family were living at Panshill in Brill in 1911.
	It was two years later that Herbert married the slightly old Mary from Fencott and by the time of the census in 1911 the couple was living at Murcott in Oxfordshire. Herbert Collett from Panshill was 35 and a grazier and his wife of seven years was Mary Collett who was 40. Although the census return confirmed that no children had been born to the couple, Mary may well have been with-child on the day of the census, since it is established that the marriage produced at least one child who was more than likely born at Murcott and he is known to have lived at nearby Fencott at sometime during his life.
	46P96	Herbert Collett	Born circa 1911 at Murcott
46O50	Arthur Collett was born at Murcott in 1852, the only known child of Richard Collett from Boarstall and his wife Mary from Oakley, whose birth was recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 504) during the third quarter of the year. Not long after he was born, he was baptised at the parish church in Charlton-on-Otmoor on 17^th July 1852 when his parents were confirmed as Richard and Mary Collett. With no later record of his mother it seems likely that she may have not survived his birth. By the time of the census in 1861 Arthur Collett aged eight years and from Murcott was living with his grandparents Richard and Martha Collett at Bicester when his father Richard was living and working in Birmingham. His elderly grandparents passed away during the 1860s, so in 1871 Arthur Collett was 18 and was working as a farm servant at Boarstall on the farm of his uncle John Collett from Wendlebury, his father’s older brother.
46O52	Aubrey Thomas Collett was born at Whitecross Green in Horton-cum-Studley during 1868 and within a few months of the marriage of his parents. His mother Anne Cox came from Horton, but in the Fencott census of 1881 she and her husband gave Aubrey’s place of birth as Arncott, to possibly correspond with the couple’s next two children.
	In the 1881 Census Aubrey was listed as Albury Collett, age 13, who was described as a farmer’s son. It was nearly twenty years later that he married Amy Elizabeth Mary Haynes during the first quarter of 1900. Amy was born at Oddington and was the daughter of Oddington farmer William Haynes and his wife Maria. By the end of March 1901, they were living at Boarstall where farmer Aubrey was 32 and his wife Amy was 29.
	After a further ten years the marriage appears not to have produced any children for Aubrey and Amy, even after eleven years together. According to the census in 1911 they were living at Arngrove Farm midway between Boarstall and Brill. Aubrey was 43 and from Arncott, while Amy was 40 and from Oddington. Arngrove Farm was also where Aubrey’s cousin one-step removed, the farmer John Edwin Collett, lived with his family. Supporting Aubrey was Frank Tott, age 17 and a pupil farmer, Ernest Clifford, age 15 who was a farm labourer, and domestic servant Bessie Faulkner who was 23 and from Ludgershall.
46O53	Herbert James Collett was born at Arncott in 1870 and in the 1881 census for Fencott he was listed as being aged 10 and was 20 ten years later in 1891 and, on both occasions, he was living with his parents. In the late 1890s Herbert married Emma of Launton near Bicester, who was very likely the older sister of Florence of Launton who married Herbert’s cousin Thomas H Collett (below). According to the census of 1901 Herbert Collett of Arncott was 30 and a farmer at Ludgershall, which is about five miles from Launton and three miles from Arncott. His wife Emma was 26 of Launton, and listed with them were their two daughters Doris, who was one year old, and Elise who was under one year old. Both of the girls had been born at Ludgershall in Buckinghamshire.
	Later that same year a third daughter was born into the family while they were still living at Ludgershall. However, that event may have caused the death of Emma, since Herbert was a widower living with his parents on their farm at Fencott in April 1911. According to the census return that year, Herbert Collett of Arncott was 40 and was working on the farm, presumably with his father 69-year old Thomas Collett of Fencott. Also living with the family was Herbert’s youngest daughter Eton who was 10 and who had been born at Ludgershall.
