COLLETT, John (1798-1856), of 7 Upper Belgrave Street, London

Collett’s family had made their money as Hertfordshire hop merchants. He differed greatly in politics from his father, Ebenezer Collett, a Conservative who had represented, but never visited, the Irish pocket borough of Cashel, 1819-30, having previously sat for Grampound.1HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 714. Rather, as a ‘wealthy English Radical of the first water’, Collett favoured general reform, most particularly the re-ordering of the established church, and conceived ‘the bench of bishops and the game laws to be the two great evils of the country’.2Freeman’s Journal, 31 Mar. 1843; Stenton, Who’s Who of British MPs, i. 86 (1847); Hansard, 13 July 1847, vol. 94, c. 268. He worked hard at his parliamentary duties, and during the 1844 session was the third most regular attender at parliamentary divisions among the Irish representatives.

Although Collett had no personal connection with Ireland, he was brought forward by Daniel Ferrall, the recently unseated Liberal member, for the venal borough of Athlone at a by-election in March 1843 as an advocate of civil and religious liberty.3Daily News, 8 June 1849; Freeman’s Journal, 31 Mar. 1843, 9 Mar. 1844; J. Lenehan, Politics and Society in Athlone 1830-1885. A Rotten Borough (1999), 28. Although Collett was uncertain of the support of ‘even his own party’, he addressed the electors ‘with excellent effect and good humour’. Denying that he was a mere ‘adventurer’, he reminded his audience that his father had once represented an Irish constituency, although wisely neglected to mention that the latter had routinely voted against Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform. Nevertheless, as the representative of ‘liberty and reform’, he narrowly defeated George De la Poer Beresford, a former Conservative member for the borough.4Morning Chronicle, 3 Apr. 1843; Freeman’s Journal, 3 Apr. 1843.

Collett survived two petitions against his return. The first was promptly dismissed, 31 May 1843, but a second petition alleging bribery was presented in August 1843 and was not rejected until 5 March 1844.5Standard, 31 May, 28 Aug., 5 Sept. 1843; Freeman’s Journal, 7, 9 Mar. 1844; PP 1844 (97) xiv. 1; A. Barron & T.J. Arnold, Reports of cases of controverted elections before committees of the House of Commons, in the fourteenth parliament of the United Kingdom, and of cases upon appeal from the decisions of revising barristers in the Court of Commons pleas (1846), i. 225-8. Having spent £942 in defence of his seat, and anticipating further challenges to his return, he made representations to the House about the practical operation of the statute regulating the trial of controverted elections, a subject on which he gave evidence to a select committee that May.6The Times, 18 July 1844; PP 1844 (373) xiv. 29 [75-9].

Although Collett rejected repeal at this stage, he divided against the Irish arms bill in June 1843, and backed William Smith O’Brien’s motion for a committee of the whole House to consider Irish grievances, 12 July. He was also among the 29 Irish Liberals who attended a conference in London that August which issued an address to the English people calling for ‘perfect equality’ of political rights between Great Britain and Ireland.7Standard, 24 Aug. 1843; A. Macintyre, The Liberator. Daniel O’Connell and the Irish Party 1830-1847 (1965), 274-5. In March 1844 he backed Duncombe’s motion complaining of the trial of Daniel O’Connell, and voted in 90 divisions during that session.8Freeman’s Journal, 3 Sept. 1844. He had joined his brother, William Rickford Collett, MP for Lincoln, 1841-7, in the Commons, and, although an unequivocal Conservative, William was sometimes mistaken for his older brother, particularly with regard to his numerous railway directorships.9J. Collett to editor: Standard, 18 Aug. 1845; J. Collett to D. O’Connell, 28 July 1846: O’Connell Correspondence, ed. M.R. O’Connell, viii. 76. His brother was chairman of the Dundalk and Enniskillen railway and the Shrewsbury and Birmingham railway, and a director of several other companies: HP Commons, 1832-1868: ‘Collett, William Rickford’.

