Biography

WILLIAM COLLIE

Burial register ID: 14762
Surname: COLLIE
First name: WILLIAM
Middle names:
Gender: Male
Age: 80 Years
Cause of death: Unknown
Burial type:
Date of death: 02-Jul-1929
Date of burial: 04-Jul-1929

Block: 80
Plot: 16
Inscription:

IN LOVING MEMORY OF

LUCY

BELOVED WIFE OF

WILLIAM COLLIE

DIED 3Oth JAN. 1927

ALSO WILLIAM HUSBAND OF ABOVE

DIED 2nd JULY 1929

AGED 80 YEARS.

AT REST

On plaque:-

IN MEMORY OF WILLIAMS SON

ROBERT WILLIAM COLLIE

DIED 25-2-1952 AGED 72

AND HIS WIFE

EUPHEMIA (NEE MUIRHEAD)

DIED 19-4-1959 AGED 78

On the right side of the monument:-

ALSO C.S.M.

ARTHUR E. COLLIE

KILLED IN ACTION AT MESSINES

7th JUNE 1917

Bio contributor: Alan Collie

William Collie 1849 – 2 July 1928

William Collie was born in 1849, the sixth child of William and Catherine Collie née Fraser, who were married in 1837 in Inverness, Scotland. Probably because of the Highland Uprisings, the family moved from Scotland to Ireland, where William was born. In 1856 the family went to Plymouth, England to immigrate to Australia as Assisted British Immigrants. The ship, the William, sailed from Plymouth on 4 November 1856 and after spending Christmas at sea they arrived at Port Fairy (then called Belfast), Victoria, Australia on 25 January 1857.

On Thursday 7 November 1861, aged 12, William attended the running of the first Melbourne Cup at Flemington. In 1871 he started work as a bookbinder in Melbourne with George Robertson and Co; this company sold second hand books and later became a publisher. He married 21 year old Catherine Ryan on 7 October 1879. Catherine was five and a half months pregnant when they married and their son, Robert (Bertie) was born on 25 January 1880. Unfortunately Catherine drowned at Brighton Beach, Melbourne after 10 months of separation from William. In 1883 William resigned from George Robertson and Co. and left with three year old Bertie for New Zealand. They settled in Invercargill and William worked as a bookbinder for Erskine and Whitmore. Then in 1885 he remarried, to Lucy Ann Clarke. Their children were Charlotte (Lottie) Ethel (born 1887), William Ernest (born 1891), Arthur Earl (born 1893), Martha Ivy (born 1895), Olive Lucy (born 1897). The Collie family lived at the Park View Hotel and then the Criterion Hotel. Then in 1898 or 9 the Collie family moved to Dunedin. William was licensee of the Southern Hotel in Dunedin from 1900 to 1903, and then of the Captain Cook Hotel from 1906 to 1911. The boys went to local schools, but the girls were sent to boarding schools outside Dunedin, perhaps because it was not proper to have them living at the hotel.

In 1928 William with his daughter Olive McLauchlan sailed to Melbourne to see the Melbourne Cup for the second time and visit friends and family (daughter Lottie now lived in Melbourne).

On 2 July 1928 William died and was buried on 4 July with his second wife in the Northern Cemetery.

There are 4 Interments in this grave:

Surname First names Age Date of death Date of burial
COLLIE LUCY 60 Years 30-Jan-1927 01-Feb-1927
COLLIE WILLIAM 80 Years 02-Jul-1929 04-Jul-1929
MUDIE BABY 0 Days 01-Dec-1893 03-Dec-1893
MUDIE CHARLES 2 Days 10-Dec-1892 12-Dec-1892