Author: Collier, R.
Biography:
COLLIER, R. (fl 1804-1807)
His first name is not known and no public records have been located. The poems in his book were written for recitation at the Peckham Academy where he taught until 1805 and at Chatham House school where he was teaching in 1807 when Effusions in Verse was published. Peckham Academy was founded probably in the late 1770s or early 1780s by Martin Ready, a Baptist minister. Ready died on 11 Feb. 1805 which is when Collier left the school to open his own academy, Chatham House, in Knightsbridge, London. Thomas Raffles (q.v.) attended Peckham Academy and would have been there during Collier’s tenure; one of the poems in Collier’s book was spoken by him (and may have been composed by him). Collier’s preface indicates that he was born in or about 1777. He specialised in teaching elocution. (ancestry.co.uk 12 Feb. 2024; T. S. Raffles, Memoirs of the Life and Ministry of the Rev. Thomas Raffles [1864])