William Alfred Richard Collett

PM upbringing

My grand-father, William Alfred Richard Collett, born 1881, was a local preacher in the Uttoxeter Wesleyan Methodist Church in later life, but had been brought up in the Primitive Methodist Connexion in Shrewsbury.

His parents William Collett and Emily Preece are both recorded as attending PM class meetings (Chapel Court) as ‘on trial for membership’ in the 1870’s and William is certainly recorded as a member of the church until 1887. It’s also recorded that Emily’s father, William Preece, attended a PM class meeting in 1856 along with his wife Mary Ann, nee Meredith.

My grandfather moved to Uttoxeter as an apprentice Master Hairdresser, and in August 1914 married May Blackwell at Rocester PM chapel.

It’s not clear when he became a preacher, nor whether that was in the PM Circuit initially. He was certainly on the Wesleyan plan for several years. He died in 1932 of tuberculosis.

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