Between 1843 and 1846 Collett was among the most active parliamentary supporters of popular radical causes. His votes in often small minorities in favour of various reforms included the redress of popular grievances, the factories bill, and an inquiry into the condition of the labouring poor. He also divided in favour of the release of the Newport Chartists, 10 Mar. 1846, inquiry into the imprisonment of factory girls at Dundee, 2 Apr., and the abolition of flogging in the army, 7 Aug. 1846.10D. Nicholls, ‘Friends of the people: parliamentary supporters of popular radicalism, 1832-1849’, Labour History Review, lxii (1997), 133. Outspoken in debate, he was dismissed by the Conservative press as a self-important maverick who pursued ‘fixed ideas with … extravagant pertinacity’. Content to be nothing less than ‘a great Reformer’, it was claimed that he frequently ran ‘“a-muck” at men or institutions’ and so threw ‘all things in the legislature into confusion’. Nor was his style of oratory widely appreciated. Fraser’s Magazine claimed that he had ‘only himself to thank if ever he was laughed at in the House’ because not being ‘the most intellectual looking of men’, he provoked ‘ridicule, by his own pretension – by the oblivious pertinacity in which he meddles in affairs altogether above his standing as a legislator, and, apparently, even beyond his entire comprehension’.11Fraser’s Magazine, xxxvi (1847), 471.

A free trader, Collett voted consistently for the repeal of the corn laws, and, believing that religion was ‘a matter between man and his Maker’, favoured religious equality and non-sectarian education, voting for a committee of the House to consider Irish Church temporalities, 12 June 1844, and voicing his support for the Dissenters’ chapels bill.12Freeman’s Journal, 27 July 1847; Hansard, 21 June 1844, vol. 75, c. 1222. When in February 1846 he argued that furnishing Anglican bishops with seats in the Lords was ‘the concentrated essence of all that is bad and objectionable in ecclesiastical matters’, he provoked the charge that he had made the established church ‘the object of his revolutionary ardour’, rushing ‘at it, as if sheer will would batter it down’.13Hansard, 3 Feb. 1846, vol. 83, cc. 449-50; Fraser’s Magazine, xxxvi (1847), 471. Undeterred, in the following year he pressed Lord John Russell over the government’s plan to create new bishoprics and in the July debate on the new bishopric of Manchester claimed that the actions of the ministry had made ‘the very name of bishop … offensive to the people’.14Hansard, 22 Jan. 1847, vol., 89, cc. 270-1; 23 Feb. 1847, vol. 90, c. 405; 25 Mar. 1847, vol. 91, c. 38; 31 May 1847, vol. 92, c. 1298; 21 July 1847, vol. 94, c. 660.

Collett does not appear to have served on any select committees, but he sat on private bill committees concerning gas lighting for Leeds, metropolitan sewage manure, and the Colchester navigation.15PP 1844 (628) xxxviii. 283; PP 1847 (757-II) xlvi. 211. He called for a full inquiry into ‘the degrading and un-English custom of breaking open and resealing letters’ at the post office, and voted for a select committee inquiry into the matter, 21 Feb. 1845.16Hansard, 21 Feb. 1845, vol. 77, cc. 932-4. Collett was convinced that the object of Sunday trading legislation ‘was to interfere with the privileges of the poor, not to meddle with those of the rich’, and argued that if it were to be prohibited, ‘they ought also to shut the club-houses, and prevent carriages and horses from entering the parks’, and duly opposed the bill, 15 Apr. 1847.17Hansard, 15 Apr. 1847, vol. 91, c. 847.