	It is not clear what had happened to Herbert’s middle daughter Elise Collett, while his eldest daughter, Doris Collett from Ludgershall (recorded in error as Lurgeshall), was 11 years of age and a visitor at Tower Farm in nearby Boarstall. That was the home of siblings Sidney P Blake, a farmer from Boarstall who was 32, and Sarah A Blake who was 40 and also from Boarstall. Brother and sister were both unmarried while Sarah, who was acting as housekeeper for her brother, was supported by housemaid Beatrice L Tortrum aged 23 from Heyford in Oxfordshire.
	46P97	Doris Collett	Born in 1899 at Ludgershall
	46P98	Elise Collett	Born in 1900 at Ludgershall
	46P99	Eton Collett	Born in 1901 at Ludgershall
46O54	Mildred Collett was born at Arncott in 1871 and shortly after she was born the family moved to nearby Fencott where she was nine years old in 1881 and was 19 in 1891. In the 1901 Census there was a Mildred Hall, age 30 and from Arncott, was living at Harrow in North London where she was working as a domestic cook. The only other Hall living at Harrow at that time was an Anthony Hall aged 62 and also from Arncott who may have been her father-in-law.
46O55	Beatrice Collett was born at Fencott in 1875 and was five years old and was 15 years of age in the next two census returns in 1881 and 1891 for Fencott. By 1901 Beatrice was 25 and was still unmarried when she was still living with her parents.
46O56	Percival Cox Collett was born at Fencott in 1877, his birth being recorded at Bicester register office (Ref. 3a 675) during the third quarter of that year, when he was named as the son of Thomas Collett and his wife Anne Cox. He was four years old and was 13 in the next two Fencott censuses in 1881 and 1891. By March 1901 he was referred to as Percy Collett when he was 23 and was still living with his parents. Shortly after the census day it would appear that Percival moved to nearby Ludgershall where, it is possible, he worked with his brother Herbert James Collett (above) who was living there with his young family.
	It was during the next couple of years that Percival was married (1) for the first time, that marriage producing a daughter for him who was born at Ludgershall. However, it would appear that the mother of his children did not survive since in 1909 Percival Cox Collett married (2) Ada Martha Davenport at Chorlton in Lancashire, where the event was recorded (Ref. 8c 1205) during the last three months of that year. The witnesses were named as Gladys Edith Armitage, William Dalley and Mary Ellen Miller.
	Once married Percival returned to Charlton-on-Otmoor where the couple was living in April 1911 together with his daughter Amy. The census return on that occasion confirmed that Percival Con (sic) Collett from Fencott was 33, that his wife Ada Martha Collett was also 33, and that Amy Collett of Ludgershall was six years old. Percival Cox Collett lived a long life and died in 1964 at the age of 87, his death being recorded at Oxford register office (Ref. 6b 872) during the third quarter of the year.
	46P100	Amy Collett	Born in 1904 at Ludgershall
46O57	Arthur Collett was born at Fencott in 1879 and was two years of age in 1881 and 11 years old ten years later in1891. Arthur was the only member of the family who has not been identified in the census of 1901, which may indicate that he was out of the country at that time. Furthermore, no record of Arthur has been found in the census of 1911.
46O58	Sarah Ann Collett was born at Fencott in 1870 and was a twin with her sister Mary (below). Before the girls were one year old the family of four have left Fencott and in early April 1871 were recorded as living in the hamlet of Beckley within the Headington St Clements area of Oxford, when both girls were still under one year old. A further move during the 1970s took the family to Swyncombe near Watlington where they were living at Darkwood Farm in 1881. Sarah A Collott (sic) was listed in the census as being aged 11 the same age as her sister Mary (below).
	Sarah Ann Collett was 21 in 1891, by which time her family was again living within the Bicester & Bletchington registration district. However, no record of her as Sarah Collett has been found after that time, so it is possible, although not yet proved, that Sarah married Ernest Cox who was born at Charlton-on-Otmoor in 1869. However, it does seem very likely considering the two previous links between the Collett and Cox families. Sarah and Ernest initially settled in Murcott where their son Wilfred Cox was born in 1898 before they moved to Boarstall where they were living in 1901. Sarah was 30 and of Fencott, Ernest was 31 and a farmer at Boarstall, and son Wilfred was two years old.
