Author: Coller, Duffield William
Biography:
COLLER, Duffield William (1805-84: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born Duffield William Augustine Coller on 26 Feb. 1805, at Ingatestone, Essex, but his parents are not known. His godmother, a Roman Catholic nun, Sister Duffield of Ingatestone Hall, had hopes that he would train to be a priest and he received a classical education from Father John Clarkson. Her death seems to have halted his education and he was apprenticed to a tailor in the village. He ran away. In 1821 he was apprenticed to a shoemaker at Rayleigh but again broke his bonds. He had early harboured literary ambitions, submitting poems to local newspapers. In 1827 he joined the Chelmsford Chronicle, run by George Meggy and Thomas Chalk, who also printed The Battle of Oblivion (1831). He became editor and remained there until 1869. In later years he also edited the Essex Weekly News and the Essex Chronicle. He published a highly regarded People’s History of Essex (1861). He married Mary Ann Missilina Turnidge (1807-43), the daughter of an Ingatestone builder, on 28 Jan. 1830 at St. Anne’s, Soho, London. They had four children. She died on 17 Nov. 1843 and was buried at St. Mary the Virgin, Fryerning, Ingatestone, with a verse monumental inscription probably written by her husband. He then married Jane Akerman (1820-68), the daughter of a London solicitor, on 12 Apr. 1845, at All Saints, Mile End, East London. They had at least seven children. She died on 13 Apr. 1868. He died on 18 May 1884, aged 80, and was buried at the London Road Non-Conformist cemetery, Chelmsford. In Jan. 1834, he had announced the publication of his “Literary Works,” consisting of “Sketches of Cant. A Poem,” a prose work, “Essays on Fatalism and Proselytism,” and a second edition of The Battle of Oblivion, but it never appeared. (ancestry.co.uk 3 Apr. 2023; Essex Monumental Inscriptions, Essex Society for Family History; Chelmsford Chronicle 3 Jan. 1834, 24 Nov. 1843; Essex Herald 24 May 1884; Hilda Grieve, The Sleepers and The Shadows: Chelmsford [1988], 314; E. E. Wilde, Ingatestone and the Great Essex Road with Fryerning [1913], 304-6) AA
Other Names:
- D. W. Coller