Collett’s profound dislike of the game laws, which he denounced ‘as a remnant of feudalism and barbarism’, prompted him to pay the fines of game law offenders in order to obtain their release, and he frequently brought alleged abuses of these laws to the attention of the home secretary Sir James Graham.18Morning Chronicle, 31 May 1845; The Era, 30 Sept. 1849; Hansard, 11 May 1846, vol. 86, c. 329; 18 May 1846, vol. 86, cc. 811-5; 8 June 1846, vol. 87, cc. 123-5. On one occasion he secured the release of a Windsor cobbler who had been imprisoned at the suit of Prince Albert: Liverpool Mercury, 6 June 1845. In May 1846 he ordered a return of the number of persons convicted of offences against the game laws since the beginning of 1844, and urged that the report of the committee on the subject should be discussed by the House.19PP 1846 (712) xxxiv. 561; Hansard, 10 Aug. 1846, vol. 88, cc. 565-6.

When pressed on the issue of the repeal of the Union in November 1845, Collett had informed the editor of the Athlone Sentinel that he would continue to perform his duty to his constituents ‘fearlessly and independently’, acting as ‘the friend of the poor and oppressed’ and the opponent ‘of rank patronage and abuses’. He was, however, as yet unconvinced of the benefits of repeal, but pledged that if the question came before parliament he would not oppose the wishes of his constituents.20Freeman’s Journal, 1 Dec. 1845. It was only when the Irish coercion bill was introduced on 31 Mar. 1846 that Collett changed his mind and, protesting that the measure rendered ‘the Act of Union nothing but a lie upon parchment’, declared in favour of repeal, 17 Apr. 1846.21Hansard, 17 Apr. 1846, vol. 85, cc. 776-8. Daniel O’Connell was duly impressed by Collett’s ‘manly conduct’ and immediately proposed him for membership of the Repeal Association.22Freeman’s Journal, 2, 5 May 1846.

Collett was one of 33 repeal MPs who met regularly at the Reform Club to organise opposition to Whig ‘coercion’ in Ireland,23Freeman’s Journal, 21 Aug. 1846. and in a speech to the Repeal Association before the 1847 general election, declared himself unequivocally in favour of William Sharman Crawford’s tenant-right bill, the second reading of which he had voted for on 17 June.24Freeman’s Journal, 27, 29 July 1847. It was widely assumed that having established himself as a repealer his seat would be secure. In the event, however, he was challenged by an ambitious Catholic lawyer, William Keogh. Having remained in London to attend to his parliamentary duties during the preparatory stage of the election, Collett saw his agent defect to the Peelite candidate and reluctantly withdrew in favour of a rival Liberal.25Morning Chronicle, 23 June 1847; Lenehan, Politics and Society in Athlone, 34.

After leaving parliament Collett remained ‘a thorough Liberal’. He became a member of the Financial Reform Association in 1851, and continued to be ‘an opponent of foreign influence in English affairs’.26Tracts of the Liverpool Financial Reform Association (1851), 6; Freeman’s Journal, 5 Dec. 1856, quoting Morning Advertiser. A ‘man of considerable wealth’, he was for many years resident at Lake House, Cheltenham, and also owned property in Wiltshire. There, he continued to foster opposition to the game laws amongst rural labourers, and affronted the local gentry by purchasing game certificates for the men he had released from custody.27J. Goding, Norman’s History of Cheltenham (1863), 615; Hampshire Telegraph, 27 Oct., 1 Dec. 1849; Northern Star, 19 Jan. 1850.

Collett’s first wife, whom he had married in 1826, was the daughter of Sir Thomas Gage, a noted botanist. She died in June 1845 leaving him a daughter,28Charlotte Collett married Adam Atkinson of Lorbottle, Northumberland in June 1850: Burke’s Landed Gentry (4th edn., 1862), 35. but he remarried in the following year.29Morning Post, 1 Aug. 1826; Standard, 18 June 1845; York Herald, 24 Oct. 1846. Although he was ‘to all appearance, surrounded with everything calculated to the promotion of human happiness’, he subsequently lapsed into a state of mental illness which excited ‘alarm for his safety’. In November 1856 he shot himself through the head with a pistol in the library of his home, Arnewood House, near Salisbury. The verdict on his death was one of ‘temporary derangement’, and he does not appear to have left a will.30Standard, 9 Dec. 1856, quoting Salisbury Journal.