46O59	Mary Elizabeth Collett was born at Fencott in 1870, the same time and place that her sister Sarah (above) was born according to the subsequent census returns, thus making them twin sisters. Shortly after she was born her family moved to Beckley where they were living in 1871, when Mary was under one year old. Another move took place in the next decade, when in 1881 the family was living at Darkwood Farm in Swyncombe, where Mary E Collott (sic) was 11.
	In the census of 1891 she was living with her family in the Bicester area once again, when she was recorded as Elizabeth Mary Collett, age 21. Unlike her sister Sarah, Mary was still unmarried at the start of the new century when she was 30 and was still living with her parents at Writchwick Farm in the Market End area of Bicester at the time of the census in 1901. It was probably shortly after that when she married, since her parents were living alone in Market End by 1911.
46O60	Albert JOHN Collett was born at Fencott in 1871, but within two years the family had moved to Charlton-on-Otmoor before eventually ending up at nearby Oddington in 1881. On that occasion Albert was nine, when he was described as the son of farmer John Collett. Ten years later the Collett family was residing at Main Road in Oddington where Albert J Collett was 19 with no stated occupation perhaps because he was working with his father on the family’s farm.
	It was two years later that he married (1) Maud Cox of Whitecross Green in Horton-cum-Studley around 1893, Maud being the daughter of Thomas and Margaret Cox. Albert’s uncle Thomas Collett (Ref. 46N22) married Anne Cox who was very likely the sister of Thomas Cox and therefore the aunt of Maud Cox. Once married Albert and Maud moved to Piddington, on the county boundary between Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire to the east of Bicester, where their first three children were born.
	Towards the end of the century the family left Piddington when Albert took over the running of a farm at Tubney, four miles to the west of Abingdon-on-Thames. The 1901 Census for Tubney recorded Albert J Collett as 29 and from Fencott near Islip, and Maud A Collett his wife who was 27 and of Whitecross Green. Their three children were Edith, who was five, Cecil, who was three, and Winifred who was under one year at that time.
	Two further children were added to their family but tragically Maud Collett nee Cox died in 1905 giving birth to the couple’s last child, following which she was buried in the churchyard of St Andrews Church in Oddington. Therefore the information previously printed here, about her being separated from Albert and living at Edgehill, was totally incorrect. As a result of his loss, and with five children under ten years of age to look after, Albert subsequently married Mary Edith Stanger. It is possible that they were married around 1910 since their union produced a sixth child for Albert while he was living and farming at Shotteswell, just north of Banbury. The Shotteswell census of April 1911 revealed that Albert John Collett of Fencott was 39, his wife was Mary Edith Collett who was 36, and their children at that time were Edith Margaret Collett, age 15, Cecil John Collett, age 13, both born at Piddington, and Percy Thomas who was nine.
	At that same time in 1911 Albert’s daughter Winifred was away at boarding school, while there appears to be no record of his youngest daughter Maud who is known to have been alive many years later. Her absence also gives credence to the fact that her mother Maud died around the time she was born and that she was then most likely brought up by foster parents and was only reunited with her own family at a later date. Albert John Collett outlived both of his wives who were both buried at Oddington in adjacent graves and, prior to his own death some years later he chose to be buried alongside his first wife.
