Author: Collett, John
Biography:
COLLETT, John (1769-1816: May)
John Collett was the eldest of eight children born to John and Elizabeth Collett, Baptists of Bourton on the Water, Gloucestershire. His grandfather, also John Collett (d 1776), was a prosperous farmer in Bourton and Collett claimed kinship with John Colet, Dean of St. Paul’s and founder of St. Paul’s school. He was born on 28 Apr. 1769, with his birth recorded in the Baptist registers. May claims that Collett’s “extraordinary size” left him unfit for more active pursuits and he established a school in Bourton in 1791. On 20 Oct. 1792 he married Ann (or Anne) Herbert in Little Rissington, Gloucestershire; their daughters, Ann and Elizabeth, were born in Bourton in 1793 and 1795. Collett moved his school to Evesham, Worcestershire, in 1799 and a son, John, was born there in 1800. He promoted the establishment of the first Sunday school in Evesham and contributed poems to periodicals as “O.O.” before moving his school to Foregate Street in Worcester in 1815. Collett died at home on 22 Mar. 1816. Just one copy of his Poetical Essays, in the National Library of New Zealand, is known to survive. His Sacred Dramas was, the Preface states, inspired by Hannah More’s (q.v.) 1782 book of the same title. The book is dedicated to “the Rev. F. T. Travel” (sic for Travell), rector of Upper Slaughter, Gloucestershire, “as a feeble token of gratitude, for the many favours conferred in early life.” (ancestry.co.uk 30 May 2025; findmypast.co.uk 30 May 2025; George May, A Descriptive History of the Town of Evesham [1845]; N. A. Hans, New Trends in Education in the Eighteenth Century [2013]; contribution from Anthony Tedeschi, Alexander Turnbull Library, New Zealand) SR