Who Do You Think The Celebrity Is? Local History


By Roderick Martin


LAST August I was contacted by a television researcher seeking further information about Daniel Collins for a popular celebrity family history series.


It was already known that Daniel Patrick Collins, born Liverpool in about 1864, came to Tavistock as a young man and worked on the construction of the railway. This would have been the new line for the Plymouth, Devonport, and South Western Junction Railway built between Devonport and Lydford via Bere Alston and Tavistock built between 1885 and 1890. It is probable that Daniel Collins, a mason’s labourer, was involved with the construction of the Bannawell Street viaduct, and road bridges at the back of Watts Road and Glanville Road. In June 1888 he married a Tavistock girl and spent most of the rest of his working life as a labourer in the town. However he seems to have scored an immediate television plus for all the wrong reasons namely by having a drinking problem and being violent towards his wife when the worse for drink.


The starting point in my enquiries was at the Plymouth Road cemetery in Tavistock where the superintendent was, as always, very helpful. He found the burial records for Daniel Patrick Collins who died aged 63 in March 1927, and his wife, Mary Jane Andrews Collins, who died aged 85 in November 1955. Unfortunately there is no headstone on their plot. However one important piece of information to emerge was that the address for both Daniel and his wife at the time of their deaths was 22 Westbridge Cottages, so they were long-term residents of a Bedford Cottage.


endeavoured to find notices and funeral reports on the newspaper microfilms (as the latter often contains some brief details about a person’s life). For Daniel there was


16 In the Tavistock library I


One wonders how a family of thirteen coped in a small Bedford Cottage


nothing, and for Mary Jane only a very brief mention and no funeral report. I did however find on earlier Tavistock Gazette microfilm details of Daniel’s appearance before the magistrates in August 1888 when he was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Back Street (now King Street) and fined 10s and costs. Also there is an account of a further


“..drunken punch-up with father-in- law...”


appearance in January 1889 after a drunken punch-up with his father-in-law, Daniel Kingdon, and brother-in-law, Edward A. Kingdon. His wife asked the magistrates to make an order binding him over to keep the peace toward her. She told them that she went in bodily fear of her husband when he was the worse for drink. He had assaulted her once and had frequently threatened her. The magistrates decided not to make an order but expressed the hope that he would be kinder to her in the


future. The chairman of the magistrates remarked that it was the third time the defendant had appeared before the Bench within the past twelve months and fined him £1 and 4s 6d costs. Daniel Collins could not pay the fine and was sent to prison for fourteen days with hard labour. No doubt he did not bother to ask his in-laws for a small loan!


Ah well, back to the family history databases. Daniel Collins married Mary Jane Andrews Kingdon at the Tavistock Parish Church on the 4th June 1888, both giving the same address at 20


Barley Market Street (where Mary Jane was living with her parents). This was a multi-occupancy property in a poor area of the town, and possibly he was a lodger at this address. Her parents were Daniel Kingdon (1832- 1898), shoemaker, and his wife Frances (1834-1904). I could not find Daniel Collins or his family in the 1891 census. By the 1901 census they were living at 22 Westbridge Cottages, Tavistock. There was Daniel Collins aged 37 mason’s labourer, Mary A. Collins aged 32, and their children Catherine aged 12, Francis aged 7, Albert aged 5, Lottie aged 3 and Ernest aged 1. Young William aged 7 was staying with the widowed Granny Kingdon back at Barley Market Street. The birth place of all the children


“..always careful in choosing new tenants...”


Grooves in the woodwork of the bedroom window frame can often be seen where the partition divided the front bedroom window.


was given as Tavistock so it looks as if the Collins family had remained in this area. The Bedford Estate rental for 1900-1901 in the Devon Record Office at Exeter shows that the family moved into their cottage at West Bridge on the 18th March 1900. Also that the Bedford Estate used the change in tenancy to increase the weekly rent from 1/6d to 1/9d. The Bedford Estate was always careful in choosing new tenants to ensure they were respectable people in regular employment who could pay the rent. It is likely that Daniel Collins was interviewed in order to confirm that he would make a suitable tenant, and may even been asked for employment references. Our Daniel


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