	46P101	Edith Margaret Collett	Born in 1895 at Piddington
	46P102	Cecil John Collett	Born in 1897 at Piddington
	46P103	Winifred M Collett	Born in 1900 at Piddington
	46P104	Percy Thomas Collett	Born in 1901 at Tubney
	46P105	Maud Collett	Born circa 1905
	The following is the only known child of Albert John Collett and his second wife Mary Edith Stanger:
	46P106	Robert John Collett	Born in 1911 at Shotteswell
46O61	Thomas H Collett was born at Fencott in 1872 and was eight years old in the 1881 Census for Oddington where he and his family were living. It was also at Oddington, on the Main Road in the village, that Thomas H Collett from Fencott, age 18, was living with his family when both he and his older brother Albert were very likely working alongside their father on the farm. By the end of the century Thomas was established as a farmer at Standlake, south of Witney, when he was married to Florence and had a son who was born there. In the census of 1901 Thomas of Fencott was 28, his wife was 24 and of Launton near Bicester, and their son Stanley R Collett was still not one year old.
	Florence may well have been the younger sister of Emma of Launton who married Herbert James Collett (above), the cousin of Thomas H Collett. All of the couple’s subsequent children were born at Standlake, where the family was still living at the time of the census in 1911. Thomas H Collett of Fencott was 36 and his wife Florence was 32. Their six children were Stanley N Collett, who was nine, Irene Collett, who was eight, Flossie Collett, who was seven, Kenneth Robert Collett, who was four, Joan Collett, who was three, and Rowland Collett who was one years old. Further children may have been born to Thomas and Florence over the following years.
	46P107	Stanley (N or R) Collett	Born in 1900 at Standlake
	46P108	Irene Collett	Born in 1901 at Standlake
	46P109	Florence (Flossie) Collett	Born in 1903 at Standlake
	46P110	Kenneth Robert Collett	Born in 1906 at Standlake
	46P111	Joan Collett	Born in 1907 at Standlake
	46P112	Rowland Collett	Born in 1910 at Standlake
46O62	Sarah Cecilia Collett was born at Charlton in 1873 the daughter of John and Edith Collett. An error in the census of 1881 named her as Sarah J Collett when she was living at Oddington with her family at the age of seven. She was not living with her family at Main Road in Oddington in 1891, instead she was listed as Sarah C Collett, age 17, who was living and working nearby within the same Bicester & Bletchington census registration district. Towards the end of that decade Sarah married farmer Henry Taylor from Launton near Bicester with whom she had five children up to 1910. Initially the couple settled in Charlton-on-Otmoor where their first two children were born, before moving to Chalgrove where the remainder were born.
	The census in 1901 recorded the young family at Chalgrove, south-east of Oxford, where Henry Taylor was 31 and a farmer from Launton and his wife Sarah C Taylor from Charlton was 27. Their two children on that day were named as Hilda Taylor who was two and William H Taylor who was a few months old. Ten years later the eldest child was recorded with a different name. It was at Chalgrove that the family was still living in 1911 when Henry was 42, Sarah Cecilia was 37, Edith Mary (previously Hilda) was 13, William Henry was 10, Linda Marjorie was seven, Cecilia was three, and Florence was one year old.
46O63	John Collett was born at Oddington, south of Bicester in Oxfordshire, either at the end of 1885 or very early in 1886, his birth recorded at Bicester (Ref. 3a 854) during the first quarter of 1886. It was at Oddington where John was with his family in 1981 at a dwelling in Main Road, when he was five years old. He was listed as being 15 in 1901 when he was once again living at Oddington with his parents John and Edith Collett. John junior was presumably working with his father and was described as a farmer’s son. Ten years later John was still a bachelor at 25 when he was still living at Oddington with his parents. His parents celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in 1920 and following their later deaths, John continued to live in his parent’s house at Oddington. Whilst he may have been married, John never had any children and at the time of his death the land he farmed at Hampton Poyle passed to his nephew Cecil John Collett (Ref. 46P102).
46O64	Elizabeth Collett was born at Hailey near Witney on 3^rd February 1848, the eldest child of William Collett and Harriet Hunt. She may have been born at the family home in Crawley Road where three-year-old Elizabeth Collett was living with her family at the time of the census in 1851. By the time she would have been 13 in 1861, Elizabeth was no longer living with her family at Hailey, although where she was on the day of the census has still to be discovered. What is known is that she married Jason Dore who was the son of John Dore and Esther Buckingham, the wedding taking place on 11^th January 1870 at St. Clements in Oxford.
	Jason Dore was also born at Hailey, but in 1846, the son of John and Esther Dore, with whom Elizabeth had six children. Their eldest child was Louisa Annie Dore who was born at Hailey within weeks of their wedding day, her birth recorded at Witney (Ref. 3a 709) during the first three months of 1870. Louisa was the great grandmother of Les Brown who kindly provided this new information about the family of Jason and Elizabeth Dore. Elizabeth Dore nee Collett died in 1908, following which her death was recorded at Witney (Ref. 3a 573) during the last three months of the year. It was almost exactly two years later that Jason Dore died in 1910, his death recorded at Witney register office (Ref. 3a 557) during the fourth quarter of that year, when he was 63.
	By the time of the census in 1871, Elizabeth and Jason were recorded in the Ramsden census as Jason Dore from Hailey who was 23 and a carpenter, while Elizabeth Dore, also from Hailey, was also 23 years of age. Ramsden lies just two miles north of Hailey. On that census day, the couple’s daughter, Louisa was one year old when she was staying with Elizabeth’s parent’s home at Cape Terrace, Gloucester Place, in Witney. Just less than one year later Elizabeth gave birth to her son Arthur Dore on 19^th February 1872, by which time the family was residing in the Eynsham area where all of her remaining children were born. They were Mary Ann Dore, born on 25^th May 1873 who died that same year, Ada Millicent Elizabeth Dore, born on 10^th January 1875, Francis Dore, born on 15^th March 1877 who died four days later, and William Jason Dore who was born on 21^st November 1879 and who died the following year.
	According to the census in 1881 the family of Jason Dore, aged 33 and a carpenter and a publican, was recorded as the occupants of the Jolly Sportsman Inn on Abbey Street in Eynsham. Living there with him was his wife Elizabeth, also 33, together with his three surviving children. They were Louisa A Dore who was 11 and born at Hailey, Arthur Dore who was nine and born at Eynsham, as was Ada M Dore who was six years of age. All three of them were attending the local school. Lodging at the inn that day were two men, Jason’s younger brother Abner Dore who was 25 and an agricultural labourer, and widower Charles Moore who was a butcher of 35.
	The next census in 1891 revealed that the couple’s eldest child had left home to be married by then, so the census return listed the family living at Acre End Street in Eynsham as Jason Dore aged 44 who was continuing to work as a carpenter, Elizabeth Dore aged 43, Arthur Dore aged 19 and a farm servant and Ada Dore who was 16. It was nearly five years earlier that Louisa Annie Dore, aged barely sixteen, had married Ernest William Druce on 25^th April 1886 at the Church of St Mary & St John in the Cowley district of the City of Oxford. Ernest was the son of Samuel Druce and Mary Shillingford and had been born at Eynsham on 16^th November 1865. Tragically they were only married a short while, when Louisa Annie Druce nee Dore died on 22^nd December 1899, but not before she had presented her husband with four children, as confirmed in the Eynsham census of 1891, where the young family was recorded at Church Square. Ernest Druce was 25 and a farmer, Louisa Druce was 23, Ernest was four, Evelyn was three, Frederick was two and Daisy Druce was under one year old.
	The tragic situation at the end of 1899 was confirmed in the census of 1901, when Jason and Elizabeth, not only had their unmarried son still living with them at Eynsham, but also two grandsons. Carpenter Jason Dore was 54, his wife Elizabeth was 53, their son Arthur Dore was 29 and a baker. The two grandchildren staying with the family that day, at Span Acre Lane, were recorded as Ernest William Druce, who was 14 and an errand boy at nearby grocer’s shop, and Owen Foster Dore who was three years old. Ernest William Druce senior died many years later on 7^th June 1947 while living at The Square in Eynsham.